On Wednesday, November 6th, current and past Oneida County Commissioners celebrated the end of construction of Old Highway 37, The Narrows. The initial design started on the $7M roadway project in 2009. Approximately 3.7 miles of Old Highway 37, located adjacent to Rock Creek, was reconstructed. Located about 6 miles north of Holbrook, the roadway has been closed since April and reopened November 15th.

In the mid-2000s, Oneida County applied for federal transportation funding to reconstruct a portion of Old Highway 37. In 2009, the County was awarded approximately $2.5M in funding through the federal Surface Transportation Rural Program (STP). Due to project needs, the STP funding was increased to $6.39M. In addition, the County was awarded three grants totaling approximately $650,000. The grants were from the 2012 Public Lands Highways Discretionary program, US Forest Service Set-Aside Grant, and Local Rural Highway Investment Program (LRHIP) grant. No County or local dollars were spent on the project.

The project faced many challenges associated with its location adjacent to Rock Creek and the canyon slopes. Rock Creek flows adjacent to the roadway and crosses under the roadway in four locations. There was concern that the roadway could have been lost due to the storm water runoff from thunderstorms. These water runoff events would overtop the roadway and had started to undercut the roadway along the banks. The roadway construction project raised and widened the roadway, adjusted the roadway horizontal curves, and replaced and increased the size of the culverts on Rock Creek. Also, the US Forest Service is currently restoring Rock Creek and will improve the wetlands and stabilize the creek banks from further erosion.

The Local Highway Technical Assistance Council administered the project funding. The project was finished on time and under budget. The roadway contractor was Western Construction, the design engineer was Keller Associates, the construction manager was Civil Science.