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Fire
damages St. Paul lounge
Restriction lifted; you can water your
yard
New medical center will be energy efficient
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Bypass route gets feds' nod |
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With a thumbs up to the environmental impact
statement, feds say the route is the least disruptive |
By Gunnar
Olson, Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
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The affected city and county
governments are on board with the proposed route of the
Newberg-Dundee bypass. The state has found no fault in it. And now,
the feds have given the project a stamp of approval, as well.
The Federal Highway Administration last week approved the
environmental impact statement for the bypass. Essentially, that
means the feds agree with the local governments that the proposed
route is the least disruptive to the environment. “Environment”
includes not only natural resources, but manmade ones, as well,
including housing, business, industry and parks.
The significance? “It just moves the project ahead, gets us closer
to construction,” said Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis, a
longtime bypass supporter.
It fires the starter’s pistol for the Oregon Department of
Transportation (ODOT) to start the next stage of work, moving the
macro level to the micro level.
The engineers can now start designing the specific footprint of the
bypass: Where the 125- to 150-foot-wide highway will fit within the
300-foot-wide corridor; what elevation the road will sit at; and the
exact location and design of interchanges.
Lewis said approval of the environmental impact statement allows
the state to start making right-of-way purchases. But ODOT officials
have said it will limit itself to purchasing land that may jump in
price.
This year, and especially this summer, has been full of good news
for bypass supporters:
— The Oregon Transportation Commission in January opened the way
for the state to collaborate with a private company to build the
bypass, likely to speed up the project; proposals for such
partnerships will be made public this week (see adjacent story).
— The Oregon Legislature in June earmarked any leftover money from
a bridge-repair fund to go to projects of statewide significance, of
which the bypass is one.
— The Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) in July said that it found
no problems with the process by which local governments chose the
proposed bypass route — a decision that could speed the start of
construction by as many as eight months.
— And Congress in late July earmarked $23.5 million for the bypass.
The bypass will snake 11 miles from the base of Rex Hill to the
intersection of Highway 18 and Highway 99W. As engineers figure out
where to zig and where to zag, the public will have more
opportunities to say whether they think the four-lane highway go
through the right, center or left of the 300-foot-wide path.
The public-input process will be described in detail at a meeting
at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 11 at Newberg High School.
“To me this is a really exciting time,” Lewis said. “Because the
public gets to now weigh in on what it’s going to look like.”
Alan Fox, ODOT’s project manager for the bypass, said that ODOT
will draft a second environmental impact statement for the specific
route within the bypass corridor. That will also have to be approved
by the feds.
Fox estimated that the document will take until next December to
draft, and that it could take another year — until December 2007 —
for the highway administration to give its second record of
decision.
Public-private bypass proposals will be unveiled
today in Salem
Just how the Newberg-Dundee bypass gets built may become more clear
this week.
Proposals for public-private partnerships to build the bypass will
be released at 10 a.m. today (Wednesday) at a press conference in
Salem. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) will also post
summaries on its Web site. Go to
www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/innovative.shtml.
The Newberg Graphic will post a story on its Web site (newberggraphic.com)
this afternoon. As the name suggests, a public-private partnership
would be a collaboration of the state and a private company to build
the bypass.
Advocates say it would be a win-win partnership. The state would
likely to get its project built sooner, as a private company can
throw more money at the project than the cash-strapped state can.
The business stands to profit as it recuperates its investment
directly from the public, possibly by using tolls.
Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis, a longtime bypass
advocate, has said she thought it “likely” the bypass would be built
under a public-private partnership.
The Oregon Transportation Commission opened the door for
public-private partnerships in January, when gave ODOT the go-ahead
to solicit such proposals from private companies. The deadline for
those proposals were due Monday. ODOT officials were reviewing them
Tuesday to see that they met its criteria. |
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From Aug.
31,
2005, Newberg Graphic
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