So the inevitable start to the controversial Highway 92 bypass is under way. The reasoning for this bypass, we were told, was because of all the truck traffic that flowed through Granite Falls. The noise, pollution, congestion (hardly) and danger of all the truck traffic passing by the high school and middle school needed to be changed.

Granite Falls and the county decided we need a bypass around the city (after giving permission to another gravel quarry that most didn’t want and increased the truck traffic). The “public” meetings were held (none about whether we want one, but that you are getting one, now pick the route).

The route will start just southeast of town. They are going to cut down two small forests to the south and north of Burn Road instead of using the adjacent pastures. It will travel by the new high school and two elementary schools and ruin the property and value of numerous homes. The speed limit will be 40 mph (read 50 mph) and the once beautiful, peaceful view the homes have had will be of a cement wall.

This wall was decided on because of costs. Initially the road was supposed to be lowered and would have allowed deer to cross over to the large green belt near where I live. Now the deer will probably get hit and killed by the trucks as they try to figure a way around or over this barrier.

The wildlife and people lose again. Instead of waking to the sound of birds and the Stilly we will hear and smell the traffic as it flows by. The exhaust fumes and dust will replace the amazingly fresh air that comes down the river valley and streams up and over into this part of Granite Falls. I think that this is what most of the folks who live in this community feel about the alternate route. I do, anyway.

Maybe the bypass will be so wonderful to travel that all of the tourists who use the oxymoronic National Scenic By-Way will just bypass Granite Falls altogether and it will lose all the tourist dollars. Now there’s irony for you.

Russell Jacobson

Granite Falls