Bridge over the Umatilla River moves forward
By Terry Murry on Friday, September 2nd, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
UMATILLA COUNTY – The Umatilla County Board of Commissioners will consider entering into a memorandum of understanding at its meeting next week with the cities of Hermiston and Umatilla. The MOU declares that West Punkin Center Road is the best option for building a new bridge over the Umatilla River that would connect to Interstate 82.
Board Chairman John Shafer said that such a bridge would help both cities with backed up traffic, providing motorists with another option for reaching I-82. Anderson Perry studied whether the best road would be West Punkin Center or West Elm Avenue, and is recommending West Punkin Center Road, which is a county road, as the better of the two.
“We haven’t done the design work or anything like that, but we’re getting closer,” Shafer said. “Now we’ve identified which road is the best road to extend out to I-82.”
Shafer said the new bridge will benefit traffic flows in both cities.
“For the county, this is a win-win for us too because these are two very important cities in our county, and we want to make sure we do everything we can to help,” he said.
