The first phase of a proposed bypass around the west side of Williston will be completely paved by July and the state will do what it can to ease the burden on area schools and other public agencies severely impacted by the North Dakota oil boom.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
New Bypass West of Williston To Be Paved By July, 2012 -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA
Very, very impressive. Link to the Williston Herald.
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I was surprised by how far WEST this temporary bypass is though. It is nearly 12 miles west of Williston if the green markers on the picture are correct. I hope this is just the "temporary" truck route. They said a permanent is still in the designing stages. If they leave this truck route 12 miles WEST of Williston, trucks will not even use it. Trucks coming up from the south at the 4 mile (2&85 instersection west of williston) will have to drive 8 miles west to get onto it. Trucks coming up from the Trenton road will have to drive 5 miles west to get onto it. It does not make sense, and no trucker is going to drive 12 miles west and then 12 miles east (on the norther end of the route) just to bypass Williston. So like I said, I HOPE this is just a temporary route and they don't decide to keep it as a permanent route.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the map, the bypass includes County Road 1 which is only two miles from 1804 (the Trenton turn-off). I think your mileage is off. It is a bit west of the original plan, but it is a straight shot rather than a very convoluted route that had been proposed.
DeleteIn addition, most of the oil service companies are west of Williston. Move your "bull's eye" from the center of Williston to the BEXP complex six miles west of Williston (or thereabouts) and the map/bypass has a completely different feel.
Your right about the distance. I was way off on the distance. I used the Google map tool to measure the distance in miles. It will be 8 1/2 miles from Williston, or about 4 1/2 miles west of the 4 mile corner. I thought the green markers were located on the "Grenora" road that runs past Round Prairie school. However, I still think it is a little too far west. But, it is only a temporary route. The highway at the intersection is only a 2 lane, so they have a lot of work to do at that intersection and will probably need to put in lonnnnnnnnngggggggggggg turning lanes, otherwise you will have lines of semi's blocking traffic on the 2 lanes of highway 2 as they wait to turn onto and off the temporary route. If the truckers DO use this temporary route, they will probably need some sort of traffic lights to control the intersection. But, I seriously doubt too many truckers will still drive the 4-5 miles west of the 2&85 (4 mile) in order to get on the temporary bypasss. Especially since the city will not be able to stop truck traffic from taking the shorter route through WIlliston. I still think the Permanent bypass should stay at the 2&85 (4 mile) since the majority of the oil traffic comes up from the south. Just makes more sense. But, I guess time will tell.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you may be right, time will tell.
DeleteBut this is my "world view" of what's going on the Williston hub.
First, the industrial parks have all moved west of Williston. There is the Sanjel-HAL-SLB industrial park east of Williston, but it is now dwarfed by several much larger parks west of Williston.
Second, and it follows: the bull's eye of activity in the Williston hub is west of Williston.
Third, the bull's eye of the Bakken and where the activity will be this summer is south of Williston -- toward Alexander and Watford City.
Fourth, further activity in the Bakken is moving toward Montana. There's a lot of talk about Montana potential (though not all agree).
Fifth, and this supports your argument,slightly: there are a few great oil fields just to the east of Williston. But, most of the east-side oil fields are northeast of Williston and that's where the bypass ends up.
So, having said that, I have no idea why trucks, in general, even need to get to the east side of the city, except for some SLB-HAL-Sanjel trucks. They will all stay on the west side. The geography of Williston and the Bakken's bull's eye could not have worked out better.
Had they built all those new industrial parks east of Williston, it would have been a mess.
By the way, one company seems to have missed the memo: Weatherford is building its new complex, consolidating five locations in to one central location, east of Williston. That's unfortunate for Weatheford.
Yes, there will be some cross-town traffic, but I think the split will be 80-20. Eighty percent of trucks will be servicing oil wells northeast of Williston, north of Williston, northwest of Williston, west of Williston into Montana, and huge, huge, south into McKenzie County.
Remember, also the three (3) ONEOK CRYO plants are north (barely) and west of Williston. They didn't put these plants where the activity won't be; they put the CRYO plants where the activity will be and they could have put the CRYO plants anywhere. The first CRYO plant is northeast of Watford City, but due to the river, will be serviced by trucks on the west side of Williston.
Oh, as long as I'm rambling: a paved, two-lane road, that is STRAIGHT, even if six miles to ten miles longer will beat an unpaved, unpassable road in summer rain and winter blizzards. I drove the original west bypass numerous times and the number of curves were incredible; something not good if truckers are continually shifting up and down.
And you are correct: long turn lanes needed. I did not know how they were going to put in long turn lanes at the original turnoff from Highway 2 west of Williston. Moving this to County Road 1 gives them plenty of land to play with.
Agreed. Weatherford's new facility will be comparable to Schlumberger new facility and similar in size to Halliburton's the way it sounds. But if they have the EAST bypass taking them pretty much directly north from Williston's east side, then I think they should be ok at their new location. I'm guessing a lot of their work goes east to the Tioga-Ray-Stanley-NewTown area's anyway. Many of the trucks will use the new EAST route as well as go east on 1804 to the Tioga turn off, the Ross turn off or continue on to New Town-Parshall areas. Either way, truck traffic will continue to increase and ANY reliever route is better than anything we currently have.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct. Yes, splitting up the industrial parks is just fine. It will all reduce truck traffic. It was to some degree "tongue-in-cheek" when I said Weatherford did not get the memo. But you are absolutely correct. This will all help.
Delete