Circle of strife: At open house, Belgrade residents question need for downtown roundabout

BELGRADE — Hundreds of Belgrade-area residents filtered in and out of the Belgrade Library and Community Center on Wednesday for an open house about new scheduled infrastructure projects, including a hotly contested mini-roundabout at the city’s main downtown intersection.

Most of the residents who spoke out were opposed to the proposed roundabout at Broadway and Main, and some felt the same about a railroad underpass scheduled for construction at Main and Jackrabbit.

On hand were representatives from the engineering firms Morrison Maierle and DOWL, as well as Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) engineers.

The room was set up with project maps, posters with information about landscape and parking changes, and a video with a rendering of the new railroad underpass. Friends, neighbors, business owners, and parents all looked over the plans, discussing how these infrastructure projects would change Belgrade.

Darla Strand, who works at Associated Construction Engineering Inc. on North Broadway, expressed her concerns while analyzing a map of the roundabout, which will replace the four-way stop at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway.

“Pedestrians are going to have a hard time,” she said.

Strand parks in the lot on that corner of Main Street and South Broadway.

“Businesses depend on on-street parking,” she said.

The roundabout project is expected to remove roughly 60 parking spaces from Main Street and the corner parking lot. The project will also remove 15 trees, including a memorial tree planted in front of Belgrade’s Chamber of Commerce, which will be re-located.

The City of Belgrade is planning on tearing down the condemned Belgrade Lounge on Main Street and replacing it with a parking lot. But that project is on hold until a permit is received from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad.

Other Belgrade community members who work on Main Street are worried about the effect the roundabout will have on Belgrade’s safety and walkability.

Luke and Barbara Emberlin own and operate Bridge Hearing Center.

Luke Emberlin is worried about his patients with mobility issues being able to walk from the parking lot to Bridge Hearing Center now that Main Street is losing parking spaces.

“I got patients who can’t walk that far,” he said.

Barabara Emberlin said the roundabout “puts some of our more vulnerable people at risk.”

“It is absolutely going to be an obstacle,” she said.

Keith Gilyard lives on North Broadway, about four blocks away from the proposed roundabout.

Gilyard sees people working to bring businesses back to downtown Belgrade and said “Belgrade will never be a walkable, safe downtown,” if the roundabout is put in place.

Consultant Project Engineer Ben Rickman from MDT was at the open house answering design questions.

“There’s a lot of safety benefits,” he said of the roundabout.

Rickman explained over a map that the design decreases “conflict points” which means potential crashes would be less dangerous.

“The intersection needs to be improved somehow,” he said.

People asked Rickman why a roundabout was chosen over a stoplight, and he explained that a signalized intersection would have a larger footprint, including turn lanes, narrower sidewalks, and a longer and more dangerous pedestrian crossing.

A stoplight would require removing even more parking spaces from Main Street, he said.

DOWL Project Communications Manager Lisa Olmsted pointed out on the roundabout plans that there will be a “refuge island” for people to stop in the middle of the street between the two lanes of traffic. She said this will be helpful for pedestrian safety.

Construction for the roundabout is scheduled to start in spring of 2028 and end a year later.

Scott Fanning works for Morrison Maierle, one of the engineering firms working on the project.

Fanning mentioned that 27 trains a day come through Belgrade and cause a delay at the Jackrabbit Lane and West Main Street intersection, where an underpass is designed to fix that problem.

“Eliminating that delay will improve operations,” he said.

He said construction will likely begin in late 2028 or early 2029 and take roughly two years to complete. Most of the impact would be one construction season, which runs from spring to early winter.