Seems that every year the city of Great Falls picks a street and totally renews all of it, or portions of it in order to comply with ADA standards.
Streets without sidewalks and failed roadbeds get somewhat of a priority as bit by bit, they get replaced and rebuilt.
Another of these next steps is the 7th Ave NW project — this year the project includes the blocks from 14th St NW to 12th St NW on 7th Ave NW.
Some sections along this stretch have a few sidewalks already, but their length is only just the total width of a particular lot and that’s about it.
What’s really going to be sort of nice with regard to upgrading this next section of 7th Ave NW is that this is one of the main streets for the city transit bus route.
Since there is no sidewalk or ADA ramps on the east corner of 7th Ave NW and 14th St NW, riders have to stand on the grass to wait for the bus. Wheelchair access is all but impossible at this stop.
Soon, with the upgrades completed, the entirety of the 7th Ave NW and 14th St NW intersection will have ADA compliant sidewalks on all 4 corners (only two of the corners on the west side of the intersection are currently completed).
The entire length of 7th Ave NW will be nearly totally rebuilt after this next section is finished. Currently, everything on 7th Ave NW is finished all the way west to Watson Coulee Road from the west corner 14th St NW.
City will only have 3 more blocks left to do after this most latest upgrade to 7th Ave NW. All that will be left are the 3 blocks between 12th St NW and 9th St NW. 9th St NW will be totally rebuilt in 2025.
Hopefully, in the future, the city of Great Falls will begin the reconstruction of the total length of 8th Ave NW and maybe team up with MDT to install sidewalks along the by-pass from at least Watson Coulee Road to 9th St NW. I know that stuff like this takes time as I’m sure that money (or the lack of it) plays a huge roll in what gets done and when.
