Montana
Montana transportation leaders address aging infrastructure at Billings summit
BILLINGS — A new report highlighting aging roads and bridges across Montana is raising concerns in Billings, but transportation leaders say long-term investments and infrastructure projects are already underway to address the problem.
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Montana transportation leaders address aging infrastructure at Billings summit
The report from national transportation research group TRIP found seven bridges in the Billings area are in poor condition, while another 186 are rated fair. Statewide, nearly one-third of Montana’s major roads are considered in poor condition, and 7% of bridges are classified as structurally deficient.
New report flags Billings bridges, rough roads as infrastructure concerns
The report did not identify the specific bridges in Billings.
For residents like Alisha Oster, who works at a gas station near the Blue Creek bridge that spans the Yellowstone River, concerns about aging infrastructure feel personal. She said crossing the bridge can feel unsettling, especially when large trucks pass through.
“When you go across it, it sounds like it’s cracking sometimes,” Oster said. “It just sometimes makes me feel like I’m just going to fall.”
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
Crews rehabilitated the Blue Creek bridge in 2024, but Oster said the report heightened concerns about other bridges in the Billings area.
“So it is concerning, not just this bridge, but like all the other bridges around Billings,” she said. “What happens if the bridge does cave in?”
Transportation leaders said the report’s findings were expected and reflect challenges the state has already been working to address.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
“We’re well aware that it was going to come out,” Montana Department of Transportation Director Chris Dorrington said. “The results are not surprising. Some of Montana’s roads and bridges need attention.”
On Thursday, transportation officials, contractors, and local leaders gathered at the Northern Hotel in downtown Billings for the 2026 Infrastructure Summit, where discussions focused on long-term transportation and infrastructure needs across the state.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
Dorrington said the summit brought together stakeholders from transportation, water, and wastewater systems, local governments, and private industry.
“We all came together … all interested in trying to do the very best of what we can for Montana’s transportation system,” Dorrington said.
David Smith, executive director of the Montana Contractors Association and chair of the Montana Infrastructure Coalition, said many rural and county-owned bridges across Montana are decades old and in need of repair or replacement.
“We have a lot of off-system bridges, which are county bridges that are in old shape,” Smith said. “They’re 70, 80, 90 years old, so they need attention.”
Dorrington said MDT monitors thousands of bridges statewide through a rotating inspection schedule and has already developed long-term investment plans to address deteriorating infrastructure.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
“In Montana, out of 5,000 (bridges), we have a lot that are going to need to be rebuilt, in addition to being maintained,” Dorrington said. “We look at the report as an indicator.”
He said the state plans to invest $1 billion into bridge projects over the next five years, including repairs or replacements for roughly 40 bridges annually.
Montana bridges are breaking down, but state has $1 billion plan to fix them
Still, officials acknowledged that inflation and rising construction costs continue stretching transportation dollars thinner.
“We still receive about the same amount of fuel tax revenues, and cars are more efficient,” Smith said. “So the income level for the state has been pretty flat through the years, but the cost of construction has greatly increased.”
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
The TRIP report warned that delaying repairs only increases long-term costs. According to the report, every dollar of deferred road and bridge maintenance can lead to an additional $4 to $5 in future repair costs.
Aging roads and rising costs put pressure Montana’s infrastructure system
Despite the challenges, officials pointed to major projects already completed in Billings as evidence that infrastructure investments are improving safety and capacity. Smith highlighted the recently completed $72 million Yellowstone River bridge replacement on Interstate 90.
“It increased the safety and the capacity for the interstate through Billings,” Smith said. “It’s been a great project, but it’s not cheap.”
Leaders at the summit also discussed future transportation projects, including planned improvements to the Johnson Lane interchange in Lockwood, which is expected to become a diverging diamond interchange.
Isabel Spartz/MTN News
The summit also focused on broader infrastructure concerns beyond highways and bridges, including water systems, wastewater facilities, rail infrastructure, and airports.
While construction projects may frustrate drivers in the short term, leaders argued that proactive investment can prevent larger infrastructure failures and more expensive repairs later.
“It’s important that associations and government work together to try and make sure that we’re in front of those things and anticipating where there might be failures in the future and mitigate that,” Smith said.
Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit over allegations of unlicensed sampling — only this time, it’s centered on a video clip of the rapper’s infamous 2013 fight with paparazzi.
In a case filed Wednesday (July 15) in Los Angeles federal court, the celebrity news agency Bauer-Griffin claims that Ye, French Montana (Karim Kharbouch) and others used audio from the headline-grabbing incident in “Where They At,” released in 2024 off French’s Mac & Cheese 5.
The May 2013 video, which also features a pregnant Kim Kardashian, shows West charging at a photographer outside a Los Angeles restaurant and shouting “don’t take no photos” and a string of profanities: “All of you m*therf*ckers stop it, man!”
The clip appears prominently in the intro to Montana’s song — a use that the lawsuit calls “blatant and willful” copyright infringement.
“Given Mr. Ye’s history of numerous confrontations with paparazzi, the video was highly newsworthy,” the agency’s lawyers write in legal documents obtained and first reported by Billboard. “Listeners immediately recognized the audio sample that begins the infringing record as being copied from the video.”
Ye has been sued over a dozen times for allegedly using unlicensed samples and interpolations in his music, including a high-profile battle with Donna Summer. In May, he lost a jury trial over using an uncleared sample in an early version of the Grammy-winning “Hurricane” from Donda. He had testified at trial that he’s “very generous” about giving credit and compensation when it’s due, but that “a lot of people try to take advantage of me.”
In Wednesday’s complaint, Bauer-Griffin says the creators of “Where They At” showed no such respect to its rights in the video of the paparazzi incident, using it despite being well aware that sound recordings must be licensed when any amount is directly sampled into a song.
“In the music industry, copyrights are prevalent and well understood,” lawyers for the agency write. “Every defendant knew that they needed to have but did not have permission to use the audio sample.”
Reps for both stars did not immediately return requests for comment. The lawsuit also names as defendants producers Dem Jointz (Dwayne Abernathy Jr.) and BoogzDaBeast (Jahmal Gwin), as well Gamma, the label that released the song, and its distribution unit Vydia.
The confrontation at issue in Wednesday’s lawsuit was one of two high-profile scuffles with paparazzi that year for the rapper, who was then still known as Kanye West. Two months later, he clashed with photographer Daniel Ramos outside of LAX, resulting in a civil assault lawsuit that the star eventually settled two years later on the eve of trial.
As many celebrities have learned over the years, simply appearing in a photo or video does not give someone any legal rights to it. Ownership of such material is always retained by the creator — an inconvenient fact that has sparked lawsuits against Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa.
It’s unclear who filmed the May 2013 incident, which happened outside a Beverly Hills restaurant minutes after the star had also been filmed accidentally banging his head into a signpost while trying to avoid other photographers. But the rights to the footage have been owned by Bauer-Griffin from the beginning: When TMZ first posted it at the time, it came with a watermark crediting the agency.
“The infringing record has been widely distributed on various streaming platforms, in flagrant violation of plaintiff’s exclusive rights under copyright laws,” Bauer-Griffin’s attorneys write. “Plaintiff brings these claims to vindicate those rights.”
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