The North Bend Eagle

 

How-to-get-from-here-to-there debate lasted decades

by Nathan Arneal
Published 9/4/24

It was promised in 1988, with efforts begun in earnest in 1994. Three decades later – a whole generation – the four-lane Highway 30 expressway is now open.

Drivers can now go from Columbus, past North Bend and Fremont and into Omaha, all the way to 90th and Dodge without coming across a stoplight.

“It’s great,” North Bend mayor Rod Scott said. “They should have had it done 20 years ago. We’ve had to drive on such a poor road all this time. I’ve probably said I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see it, but they got it done.”

The “not in my lifetime” refrain has been common through the years of delays and debate. For some, it came true. Mike Eason listed off names of several people involved with the project in the early years that are no longer with us.

Eason lives on the old Highway 30 – renamed Platte River Road this summer – just under 2 miles east of North Bend. As the chairman of the Cotterell Township Board, he was part of the U.S. 30 Advisory Panel tasked with choosing a route for the expressway in 2005.

Despite occasional frustrations and hold ups, Eason said he knew the expressway would be built some day.

“It had to,” he said. “All you had to do was look at Highway 30 and the huge amount of traffic. I had times when I had to wait 30 to 35 cars to pull out of my driveway. Then you think of grain trucks and heavy vehicles trying to get out on that road– very dangerous.”

Since 1990, Eason said, there have been five traffic fatalities within a mile of his house. A member of his family witnessed or were the first to arrive on the scene for several of them.

The first plan put forth in 1994 followed the path of the old Highway 30 with a bypass around the north side of North Bend. The U.S. Advisory Panel ended up considering eight different options for the new alignment before settling on the route along County Road S, a little less than 2 miles north of the old highway.

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