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roundabouts or traffic lights?

Next week, there’s a public hearing, hosted by state transportation officials, on a plan to widen Arthur Avenue near the Madison Street Bridge to four lanes.

State officials say the plan is necessary to divert highway traffic from the university and maintain traffic flow. But traffic-calming advocates call the plan unsightly and unsafe, and have come up with their own “citizen” plan for the key intersection at the edge of the historic university neighborhood. [more]

tourism snafu

The May issue of Sunset magazine listed five top Montana campgrounds – unfortunately, four of them were actually in Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park.

What gives? Well, the editors were full of apologies and mea culpas, and Montana’s tourism director brushed off the mistake, pointing out that the surrounding states all lay claim to Yellowstone, and the error only stokes the friendly rivalry between the two states.

the "overheard" blog

Overheard at lunchtime in downtown Missoula:

Scruffy, bearded college student to friend: "Did you just call me a rural hippie?"
Friend: "Yeah, as opposed to an urban hippie."
Scruffy: "What does that mean, I wear a rainbow cowboy hat?"
Friend: "Nah, that would be Brokeback Mountain, I think."

skiing the steeps in spring

As a kid, I had a dream I had Disneyland all to myself. It was just a few friends and I, greedily riding the Matterhorn over and over. No lines, no other people. Just us.

Well, that’s a little like the feeling I had skiing Big Sky last weekend. The Ugg-booted, fur-wearing crowds were mostly gone. In late spring, it’s just you and a few friends – riding the Matterhorn (or in this case, the tram to 11,150-foot Lone Peak) over and over. That’s a dream if I ever had one.
[more]

montana media roundup

In the headlines today, the Trib's Karen Ogden warns that, while the feds are requiring counties to get on the digital bandwagon and offer enhanced 911 service, which can locate callers using fancy GPS technology, that's leaving a whole lot of folks in isolated Montana areas out in the cold. Digital apparently just doesn't compare to analog when it comes to those hard-to-reach places.

In other news, Montana's home-schoolers are on the rise, following the national trend. This year, there were 3,987 home-schoolers in Montana, up 275 percent from the 1,446 registered in 1990. But public schools take a hit when the kids stay home to learn their ABCs.

STATE OF THE ROCKIES

Animals have relatively large places to roam in most Montana counties, according to a recent report card on the Rockies.

Most of Montana’s counties rank among those with the least threat to habitat and the least amount of land fragmentation in the 2006 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report. The annual report card, featuring research by Colorado College students, was released this past week.

However, two rural counties – Jefferson and Broadwater – rank among those with greatest habitat threat of 81 rural counties in the Rocky Mountains. [more]

forest lands and multiple use

For a few years, the mountain bike community in Missoula has been at odds with local officials on the Lolo National Forest. They have complained that the Missoula district ranger has not communicated with bikers, removing technical features, smoothing challenging trails, and leaving prime trails closed to bikers entirely.

On the other side, Forest Service officials say they have made some mistakes, but also argue they've worked hard to balance the needs of different users. But they claim they are slowly learning how to work with the two-wheeled crowd.

Missoula could be a premier destination in the West for mountain biking, both parties agree – but it will take working together to make it happen. [more]

coal development

The former top official of PPL Montana has come out in support of Gov. Schweitzer’s well-publicized efforts to promote new plants to develop Montana’s coal supply.

The official acknowledged that the price tag on an industrial plant was large, coming in at over $1 billion – and that it would probably require a partnership of multinational businesses to get such a project off the ground.

Winter's End

When you’ve seen a 500-pound sumo wrestler in a scanty black g-string catch air on a snowboard, you know you’ve seen it all.

In this case, it wasn’t the real thing, but a Missoula boarder in a blow-up sumo suit. At Snowbowl, Missoula’s local ski hill, it was the last day of the ski season, and it’s become an annual tradition at the ‘Bowl for the locals to break out the crazy garb.

This year, there were French housemaids, lizards, kilted Scotsmen, clowns, and the usual plethora of horrifying, one-piece ski outfits from the ‘70s, like the excruciatingly embarrassing one your dad would wear when you were a teenager. [more]

national poetry month

Next week, Montana poet laureate Sandra Alcosser will receive the H.G. Merriam Award at the University of Montana for outstanding contributions to the state’s literature.

Alcosser’s poems have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. She is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. In between poetry readings and panels, Alcosser divides her time between teaching in San Diego, Oregon, and Ireland, and serving as poet-in-residence at the Central Park Zoo in New York.

Alcosser was appointed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer to serve as the state’s first poet laureate last summer. Since then, she has been working with others to collect the work of Montana’s most talented and unrecognized poets.

We talked to her about Montana’s thriving literary community, her upcoming book, and her admiration for Montana’s unheralded poets. [more]

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