Issue of: May 20, 1998  

 

ITD rolls out summer roadwork plan


By ALYSON WILSON
Express Staff Writer

m20itd2.gif (7933 bytes)Widening of the narrow Greenhorn Bridge on State Highway 75 is not expected to begin until the year 2000. (Express photo by Willy Cook)

Summer highway work could prove light on local travelers, unlike last year’s traffic-halting road improvements.

The Idaho Transportation Department slated only one new project near the Wood River Valley this building season, according to Information Specialist Reed Hollingshead and Project Coordinator Connie Jones, both of the Idaho Transportation Department.

Don’t hold your breath, it’s not Greenhorn Bridge.

The local project is an effort to protect a riverbank of the Big Wood River from erosion possibly affecting U.S. Route 20, upstream of Stanton Crossing.

A dam with a concrete guardrail will divert the river channel from its current path toward U.S. 20 and some rock and gravel excavation will reinforce the new channel, states the 1998 ITD Construction Report.

"The project will be timed to accommodate fish spawning and other habitat and environmental necessities," the report states.

This project will take only a few days, Jones said. Specifically, it begins two miles west of Timmerman Junction, where State Highway 75 and U.S. Route 20 intersect, and ends at mile post 120.

The Glendale Bridges project, south of Bellevue, will be finished on June 15 with a seal coat, which will only take a few days, as well.

As for work on the harrowing bridge at Greenhorn Gulch on State Highway 75, between Ketchum and Hailey, Jones said construction will likely begin closer to the year 2000.

Depending on the method chosen, that project could last up to three years, she said.

Work on the Greenhorn Bridge can, and likely will, happen independently of the more extensive widening of the highway, Jones said.

"I’m sure it will be done first as a project in and of itself," she said.

A handful of other projects could affect travel plans of Blaine County.

For one, a 27-mile section of State Highway 75 will be resurfaced between Lower Stanley and Clayton starting June 15. Last winter, the stretch of road was patched and leveled.

 

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