A big shift is in store in the coming months for drivers on U.S. Highway 97 near Sunriver.

The Oregon Department of Transportation’s $25 million effort to widen a 3-mile portion of the highway is on track, and all traffic will soon move to new pavement, according to ODOT spokesperson Kacey Davey.

Crews have just about finished paving the highway’s new northbound alignment between S. Century Drive and Vandevert Road, Davey said. Once complete, the new alignment will separate traffic traveling north and south around a forested median, a continuation of the median that currently runs from Cottonwood Road to S. Century Drive.

In the next month or two, all traffic will switch to the new northbound side. That’ll give crews time to make improvements to the current highway, which will become the lanes for traveling south, including the installation of an additional wildlife crossing underpass to match the one crews have added under the northbound side.

Those underpasses allow wildlife to get to the other side of the highway without having to cross the pavement and risk an accident. One such underpass near Lava Butte south of Bend has reduced collisions with animals in the area by as much as 85%, according to ODOT.

“Those have been a huge help in reducing animal and wildlife collisions for us,” Davey said Monday.

Much of the work so far has been clearing areas east of the highway to make room for the northbound alignment. Crews have moved around 130,000 cubic yards — somewhere between 9,285 and 13,000 dump trucks worth — of rock and debris to make way, according to Davey.

The project also includes a redesign of the highway’s intersection with Vandevert Road, which will allow drivers turning to the northbound lanes to cross through the median instead of having to cross southbound traffic and merge into northbound lanes simultaneously.

Now, the main work on site includes the installation of guardrails and traffic control devices, as well as hydromulching the bare slopes. That’s when crews spray a sticky substance filled with seeds across newly cleared hillsides to slow erosion and promote revegetation.

ODOT expects to fully reopen both sides of the highway next summer. Future plans for the area include extending the divided highway another 3 miles south, though Davey said those plans are still in the works.

“We are still looking for funding for that one,” Davey said of a second phase of construction.