A Bridge Too Far... er, Low
Most of Corvallis has already heard about the truck driver who miscalculated the height of the forklift on the back of his truck and smashed into the cross beams on the Marys River Bridge. The bridge needs to be repaired before ODOT will deem it safe to use again; the current estimate is that it the bridge will be closed for the next 10 to 14 days.
This is already a bottleneck area for traffic crossing from South Corvallis into North, and now all traffic will be routed circuitously over the bypass to Highway 34, then back into downtown over the Van Buren Bridge. If you can avoid this drive entirely, you really should, especially at rush hour. However, there are a couple other ways to get from South Corvallis to North, depending on which direction you are headed. Shhhh... don't tell anyone else.
The first method is to swing west through Avery Park. The downside is that the speed limit is appropriately slow for a park and there are speed bumps throughout. However, if you are heading toward the middle or west parts of town, this isn't a bad route. Plus, it's purty.
The black X is the closed bridge. The red route is the official detour. The blue route is my little cheat route. Please ignore the lack of art skill. That's what you get for 2 minutes of effort.
If you are traveling north from Monroe or Eugene, or if you don't mind a longer, scenic detour simply to avoid the bottleneck stop-and-go stress, you can veer west on Airport Road and head north into town via Bellfountain and then SW 53rd Street. It's a bit out of the way, but straight roads with higher speed limits. If your destination is campus or points west, it's not a bad alternative. (I considered doing another custom map, but decided against it.)
This is already a bottleneck area for traffic crossing from South Corvallis into North, and now all traffic will be routed circuitously over the bypass to Highway 34, then back into downtown over the Van Buren Bridge. If you can avoid this drive entirely, you really should, especially at rush hour. However, there are a couple other ways to get from South Corvallis to North, depending on which direction you are headed. Shhhh... don't tell anyone else.
The first method is to swing west through Avery Park. The downside is that the speed limit is appropriately slow for a park and there are speed bumps throughout. However, if you are heading toward the middle or west parts of town, this isn't a bad route. Plus, it's purty.
The black X is the closed bridge. The red route is the official detour. The blue route is my little cheat route. Please ignore the lack of art skill. That's what you get for 2 minutes of effort.If you are traveling north from Monroe or Eugene, or if you don't mind a longer, scenic detour simply to avoid the bottleneck stop-and-go stress, you can veer west on Airport Road and head north into town via Bellfountain and then SW 53rd Street. It's a bit out of the way, but straight roads with higher speed limits. If your destination is campus or points west, it's not a bad alternative. (I considered doing another custom map, but decided against it.)
posted by Corvallist at
9:51 PM
2 Comments:
Isn't the southern part of 53rd, before it connects with Bellfountain Road, still gravel? Used to be full of washboards, too, so you could get to bumping and slide off, if going a bit too fast. It wasn't that much of it that was gravel, before hitting pavement as you get farther north.
Course you don't have to use 53rd, if you're bypassing south Corvallis and the bridge problem coming north from Junction City/Eugene etc. What do you turn on, is it Chapel, to get into Philomath off Bellfountain? I've never been big on remembering road names, just know where to turn.
And if you're coming north from Eugene or Junction City, one can always take the right fork of the "junction" at Junction City, and get onto 99W, just until you get to Harrisburg, then take Peoria Road, the road off to the left, heading north, just past the last Harrisburg stoplight. Beautiful drive that puts you onto highway 34 right before the bypass light and you're home free with no bridge worries whatsoever.
By
Strayer, at 9:01 AM
Hey, let's not forget about lovely little Tacos Uruapan, where they are suffering a slowdown in business because of that dang bridge being out.
Yay! for Tacos Uruapan.
Boo! for ODOT.
By
Anonymous, at 4:54 PM
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