Parks to Passes is a collaborative project that formed around a grant opportunity, to connect communities and complete dispersed trail segments across Southwest Montana. Co-led by Amanda Cooley, Planning Director for Powell County and Jackson Lee of Missoula Lands Culture and Recreation, the duo secured partnership from Mineral County, Granite County, Missoula County, the City of Missoula, Powell County, and Butte-Silver Bow. Within the partnership, the Mineral County Rails to Trails group acts as project liaison for Mineral County and the Flint Creek Trails Association is project liaison for Granite County. The remaining partners are representing by City or County staff. This partnership is known informally as the “Cross-County Coalition.”
Parks to Passes first applied for a federal discretionary grant from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program in 2023. The application was unsuccessful, so the group reworked their application and reapplied in 2024. Parks to Passes was recognized as a Project of Merit in the 2024 funding cycle, which meant that the application made it through all rounds of review with high marks but were not funded. Because of this designation, the project was considered in the 2025 cycle in a “priority round” of funding that opened in December, and was chosen to receive funding. On Friday, January 10th, 2025, the United States Department of Transportation announced the award of a $6,313,019 RAISE grant to Powell County for the Parks to Passes project. This project was one of 109 selected to receive a share of $1.32 billion from Round 1 awards. A total of 195 projects requested $2.4 billion.
The RAISE grant will fund a feasibility study to close 157 miles of trail gaps along a 232-mile corridor from Butte to the Montana-Idaho border, and will complete higher level design on five spotlight projects.
The feasibility study will serve as a “road map” for the design, funding, construction, and maintenance of the route. It will include
- Performing a bridge and tunnel inventory
- Right-of-way research
- Environmental Scans
- Historical and Cultural Scans
- Public Outreach (This is a key piece of the project and a significant portion of the budget is set aside to do this work)
- Identify preferred trail alignments and targeted development strategies for each county or community
- Project prioritization
The completion of the feasibility study will competitively position the Coalition to either collectively or individually pursue funding for trail construction.
Five spotlight projects are ready for 30% design under this funding. These include:
1. School Connections (Frenchtown): This 0.4-mile-long project will provide a safe bicycle and pedestrian crossing over I-90 and will connect a heavily used trail to the north side of I-90 with the Frenchtown community on the south side. The improvement will provide a safe route to school.
2. Milwaukee Trail Clark Fork Crossing (Missoula): This 0.75-mile-long project uses abandoned railroad infrastructure for a trail connection between Hiawatha Road and Grove Street in Missoula. This project will serve rapidly-developing areas on Missoula’s west side.
3. Hwy 200 and Bonner Streetcar Connections (East Missoula): This 3.6-mile-long project will provide a continuous trail from Missoula to Bonner. The route is a heavily traveled road with non-continuous sidewalk and trail segments. This project will provide safe connections between Bonner, West Riverside, Mill Town, East Missoula and the City of Missoula and was part of a 2022 Reconnecting Communities Grant Program application submitted by the Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization.
4. I-90 Overpass (Clinton): This 1.2-mile-long project will provide a safe bicycle and pedestrian crossing over I-90, connecting the community of Clinton, which is split by I-90. The project will provide a safe route for school-aged children to bike or walk from their homes to school.
5. SBCG Connection to Copper Mountain Park (Butte): This 1.4-mile-long trail is needed to connect the Butte-Silver Bow community to the Great American and Copper Mountain Park, a popular recreational destination. Currently there is no pedestrian infrastructure leading to the park.
Our next steps will be to contract the grant with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), begin the procurement process for contractors, and formalize agreements with our local partners.
**Update as of June 26, 2025: FHWA provided Powell County with grant agreement templates and the project is moving forward. Be on the lookout for opportunities to engage with the project in the coming months! We look forward to creating a strong platform for outreach and project communication, once grant contracting is complete, a process which can take several months.
Parks to Passes is about more than a regional trail system. It is first and foremost a funding pathway to immense local benefits:
- Provide regional solutions for transportation affordability, access to daily destinations, and improved public health for western Montana communities.
- Address transportation inequity in rural communities through strong partnership and public involvement with a focus on underserved populations.
- Remedy infrastructure divisions that have persisted since the inception of the modern highway system.
- Enhance pedestrian accessibility in rural downtowns.
- Help ensure parents can send their children out the door with a safe route to school. There are 59 schools within two miles of the project area. Students must navigate at-grade rail crossings, highway overpasses with unprotected shoulders, and narrow two-lane highways.
- Economic benefits: Headwaters Economics completed a study on the economic potential of a contiguous trail across Montana in 2022. The annual benefits are expected to be: 1,100,000 trips on the trail, $16 million in visitor spending, 210 new jobs, $800,000 in tax revenue. Parks to Passes will boost economic activity in a region impacted by decades of industrial pollution and disinvestment.
- The Coalition approach promotes equitable outcomes for rural partners and is a good steward of time and resources. Through a single application, 28 rural towns and cities will achieve immense local benefit and advance design needs for all remaining gaps in the Parks to Passes corridor.
- An active transportation spine from the Montana-Idaho border to the Continental Divide is not a new idea. What is new, is the emergence of a regional partnership model at a time of heightened federal funding for multimodal transportation. Parks to Passes transitions decades of siloed thinking and local development efforts into a cohesive, regional conduit for infrastructure planning and investment.
- By connecting rural communities to existing trails, historic main streets, natural amenities, and thriving population centers, Parks to Passes is a generational investment that amplifies the needs of smaller, underserved communities and advances crucial initiatives in larger communities, which creates compound benefits for all.
2024 Grant Application:
Media Coverage:
Montana Standard: From Silver Bow to Idaho: Federal funding offers trail a toehold
Missoula Current - Missoula to Partner with Counties to Close Gaps in the Great American Trail