Haul Trucks and Scrapers Blasting Across Residential Roads with no Traffic Control

The date is May 7th, 2015 and the above picture shows a haul truck in front of our house in the completely wrong lane on the other side of a mostly blind corner with no stop sign.  When he saw I was taking photos he made a last ditch effort to stop.

The last project I was on considered a truck with trailer 27 cubic yards of rock.  Consider how fast that can stop.  Now consider if someone didn't know and they were flying around that corner a little quick.  Say a high schooler, which I often see. I am scared of a disaster.

Also, on Fulquartz, just around the corner they have scrapers crossing Fulquartz at up to 20 MPH I'd guess, without stopping.  Just flying through.  It's like a scene you'd see in the farcical Russian youtube.

I've complained to ODOT.  Their Project Manager simply vehemently denies they are putting anyone at risk.  I've reached out to the Newberg Police, they say they are on it but I'm unsure how.

Fulquartz should be closed.  It's only a matter of time until a tourist is taking Fulquartz to bypass a jam on Highway 99 (which commonly happens) and meets a Scraper.  Or a high schooler flys around the corner in front of our house.

I've given up on anyone helping.  I simply write this to put in writing, on the web, that I warned ODOT and Newberg/Dundee. If disaster does happen I hope this is admissible in court.  

I even joined the Dundee Planning Committee to be involved at the city level and petition for safety but all I've found is the City is completely cowed to ODOT.

I can't find any oversight body for ODOT.  They do what they want, how they want.  And they don't seem to listen to input.

Sometimes I park my car in front of my house on the street side to force them into their lane and away from my side of the street (because they are almost driving on my lawn as it is... and sometimes they are, come see the tire tracks).  I'm allowed to park street side park for 72 hours per city code. This seems like a pathetic fix that only makes the construction people angry.  We need true enforcement, not construction workers angry with the neighbors.

Newberg-Dundee Bypass ODOT Complete Lack of Management of Costs and Community Care

Meet our new neighbor thanks to the Dundee Newberg Bypass project - an open sewer manhole pumping sewage with a 24/7 diesel generator that resonates within our home.  And of course they start it up on a Friday and scamper off to their homes likely because they knew I'd be beating on the construction trailer door.  Sure enough, no one onsite  to complain at.

We're not the first to be shown this inconsideration.

There's the couple down the road whose property has been split in two, and ODOT says they'll have no access to the back half, but isn't paying them for it.

At the April 24 Dundee budget committee, meeting one of the city staffers mentioned that they'd found a possible solution to not having to bore and jack a utility under the fill which would potentially save ODOT hundreds of thousands and ODOT hadn't seemed interested.  That's our tax dollars!  Remember teachers aren't being paid enough and we still have that sort of attitude at the state.

Then there's the couple that had to threaten to sue before ODOT would pay them enough to live in a home similar to the one that was being condemned for the project.  He had a house with a separate workshop and ODOT wanted to pay enough for an apartment.  That conflict garnered a cable TV news story. Here's the news piece -



This is on top of what my wife and I see daily demonstrated in front of the house.  We've seen an accident at the intersection when a construction dump truck backed into a local driving by.  We've seen one of the workers take out the neighbors cat by stomping on the accelerator to make sure he got it.  After numerous complaints about safety ODOT's never said a thing about what they're doing to control it, they only say they hope Phase 2 will be better.

I've been a project engineer on-site for the managing firm for two large civil projects, the Reno ReTRAC and the Hokuli'a Subdivision.  I can say from experience, this is very poor project management.