Transforming Missoula’s Brooks Street Corridor

For more than 20 years, the City of Missoula has been considering how to transform Brooks Street from a highway commercial strip that emphasizes vehicular traffic to a multi-modal transportation route that is also friendly to buses, pedestrians, and cyclists.

In 2016 the City and other Missoula entities worked with urban planners to complete the Brooks Street Corridor Study. This study, which was conducted through a robust public engagement process, confirmed a community-wide desire to focus on transit-oriented development (TOD) on Brooks Street, between Reserve Street and Mount Avenue.

A concept for a dedicated bus lane in the center of the street evolved as an intriguing multi-modal transportation strategy in a subsequent study completed in 2020 – The Brooks Corridor TOD Infrastructure Study. This concept for center-running bus rapid transit (BRT) is intriguing for several reasons.