US 287 project will impact local traffic

A project to replace a bridge on US 287 in Clarendon will reduce the highway to two lanes of traffic and close some downtown intersections for more than a year according to information presented at public meeting in the Mulkey Theatre last Tuesday, April 22.

Representatives of the Texas Department of Transportation held the meeting with stakeholders and local businesses to go over plans and safety procedures for the project, which could last up to 19 months.

Gilvin Terrill will be the contractor for the job that will replace the bridge on US 287, which goes over Clarendon’s main drainage ditch between Kearney and Gorst streets behind the Donley County State Bank and Herring Bank. The project will also see the removal of the Herring Bank parking lot on top of the ditch as well as the smaller bridge structure over the ditch on Gorst behind Herring Bank near the former Signs Plus building.

Work will begin in May with the replacement of a sewer line underneath the bridge. Traffic restrictions and construction will begin in June.

In order to maintain traffic flow on US 287, TxDOT engineers say it is necessary to close Kearney Street access to the highway as well as the Gorst Street intersection and the south side of the Sully Street intersection for the duration of the project.

“We want to keep it safe by eliminating turning and crossing movements as much as possible,” TxDOT District Engineer Darwin Lankford said.

Project engineer Lewis McDowell said the project would be completed in three phases and said the way the bridge was built and supported prevents it from being removed in two sections. Phase One will work on replacing the south side of the bridge, Phase Two will be the middle of the bridge, and Phase Three the north side.

The tight space makes it impossible to safely allow highway access to and from Kearney Street during the construction period, officials said, particularly during Phase Two when workers will be confined to working on the center of the bridge as highway traffic continues on the north and south sides of the project.

Officials also said diverting traffic from the highway to Third Street would not be feasible because of the wear and tear on the city street.

Mayor Jacob Fangman, along with representatives from the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce and the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation, expressed concerns about the impact that restricting highway access, particularly on Keaney Street, would have on local businesses. TxDOT officials said they understood the inconvenience and impact the work zone would have but reiterated their commitment to the safety of the traveling public as well as to those working on the project.

“We had three fatalities in work zones in Donley County alone in the last three years,” Lankford said.

Officials also said a project in Hedley that temporarily restricted the highway to two lanes also saw a fatality and said they did not want to see that happen again.

TxDOT did say, however, that they would stay in contact with local officials and would remain open to reevaluating the placement of barricades and traffic flow during the course of the project.

City officials will, however, have to consider plans for how to maintain access to businesses in the 100 and 200 block of Kearney without traffic going through the highway. The next phase of downtown revitalization is also scheduled to begin in the 200 block this year.

Concrete barricades will block Kearney traffic at the highway, and the stop lights will not be operational.

TxDOT documentation says the bridge over the ditch on US 287 was built in 1938, but archives of The Enterprise support that it was built in the early 1920s, making it well over 100 years old.