Update on South Valley Connector construction

City Engineer Deirdre Castillo said businesses not only are businesses asking how construction’s going, but this road will be good in case of emergencies.

The road will provide a new access point along Bannock Highway, something the city said is really needed.

“We learned that during the Charlotte Fire,” Castillo said. “There were lines of cars trying to evacuate the area and we just don’t have very many roads to leave that area.”

Castillo said the first phase was mostly blasting away the lava rock and using the ground-up chunks as a base to go under the gravel for the road.

The next phase of construction is going to to build bridges, two at the interstate and a third over that’s going to be 400-feet long extending to Bannock Highway.

The bridge portion is going out to bid next week, and construction is set to resume near the end of October. The expected completion date is December 1, 2015.
Castillo says this project has been talked about since the late 1960s.

She said it’s important to remember this is partly a federal aid project, so the state needs to look things over for approval, which could take longer to complete.