Bypass not feasible, but southern connector could be doable

While the highway version of a southern bypass might be off the table for the City of Marysville, it doesn’t mean officials aren’t thinking about alternative options for traveling around the city’s south side.

Late last month, a traffic accident on U.S. 33 closed down the highway for nearly 11 hours and at the following council meeting, officials asked how feasible it would be to build a road that would mirror the highway south of Marysville.

In short, Kyle Hoyng, the city’s engineer, said that exact thing would be unlikely as it would probably cost millions, if not billions of dollars. But Hoyng said there are plans and even some early drafts of a possible roadway that drivers could take one day, should something like that happen again.

“We do show a potential route basically connecting Scottslawn Road over to State Route 4, just south of Bunsold Middle School,” he said. “The location of that road is not exact. As development comes, it can shift north or south, east or west.”

The route is one piece of the city’s larger thoroughfare plan, a policy document that guides decisions by the city and developers to improve the city’s transportation network. Adopted in 2023, the plan looks at existing issues, how to predict where future issues may occur and how to establish goals and objectives related to the transportation system.

When the study for the plan began in 2020, it looked at where the problem areas would be in 20 years and one of those areas, if no improvements were made, was U.S. 33 north of the city. So, figuring out a way to bypass that to alleviate traffic problems became part of the discussion.

In this case, officials asked themselves what would be the natural bypass if an accident happened on U.S. 33 within the city. Hoyng said the obvious path would be, if a vehicle is traveling west, to exit the highway at Scottslawn Road.

“If you want to go west, we would have to create or build a whole new road, basically from Scottslawn over to (Route) 4 and once you’re on 4, you can take 4 north to hop back on (U.S.) 33,” he said. Those early drafts show the road breaking off Scottslawn east of Weaver Road and extending west, crossing Routes 736 and 38, a total of around four miles of new roadway. But Hoyng stressed that the current plan could also shift.

The engineer said the plans are driven largely by funding, what happens with development and how development would help pay for improvements like that.

“If no more growth happens on that south side, then it’s going to have to be 100% funded by either the city, the federal government – the Federal Highway Association – or some grants or funding opportunities,” Hoyng said. “The good thing is, knowing where those roads are gives us the ability to work with developers and work with them on improvement plans to resolve those issues.”

Agreements dealing with the Marysville East and Marysville South projects have already allowed the city to plan for some of those improvements and Hoyng said those kinds of conversations will continue as the city evaluates new developments.

Some kind of southern bypass has been in the last couple versions of the plan. Hoyng said the city revisits the transportation network and its functionality every eight years or so.

While the bypass is on the city’s radar, a few more items – funding, mostly – have to align before officials can move forward.

“It’s kind of just a guide and something we looked at and said, ‘Hey, if an opportunity comes up or if the funding comes available and it’s a priority, we thought about it and kind of have a ballpark idea of where that road should go,” he said. “And then we can get into the details at that time.”