I’ve been on 93 and stopped in Whitefish for gas around quitting time a couple of times recently. I recognize that the town wants to keep 93 going through it – but it is getting harder for a driver to get through. The town just doesn’t have enough ways to get through the jammed up traffic.
Admitted, Whitefish (like Eureka) was never set up for a highway that served as the basis for its community roads – but the compromise was tolerable for the first century of the automobile. Now, there are just too many automobiles and people at the rush hours. There’s no problem driving through Whitefish at 2 am – even the drunks are staying home. But between productive citizens and tourists, 5 pm traffic is notably unpleasant. And my habits of driving through Whitefish started back around 1965 – and I need to learn that it isn’t the same community sixty years later. I got caught in the absolute wrong place when the lights changed – and it took two old men (probably twenty years younger than I) to control the pedestrian traffic and get me out of trouble. I can’t count on old men rescuing me every time I wind up caught in traffic jams.
It probably doesn’t seem bad to the average Los Angelino, just up from California. But I am Montana raised – I feel more at home sharing the highway with cattle and deer than a lot of people in cars. Getting through the construction zone, I had four cars behind me in the pack leaving Whitefish. At Dickie lake, I managed to get the last spud sucker (Idaho licens plates) to pass, so I didn’t have anyone riding my bumper as I made the turn into Trego.
I’ve been told that Whitefish doesn’t want 93 to bypass their town – but I think it’s time. I think I’ll start making every trip south with a right at Spencer lake. At least Kalispell’s only single lane traffic trap is by the courthouse – and I’ve had a long lifetime to learn where to merge there. If they don’t build a Whitefish bypass, they might consider leaving 93 where it is and moving the town.
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