Oregon Roads - Bus. US 101



Photos progress southward.


I promise you this is also Business US 101.


Views approaching the north end of Business US 101 and the west end of OR 202. This is US 101's New Youngs Bay Bridge, built in 1964 to straighten the alignment of Business US 101 and add capacity from Warrenton to Astoria.


Business US 101 gets the regular Youngs Bay Bridge, which now qualifies as being Old (1921) despite also being Youngs. I find it interesting that this drawbridge has an advance signal that goes from green to red, providing not just warning but requiring anyone who sees it to stop well ahead of the ultimate stop line at the bridge. It is also interesting that there is a central green and two outer reds. I would expect, and the MUTCD requires, that a regular signal would work just fine here instead.


Finishing my drive south and taking a look back north at the interesting underbits.


Here's what the New bridge looks like from this faraway vantage.


The road turns right, the road turns left, and there's another bridge in between. That's the Lewis and Clark River Bridge, dating to 1925. So what did people do between 1921 and 1925? There was an earlier bridge here. Notice the totally sturdy wooden gates to block bridge traffic and the non-functioning signals. If they remain dark until the bridge needs to lift, that's also an MUTCD violation, as any dark signal is to be treated as a "stop" for all traffic. I see active industry to the south, so I don't think that they're non-functional. Incidentally, this bridge looks like half a Youngs Bay Bridge, from the single set of towers above to the half-green arch below.

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