Missoula is growing
In 2004 Missoula County welcomed its 100,000th resident. Missoula County is expected to reach nearly 108,000 residents by 2010 – or 50,000 more than were here in 1970 when there were 58,000.

Roadways are not keeping up, but alternatives have made progress
With nearly a doubling of the population, budget constraints have not allowed for a corresponding doubling of roadway capacity. However that time has seen tremendous increase in features designed to increase the number of trips made by transit, biking, and walking – and residents have made an impressive response to all of these.

40-year history of 20-year plans
Roadways, transit, and non-motorized travel all suffer to various extents from a lack of planning. Or rather, from planning from the 1970's that only looked 20 years out to the 1990's population. Clearly growth continued past the 1990's. America 's 40-year history of 20-year plans is part of the reason we're now having a difficult time accommodating bikes, pedestrians, transit, autos, and landscaping needs for 2030 within rights-of-way designed just for cars and narrow sidewalks in 1990.

When will we double again?
The next time Missoula doubles its population could come much sooner than we realize. Our mountain oasis, so remote for so long, is now connected by a vibrant regional airport and high-speed Internet, which allows professionals to live in Missoula even though their job may have very little to do with Missoula. Retiring Baby Boomers likewise do not need a job generated by the local economy, and many could choose Missoula simply for its high quality of life.

This update of the Missoula Long Range Transportation Plan aims to prepare our region for the possibility that Missoula County could someday be home to 200,000 residents. “ Missoula … Times Two” if you will. If the county grows at 1.5% per year, doubling occurs just after 2050. At 2%, doubling is right around 2040. At 2.5% doubling would happen in just 27 years at around 2034. The State of Montana officially estimates we'll grow at about 1.5%. Historically we have ranged from about 0.5% to over 3%, with an average annual increase since 1970 of about 1.6% per year.

How you can help plan our future
Sometime in the fall, we will invite the public to attend workshops designed to allow residents to “vote” for the future they'd most like to see. In a “Sim City” board game atmosphere of 6-10 per table, participants will ponder many of the difficult tradeoffs that must be weighed if they are to accommodate such significant growth.

A table moderator will help them allocate “population chips”, and then select appropriate infrastructure for their design. A table spokesman will share the most important points with the larger group. The table's map becomes their “vote” for how they hope land use and transportation will emerge together over the years. Planners enter each map into computer formats, and compare each table's results looking for common themes emerging from all participants.

Questions answered in the process
The process is designed to help both planners gain participant insights, and participants to gain new insights and appreciation for the complex issues surrounding growth. Some of the questions participants will wrestle with include:

1. How much new growth should be fit into existing developed areas?
2. Which of today's open lands are acceptable for new growth?
3. What lands should be protected from any development?
4. What densities are appropriate for different locations?
5. How will we provide mobility to that many people?
6. How much can driving be reduced through different mixes of land uses?
7. How much driving can we eliminate by providing alternatives to autos?
8. What are the costs and benefits of various options?
9. What are the environmental, social, and economic costs and benefits?

A Blueprint, or Architecture, for a sustainable future
Once we have discerned and recorded the public will as expressed through meetings with stakeholders, telephone surveys, and these workshops, we will engage transportation and land use policy makers to present the results.  The results will consist of goal statements and strategies to achieve those goals.  A map embodying the goals and strategies will show what the public, planners, and everyone involved in the process believes will best accommodate 200,000 people.  We will then seek policy maker feedback on how they would modify the draft vision.  Once it meets their satisfaction, we will ask them to express their willingness to utilize the resulting Mobility Architecture as a foundation stone for future updates of their local comprehensive plans.  That willingness will likely be manifest by way of a non-binding resolution.

The hope is that while the map will likely change over time, the goals and strategies expressed in the map should help guide both land use and transportation decisions as time goes on so that the end result is similar.

Thus there will be two futures each with 200,000 residents. One will reflect the continuation of current trends and policies. The other will reflect the potential of various new strategies to achieve goals expressed by the public. Each future may be potentially realistic depending on the level of support, or lack of support, over the years for the strategies.

Transitioning the Vision to a Realistic Plan
There must be some recognition that there will be a start-up time of potentially many years before policy makers have had enough time to formulate the strategies to achieve community goals into comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances, and other implementing mechanisms.  This is “lost time” if you will, where development that follows current trends will continue until new policies can be fully implemented.  Thus the actual future may be a hybrid somewhere between current trends and the Vision.  For purposes of programming funds and priorities, those steering the plan will agree on a likely amount of time that could be expected to phase in the growth strategies.

Projects needed in 2030, but consistent with 2050
For purposes of estimating costs and revenues, prioritizing projects, and reflecting air quality impacts, the plan will be based on nearer-term estimates of what 2015, 2025, and 2035 may look like given the level of support for various strategies at that time. The 2035 plan anticipates just more that 150,000 residents at that time given projected rates of growth, but projects programmed for those 150,000 will be compatible and upgradeable within a vision for serving 200,000 – which could happen sooner than anyone anticipates given the right circumstances, or could also take longer.  Key is that this is a likely future sooner or later, and Missoula aims to be a visionary community that follows its own definition of sustainable for a long, long time.

Begin with the End in Mind – Key to a win-win future
Missoula will grow. That growth can be channeled intentionally… or happen accidentally. Many western cities have discovered too late that the failure to envision themselves in a more mature setting has in effect yielded the role of planning to the whims of the market. Most often the result is has been an auto-oriented, sprawling mess of tremendous congestion and high taxes to remove “rows of homes” that are just a few years old – a lose-lose proposition. A good plan can help set the rules and guide the development market toward a win-win solution. Quoting Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , the key is to “Begin with the End in mind”, and make sure projects selected for the short term will work into a longer term, sustainable vision.