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photo by Steve Johnson Old Stage Road resident Lyle McLaughlin walks up the landfill road, part of the "southern route" bypass through Jacksonville he favors over the one the city and county have selected. Taking the road not taken Abandoned route pushed as alternative for bypass By Melissa Martin of the Mail Tribune JACKSONVILLE -- Old Stage Road resident Lyle McLaughlin wants the long-awaited Jacksonville bypass to take a different route than city and county officials favor. McLaughlin is staging a two-mile walk today along what is known as the southern route of the Jacksonville bypass. McLaughlin hopes people will see the benefits of a route that many Jacksonville residents favored decades ago but that was discarded by officials for a less-expensive, northern route. The walk precedes a public hearing on the matter scheduled for Dec. 2 by the Jackson County Planning Commission. Folks interested in joining McLaughlin today should meet at 11 a.m. at the entrance to the old landfill on South Stage Road. "I think we should scoop up the traffic on the east side of Jacksonville and not let it gush through the community," says McLaughlin, a developer. McLaughlin's involvement with roads includes serving on the Highway 62 Citizens Committee and working as a consultant on growth issues for two Interstate 25 cities in Colorado. County planners to consider bypass The Jackson County Planning Commission will consider the findings of fact from its January approval of Jacksonville's northern arterial when it meets at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2. The public hearing will be held in the large group room at Jacksonville Elementary School. Once the findings are approved by county planners and Jackson County Commissioners, the bypass proposal will be propelled forward. The bypass is already on a priority list created by the Rogue Valley Area Commission on Transportation, said City Administrator Paul Wyntergreen. If the bypass were to make the Oregon Department of Transportation's funding list in 2001, it could be less than a decade away from reality, according to Frank Stevens, project leader. After the bypass makes the funding list, it would take two years for the engineering, design and environmental studies and another two years for property acquisitions, Stevens estimates. "The soonest the bypass could be built would be four years after it makes the funding list," Stevens said. If the bypass makes the funding list in 2001, it won't be the first time the dream route was a step away from reality, according to Doris Crofoot, retired city recorder and a resident of Royal Mobile Estates. "In the 1970s, they laid out these plans and the Oregon Department of Transportation came out and said, `You pick your route and you're in business'," Crofoot said. "But the town split in half and couldn't come to an agreement about the route. So ODOT packed up their stuff and left town." The southern route McLaughlin favors would come from Hanley Road to the old landfill road, which winds above Jacksonville and rejoins Highway 238 near Cady Road. This route would cost an estimated five times as much as the northern route, which has been estimated at $26 million. But it would avoid neighborhoods and could connect if a beltway were built to encircle the entire valley, McLaughlin says. The city of Jacksonville rejected the southern route several years ago and adopted a northern arterial plan in 1995. The northern route leaves Jacksonville Highway north of the city limits, crosses Old Stage Road, and rejoins Highway 238 at its intersection with Pair-a-dice Ranch Road. The Jackson County Planning Commission adopted the northern route last January but has not yet approved findings of fact. McLaughlin hopes to persuade the Planning Commission to change its mind when it holds a public hearing on the findings of fact Dec. 2. Jacksonville residents have been trying to route traffic away from the town's historic brick buildings since the first bypass hearing was held April 4, 1963. By 1977, the bypass was nearly funded by the state highway commission, but the project fell through. At the time, the northern route was estimated to cost $2.5 million and the southern route $8.5 million. The city rejected the southern route for several reasons, said Paul Wyntergreen, city administrator: cost of constructing through a mountainous region; its inability to re-route heavy trucks from the gravel pit on Pair-a-dice Ranch Road to Jacksonville Highway; and its crossing of farmland near the sewage ponds. "The south route doesn't provide an efficient vent for the aggregate trucks; it's on the wrong side of the city," Wyntergreen said. McLaughlin argues the same against the northern route. Its construction would require making a 45-foot cut into a hillside and using the dirt for fill on the east side of the bypass. He also cites the noise and visual impact on the neighborhoods and farm in the route's path, which include Royal Mobile Estates manufactured home park; the city's newest subdivision, called Nunan Square; a pear orchard; and Buena Vista Subdivision, which is made up of five Autumn Lane homes priced between $300,000 and $1 million. Some residents predict lengthy and costly legal battles before a northern arterial could be built. "It's going through mighty expensive property owned by doctors and lawyers, and they've got the money to fight it," said Newt Likely, a Sterling Creek Road resident whose living room stands in the path of the southern route. Despite his concerns over legal battles, Likely favors the northern route. Autumn Lane residents bought their acreage and built their homes knowing that a bypass could be built across the property lines, Wyntergreen said. "When the county approved Buena Vista Subdivision, the city opposed it because of its location in the path of our future bypass,'' Wyntergreen said. "But there is a disclaimer in the deeds. They are building with full awareness (that a bypass could be built.)'' A few Autumn residents wrote letters during hearings in 1995. The letters are part of the bypass record at Jacksonville City Hall -- 36 years' worth of comments and reports that fill an entire box. There's also a thick binder from a $58,000 engineer's report commissioned by the city. One of the letters in the bypass record was written by Frank and Joann Burch, Grove Street residents: "The north bypass will disturb the quiet and peaceful solitude of many beautiful and high-priced homes and many lawsuits will follow as the road would lower property values. Most important, these residents do not want to live on or near the highway and will be forced to move." Likely says opponents of both routes have one thing in common. "They have the same concerns we do," Likely says. "We don't want a highway going through our yard. We are just as NIMBY -- Not In My Back Yard -- as they are. That's what the whole thing stems from." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA