Highway 212 Safety Task Force established
LAME DEER, MT – A portion of the Montana Highway 212 Corridor, running from Crow Agency to Alzada, often called the “deadliest” state road has finally got the attention of key officials.
A new Highway 212 Safety Task Force, funded by federal and state money has been established and held it’s first formal meeting in late December at Forsyth, MT, county seat of Rosebud County.
The purpose of the Task Force is to identify safety problems on that stretch of highway and to develop recommendations to remedy that situation.
“That will be very challenging” said Jim Atchinson, Director of the Southeastern Montana Development Corporation, (SEMDC) Colstrip, MT which developed the $150,000 planning grant for Rosebud County.
The Task Force is comprised of appointed officials from all such stakeholders and hopes to accomplish such mission over the next year. The process, guided by a consulting firm, will also include public meetings, especially directed at communities along the highway (Lame Deer. Busby. Ashland, Crow Agency, and Broadus).
“It is a jurisdictional mess, involving four counties (Rosebud, Big Horn, Powder River and Custer); two Indian Tribes (Northern Cheyenne and Crow); federal agencies such as the BIA and state agencies such as the Department of Transportation and Montana Highway Patrol.”
Ironically and sadly, the planning grant project was prioritized by SEMDC after their grant writer lost a brother and nephew to a highway fatality on Highway 212, semi-truck related fatalities.
According to a 2020 traffic count conducted by the State, an average of nine hundred semi-trucks per day travel Highway 212, a shortcut running from Rapid City, SD to Interstate 1-90 when begins just outside of Crow Agency, MT.
“That number of trucks and the number of accidents is increasing daily,” Atchinson noted.
“That is a long, lonely stretch of highway,” said Ed Joiner, Rosebud County Commissioner. Joiner is a long-term resident of the Northern Cheyenne reservation. As former Director of the Tribal Disaster and Emergency Services and Fire Chief for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe for twenty years, he is very familiar with highway-related trauma. “
“I live on Highway 212,” he said. “Several times, when going to work in the morning, I have had to hit the ditch to avoid being run over. They (the semis) come at you fast.”
Two other key officials such as Northern Cheyenne Chief Judge, David Roundstone and Jason Small, Montana Senator and State CIO-AFL Director shared similar experience, as has this writer, who got narrowly clipped by a semi, thankfully avoiding total disaster.
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January 6, 2024