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The $75 million Woodburn Interchange Project is on track for completion by the end of 2015, well ahead of the fall 2016 date planned originally, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The project’s contractor, Salem-based K&E Excavating, has found a way to compress three phases into two, ODOT spokesman Lou Torres said. The first two phases over this summer and next will shift traffic first to the south and then to the north of Oregon Route 214. A final stage would have included striping and median work for the entire roadway in 2016, he said.

“Instead, the contractor has been able to incorporate much of the third stage in stages one and two,” he said.

The challenge of the approach is more activity in a tight construction zone, including tighter turns at some key intersections off of Route 214, Torres said.

“It just means more work to do within the two years,” he said. “But the contractor is doing a good job.”

Work this week will allow crews to double the width of the bridge at Exit 271, Torres said.

“Once we get that done, we will really be finished impacting Interstate 5,” he said.

K&E has already completed a sound wall west of I-5 and paved the north side of Oregon Route 219. Two other sound walls will be built soon on the north side of Route 214, Torres said.

“We’d like to get those done so when we shift traffic to the north, owners will not hear that much noise,” he said.