Letter: It’s again time to consider highway bypass

Published 7:53 pm Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Tourism is one of the Oregon Coast’s leading economies, other than logging or fishing. With that being said, that means traffic, and no one likes being stuck in traffic going to get their groceries more than locals do. That can be fixed with one thing, a bypass.

The Safeway stoplight on U.S. Highway 30 can hold a line of stop-and-go traffic all the way to Svensen, which turns a 10-minute drive into over an hour drive. This could be fixed if the Oregon Department of Transportation built a bypass over Pipeline Road, starting between the John Day boat ramp and the John Day bridge on Scandinavian Road, and ending on Oregon Highway 202 roughly 2 miles from the Astoria Fultano’s.

This can give locals and tourists a quicker drive into Astoria, and relieve frustration from sitting in traffic on a nice hot day on the Oregon Coast.

TRAVIS TADEI
Astoria