News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Road construction crews are grinding up Highway 20 west of town, and recycling the grindings to spruce up the McKenzie Highway.
To minimize traffic snarls, the Highway 20 work is being done at night. A 14-foot grinder is taking out two inches of asphalt from the Highway 20/242 "Y" west 12 miles to Jack Lake Road and repaving the road.
The ground-up asphalt is run on a conveyor belt to dump trucks and hauled away.
The project is set for completion by Friday, July 24.
According to project leader Stephanie Popp of the Oregon Department of Transportation, the grindings from Highway 20 will be mixed with an emulsifier and oil in a "cold recycled paving" process and used to overlay Highway 242, starting Monday, July 27.
The McKenzie Highway project will overlay the road, starting at the edge of town and heading west. The project will also widen the road shoulders by two feet between the Sisters High School and the Crossroads subdivision.
According to Laurie Gould of ODOT, the grindings from Highway 20 will also be used to construct bike lanes from the school to Crossroads.
The road will remain open with possible brief delays west to the junction of the road to Whispering Pines campground (FS 1018). According to Popp, the narrow, winding stretch of road from there to the McKenzie snow gate will be closed in the daytime.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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