Summer full of road work ahead for Bend motorists

From mini to major, road projects of varying size, duration and frustration are spread across Bend over the next year.

Many of them are starting right now because they have to, Tom Hickman, director of the city’s Engineering and Infrastructure Department, said Tuesday.

“With the growth this community has experienced, we have to take advantage of construction year-round,” he said. “So every opportunity we get, we’re trying to move on projects.”

There are more than 60 projects in the works, including the North Area sewer line project, which runs from the northeast corner of Butler Market Road and Third Street and continues north to the O.B. Riley traffic light and along O.B. Riley Road.

Another ongoing major project is the 27th Street sewer line project, running from Reed Market Road to Medical Center Drive. It started last summer and isn’t scheduled to be completed until next March.

More than a dozen less-invasive street preservation projects are also shaping up across the area. They include work along Boyd Acres Road, Shevlin Park Road Newport Avenue, Wall Street, Neff Road and 15th Street.

While it might be a long summer, city officials say it’ll be worth it in the end/

“We know it’s frustrating, and we’re citizens, too — we get impacted by the same things,” Hickmann said “But hopefully, in the end as we finish these projects, things will get better and will ease up.”

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