The 2017 Montana State Legislative session generated a lot of coverage from both local and national media on bicycles using our state roadways. Much of this press shone a negative spotlight on our state: HB-267, the Safe Passing Bill, which would have required drivers to provide cyclists a minimum of three feet when passing was defeated in the Senate with Senate President Scott Sales garnering national headlines for his disparaging comments about cyclists. Senator Sales generated even more controversy when he attached an amendment to SB-363, a bill addressing aquatic invasive species (AIS) that would require out of state cyclists to purchase a $25 “Nonresident invasive species bicycle decal.” Fortunately, common sense prevailed, and the amendment asking cyclists to pay for invasives brought into the state by boats, was removed from the bill prior to its passage.
Predictably, the media portrayal of Montana as a state unfriendly to cyclists caused some national cycling groups, like Bike & Build, a nonprofit that leads bike tours for young adults who then build low-income housing along the way, to question whether they should come spend their money in our state. However, the publicity also highlighted the many positive impacts cycling can have.
In addition to being a fun, healthy form of recreation and an inexpensive, low-impact form of transportation, cycling brings money into Montana. Missoula-based Adventure Cycling has calculated that bicycle tourists have the potential to bring as much as $377 million a year into Montana. The University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research estimated that nonresidents annually bring $19.4 million into Missoula County.
But bikes can be used for so much more than tourism and recreation. In Missoula businesses, like Le Petit Bakery and Black Coffee Roasting, are using bikes to deliver their goods to consumers while the swift riders of Mountain Goat Couriers deliver packages around town.
In the summer you can catch a ride on a pedicab or pedal the 15-passenger Brew Bike from brewery to brewery.
The Missoula County Weed District has found bicycles to be the best tool for inventorying noxious weeds along the county’s roadways. Since 2002 more than 3,000 miles of roads in Missoula County have had their weeds mapped by bicycle, including all Missoula County maintained roads, every City of Missoula street and alley, the State Highway system and Interstate 90 and hundreds of miles of former Plum Creek Timber roads that were a part of the Montana Legacy Project.
Bikes are the perfect weed mapping tool: it is much easier to spot the weeds from a bike than from a truck, bikes don’t obstruct traffic (15 mph is as fast as you can go to effectively map weeds), it is easy to stop to investigate an unknown plant growing along a road and bike mapping only requires one employee whereas mapping from a truck necessitates a driver and a mapper.
In the fall of 2016, the Missoula County Weed District mapped more than 450 miles of state highways, frontage roads and Interstate 90. Included in the inventory were Highways 12, 200 and 93 and the southern half of Highway 83. While sections of these highways were mapped in 2013, this was the first comprehensive remapping since they were originally mapped in 2005-2006.
GIS analysis reveals that, while our highways are not yet weed free, there are far fewer weeds in the right-of-ways than there were 10 years ago. The mapping shows a 90 percent reduction in weed acres along Missoula County’s highways! Notably, there has been a significant reduction of new invaders such as leafy spurge and Dalmatian toadflax on Highway 200 along the Blackfoot River and on I90 east of Missoula along the Clark Fork River. However, there is still much work to do.
The majority of the reduction of weeds on Missoula’s highways is due to aggressive control work in Zone 1 (the first 15 feet from the edge of the pavement). Only 5.6 percent of the weeds mapped on the highways in 2016 were in Zone 1. The majority of the weeds in the right-of-way are in Zone 2 (15 feet from the edge of the pavement to the right-of-way boundary).
Weed control is much more challenging in Zone 2. Zone 2 can include steep cut banks, more rugged topography and obstacles such as trees. Many of the weed infestations in Zone 2 spread across the right-of-way boundary into adjacent landowner’s property. Now that we have mapping data to back up our anecdotal observations that Zone 1 is relatively noxious weed free, we will work to extend our weed control efforts to Zone 2 in 2017.
Once weed mapping season resumes later this spring, planned bike mapping projects include the remainder of Highway 83 (Lake Inez north to the County line), the Miller Creek area county road system and the Montana Department of Transportation frontage roads not mapped in 2016.
So, if you happen to see a cyclist out on the roads this summer sporting a bright yellow GPS unit on the handlebars, please give me plenty of space and a friendly wave. It’s hard and sometimes scary work mapping weeds on the roadsides but it is the most effective way for us to get a handle on our roadside weed infestations.
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