PORT ANGELES — The Deer Park underpass opened to localized traffic for one day only Thursday while road crews paved a short section of Buchanan Drive east of Port Angeles.
Traffic from Cedar Park Drive was being diverted through the concrete arch underpass, which will soon eliminate left turns across U.S. Highway 101 from Deer Park Road and Buchanan Drive.
The paving work was expected to be completed by the end of the day.
“Tomorrow, it will be back to what it was,” Clallam County Engineer Ross Tyler said Thursday.
The contractor, Scarsella Bros. Inc., is putting the finishing touches on the $4.8 million federally funded Clallam County road project.
Crews are now paving Deer Park Loop, a sweeping two-lane county road that will connect the north and south sides of the four-lane highway at the eastern crest of Morse Creek ravine.
Opening in about month
The new county road will open in about a month.
“There’s just so many little details to get done,” Tyler said.
No date for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony has been set.
Deer Park Loop will have a 10-foot-wide sidewalk for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Began last year
Construction work began in August 2013.
County officials had been working to plan and fund the project for more than a decade to eliminate the hazards of vehicles turning left across the busy highway.
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsula
dailynews.com.
