The bridge construction project on Highway 20 at Trout Creek is nearly complete after a total road closure of only two days.
The Oregon Department of Transportation had projected closing the highway completely for two weeks. Holm II, Inc., of Stayton, the contractor on the project, anticipated a three-day closure.
“It went really good,” Supervisor Rick Silbernagle said. “It really did. It went pretty smoothly honestly.”
The construction crew worked for a couple of weeks prior to closing the highway. Traffic was limited to one-lane with flagging around the clock.
During this time, workers did as much as they could without completely closing the road, including pouring concrete caps. Traffic was routed over a temporary bridge.
Trout Creek itself was diverted through a temporary four-foot steel culvert during construction.
With the closure on Monday and Tuesday last week, Silbernagle said, the crew dug out the old box culvert, placed rip rap in the stream, set the bridge beams on the caps and grouted.
With that, the bridge is “basically done,” Silbernagle said. Some paving and work on guardrails remained, and depending on weather, should be completed this week.
Except during paving, the highway will be open for two-way traffic. Flaggers will direct traffic during paving.
Silbernagle expected to finish the project completely this week depending on weather.
In the $600,000 project, the Oregon Department of Transportation replaced a box culvert with a bridge to allow fish to travel upstream from the South Santiam River.
Water will pool up under the bridge allowing fish passage. With the box culvert and its solid bottom, water was usually too shallow and fast to allow fish upstream.
Totally closing the road was an alternative to limiting traffic to one lane through most of the summer recreation season.