| OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program |
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| Web Brief (Feb 05) |
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Joint cooperation with Burns Paiute Tribe puts Central Oregon Highway on the right track
An innovative partnership between the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Burns Paiute Tribe is helping make the Central Oregon Highway (U.S. 20) safe for commuters, tourists, and commerce. The collaborative effort also is helping preserve culturally significant artifacts and vegetation along the route. This program’s success may become the model for joint cooperation on state construction projects.
The work on U.S. 20 is part of the third phase of the state’s 10-year, $3 billion Oregon Transportation Investment Act (OTIA) program, which will repair or replace hundreds of bridges across Oregon through the OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program.
The Burns Paiute Tribe has helped ODOT on excavation in several key areas, sold tribal land to relocate the roadway, and, most importantly, provided Cecil Dick, an onsite environmental and historical tribal monitor, to work alongside ODOT engineers during planning and construction.
A primary OTIA goal is to preserve Oregon’s scenic, aesthetic, historical, environmental, economic, and other community values while building safe and enduring projects. By partnering with the Burns Paiute Tribe along the Central Oregon Highway, ODOT is ensuring the preservation of culturally significant artifacts found during construction. The tribal monitor also is identifying native plants important to ritual ceremonies, such as the Chokeberry tree, that will be either protected or relocated.
The cooperation with the Burns Paiute Tribe played a crucial role when ODOT addressed a notoriously dangerous curve on U.S. 20. To create a safer roadway, the agency needed to straighten the curve near Jonesborough crossing, the site of many fatal accidents. The Burns Paiute Tribe agreed to sell adjacent land to create a new line for the highway.
Working with ODOT’s engineering design team, Dick traveled the projected new route of the highway to check for items of cultural significance. His guidance was critical in locating the route in a way that preserved cultural assets. Several items of interest have been found to date, including an apparently man-made obsidian chip discovered near the Jonesborough crossing. More finds are expected as excavation continues along this route.
The result of this work will be a straighter curve near Jonesborough and a safer crossing over the Mount Malheur River for commuters, tourists, and commerce, as well as preserved tribal assets.
“The U.S. 20 project has been a model on how to build working relationships with Oregon’s tribal communities,” said Heather Catron, bridge program manager. “By working together with these tribal communities, and other communities in the state, we can deliver a program that represents a shared vision for what this region looks like over the next century.”
During the next decade, OTIA funds will repair or replace hundreds of bridges, pave and maintain city and county roads, improve and expand interchanges, add new capacity to Oregon’s highway system, and remove freight bottlenecks statewide. About 18 family-wage jobs are sustained for every $1 million spent on transportation construction in Oregon. Each year during the OTIA program, construction projects will sustain about 5,000 family-wage jobs.
# ODOT #
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