New radar-operated speed limit signs were installed along Highway 83 in Seeley Lake.
Bruce Friede, vice chair of the Seeley Lake Community Council, said Highway 83 is an easy highway to blast through, particularly around weekends in the summer when travelers might be just going through Seeley Lake toward Kalispell or Glacier National Park. Last summer when wait times were long for the Salmon Lake construction project, Friede said it got worse as people were likely trying to adhere to a planned itinerary.
“When they picked up their speed they did not want to slow down,” Friede said.
Especially near schools, Friede said these types of signs have been effective at traffic calming. Local deputies have spent time in the downtown area where the speed limit is 25 mph to monitor traffic, Friede said, but with a police presence in town that has ebbed and flowed, there weren’t always deputies around to monitor speed through town.
“As far as money spent, this is probably the best spent money to accomplish a satisfactory solution that we can do,” Friede said.
The five new signs display the proper speed limit by default, but light up with a driver’s speed if it’s above the limit and as it drops to where it should be.
There is a 40 mph sign just south of Cory’s Valley Market and a 25 mph sign near Clearwater Montana Properties as a person moves north, and going south there is a 35 mph sign near the Missoula Electric Cooperative, a 25 mph sign across the street from the old Wilderness Gateway Inn and a 35 mph sign further south as one heads back toward the Clearwater Junction.
Friede said funding had been an issue in the past as he tried to get these speed limit signs installed in Seeley. In this case, a local person who wanted to remain anonymous donated the money required to pay for all five new signs.
Correction: There are four, not five, new speed limit signs installed, and the first sign in the southbound direction is posted at 45 mph, not 35 mph.
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