Ferry St. Bridge street work finished.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

Eugene drivers have one less construction zone to deal with, now that the city has completed and opened a new intersection at the southern end of the Ferry Street Bridge.

Workers finished the project and opened it to traffic Tuesday morning. It adds a new light to control traffic at Eighth Avenue and Mill Street, an extra lane on the bridge off-ramp and two-way traffic on a piece of Eighth Avenue that was one way.

The work, by Wildish Construction of Eugene, is the last piece in $6 million of improvements meant to improve access to the new U.S. Courthouse. Other elements of the overall project included an extension of Hilyard Street taking it north of the courthouse and connecting it to Sixth Avenue, rebuilding Eighth Avenue between Mill and Hilyard streets, extending Ferry Street from Broadway to the new Hilyard extension and building a multiuse path along Hilyard connecting to the river bank trail system.

The main route through the area, which includes parts of Mill Street, Broadway and Franklin Boulevard, has been repaved.

Completion of the intersection project eliminates a lane closure that had been in effect since late summer, detouring Ferry Street Bridge traffic headed south to Eighth Street onto Sixth instead. Now, southbound drivers coming off the bridge have a dedicated right-turn lane onto westbound Eighth and two lanes continuing onto Mill Street, which curves into Broadway and then Franklin Boulevard.

But they will need to be aware of the new light. That signal is at the base of the Ferry Street Bridge where traffic makes the transition either onto Eighth Avenue or toward the University of Oregon on Mill/Broadway/Franklin Boulevard.

The signal is needed to allow cross traffic on Eighth Avenue between downtown and the courthouse. Also, the one-block piece of Eighth between High Street and the bridge off-ramp is now two-way instead of one-way.

The rebuilt intersection is the last piece of the courthouse traffic improvements, although some landscaping work will continue until late November. Work on the entire project began in 2006 and included two major phases.