Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Oregon Department of Transportation is planning to begin work on Highway 228 from the city limits at Fern Ridge Road to Long Street this summer.
The project went to bid on March 8, ODOT Spokesman Joe Harwood said. The low bidder was M.L. Houck Construction at $830,000.
The project includes widening the shoulders at the east and west ends, and installing sidewalks and curbs along the entire north side of the project and on portions of the south side.
Sidewalks exist along the north side of the highway, but some of them from Fourth Avenue downhill to Long Street are on private property, with no curbs.
Harwood said he didn’t know yet what the traffic impacts will be, but the project budget includes flaggers and a pilot car, which indicates that the highway probably will be completed one side at a time. During part of the project, the highway will have only one lane open.
The project will take four to five months to complete, including striping and everything, Harwood said. The one-month swing accounts for possible delays for weather.
The preconstruction meeting has not been scheduled yet, so Harwood did not know exactly when the project would begin, he said. He anticipated starting in late May or June.
“I’m very excited to see it happen, especially with as many people as we have that commute to the Halsey area to work,” Mayor Craig Fentiman said. “It’s also part of the new scenic byway, and it will be nice to have a good road for the route.”
Former Councilman Tim McQueary has been a member of the Area Commission on Transportation for years, Fentiman said, and “he was always in there pushing to get it done.”
At the same time, Sweet Home officials hope to get a project on Second Avenue, located off Highway 228, going this summer.
“The contractor that’s going to be hired by ODOT for the Highway 228 project is the low bidder on Second Avenue,” Public Works Director Mike Adams said. Houck Construction bid a little more than $110,000 on the project.
The city didn’t have enough money budgeted for it this year, but the project will appear in the city’s proposed budget this month, Adams said. If approved, he will contract with Houck to do the project after the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1.
“Where they’re going to be in the 228 project I don’t know,” he said.