Work begins this week on Sweet Creek Road

MAPLETON Construction of a long-needed replacement for a key retaining wall on Sweet Creek Road begins this week, marking the start of a 16-month-long project that will include several night road closures.

The 370-yard-long retaining wall is showing signs of weakening, and the adjacent roadbed has been damaged over the years by floods and mudslides. A portion of the road has been reduced to a single lane controlled with traffic signals for more than a year.

The $6.1 million project will replace the retaining wall and restore the road to two-way traffic. Because Sweet Creek Road provides access to important federal timberland, the Federal Highway Administration is covering 95 percent of the cost. The rest, about $250,000, is coming from Lane Countys road fund.

During construction, the road will be closed entirely several times. But those closures will be limited to nights between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. and will be announced in advance on roadside signs and on a special, toll-free information line.

The number for the Sweet Creek project information line is 855-263-9169. The first night closure of the road is scheduled for Aug. 12-15.

When the road is open, travel will be controlled by the existing traffic signals or by construction flaggers. At other times the road will be closed with hourly, five-minute openings to let cars through. Those will happen at five minutes before the hour.

Sweet Creek Road roughly parallels Highway 126 on the south side of the Siuslaw River for several miles before turning into the Coast Range forests. It runs several miles south and west of Mapleton, providing access to 68 homes and about 30,000 acres of national forestland, as well as private timberland.

The retaining wall is about 2 miles southwest of Mapleton. Made of steel pilings and concrete, the wall keeps mud and earth from sliding down onto the road, but it is deteriorating to the point that it must be replaced, county officials said.

About 5 million board feet of timber are harvested each year from the forestland served by the road, the county said.

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Work begins this week on Sweet Creek Road