Tonight’s the night that the switch gets flipped. The asphalt crews will be working on the bridge from 7:00 PM until 2:00 AM at which time the night flaggers arrive so that the stripers can begin their work of grinding out the old striping and laying down the new travel lanes. Come tomorrow morning, Wednesday the 24th, the new bridge will be accepting its first traffic.
One lane of northbound traffic will be wiggled around the old Shell Station and guided up main to tie in over onto the new bridge come Wednesday morning. For the duration of Wednesday, there will also be a single lane southbound on Main as the contractors complete the transition. Once Thursday rolls around, traffic can return to two lanes southbound.
With all the adjustments, the two lanes of westbound coming into downtown on East First Street, otherwise known as Highway 6, will remain open in order to serve the anticipated heavy Memorial Day traffic. The sewerline paving work on West First Street should be complete and freeflowing for traffic. The accesses to the Third Street Shell Station will also remain open through the weekend even though eastside sidewalk demolition work is already launched along Pacific Avenue.
The typical holiday snarl may be slightly hyper-typical this year, especially since we’re going to have good weather, but the construction project and the City are attempting to clear as many routes through the City as possible. Regardless of everyone’s best efforts, there will be stacking and tempers will be tried, but please pack plenty of patience and it should be a beautiful weekend.
As for the work crews, they will rest too. There will be no work on Memorial Day.
Which brings us to the summer. The multi-textured Plaza work will be wrapping up this week and the facility should be ready for the Cork’n Brew festivities on June 16th. We will have some awkward pinches compared to our usual comfort zone, such as there won’t be any parking on First Street for the Farmers’ Market, but these are just growing pains that won’t stop our forward motion.
Our Highway Project E-news bulletin is created by Jeannell Wyntergreen, Highway 101/6 Project Liaison for the Tillamook Area Chamber of Commerce.  If you have any questions or would like to share a comment with the Chamber, contact her at hwyproject@