McKinney Butte Road was ready for school

As promised, McKinney Butte Road was ready for traffic on the first day of school, Monday, September 15, but the school buses probably won't drive on it until next Monday.

"We will have to check out the new road before making a decision as to whether our school buses will use McKinney Butte or not," said Angie Gardinier, transportation supervisor for the Sisters School District.

"For the first week of school we will not use that road. Later, I will personally take a bus and check it out for turns and signs and safety," she said.

"Probably some of our bus drivers will use it on their regular routes later on," Gardinier added.

Gary Frazee, public works director for the City of Sisters, said that over the past weekend, speed signs and school zone signs were put up as well as directional signs.

"We were ready for the opening of school as we had committed," he said.

Laying the asphalt paving last week was delayed "a couple of days," according to Jeff Curl, supervisor of scheduling for Hap Taylor and Sons, paving contractors.

"We were held up due to the rains earlier in the week, but it dried out and we were in there Friday morning and got the job done," Curl said.

"There still needs to be some minor finishing touches," Frazee said, "such as completing the striping and getting the intersection and street signs in place.

"We'll not have a ribbon cutting, nor a brass band, but this fine road is now open for all of us to use."

McKinney Butte Road connects to Highway 20 on the west end of Sisters, opposite Barclay Drive. It heads southwest next to the Comfort Inn and the Shell Service Station, then curves west to the new high school. It crosses Brooks Camp road, which leads to the Episcopal Church of the Transformation to the south and the recreation and community center of The Pines to the north.

The newly opened portion of McKinney Butte Road continues west with a new intersection at Trinity Way, which leads to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Trinity Christian Center and on to St. Edward the Martyr Catholic Church near the McKenzie Highway.

It also has a "back door" connection to Sisters Community Church and the Little League baseball playing fields.

One of the Sonrise Christian School buildings faces the new road, which also provides access to all of the playing fields surrounding Sisters Middle School (old high school building).

The completion of McKinney Butte Road should ease some of the traffic on the McKenzie Highway, which would normally take all cars traveling to the middle school, high school and the many churches in that area west of Sisters.