FEATURE Jack Harvel
Transportation Transformation
WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / MAY 20, 2021 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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How the 2020 transportation bond will change travel in Bend By Jack Harvel Cascades East Transit buses line up at Hawthorne Station.
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he 2020 Transportation General Obligation Bond passed in 2020 with a strong majority of support, showing that people in Bend have taken notice of the growing problems with traffic congestion, poor walkability and unsafe biking. So with the bond passed, now what? It took three years for the City to create an implementation plan that would address problems in the community before putting it out to vote. After numerous meetings with stakeholder groups, polling and public forums a Transportation System Plan was released. The 143-page document details the goals, elements, funding strategies and implementation plan for the next decade and beyond. “We thought it prudent to do polling throughout the entire community to see, number one, what they see as top values, not specific priorities, but overarching needs,” Mayor Sally Russell said. “We came to the conclusion that it made more sense to invest in corridors that move people throughout our community, as well as specific fixes throughout our community.” The result is a plan that improves on east/west travel, safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and continued funding of the transit system. Road/Freight Twenty-two of the near-term projects completed under the bond are road projects to alleviate congestion and better connect east and west Bend, and improving intersections that get cluttered with
traffic. The projects include widening lanes, improving highway access and intersection improvements. “There’s a lot of intersection improvements in the GO bond project list—intersection improvements that are constantly an issue for us,” said Sinclair Burr, a project engineer for the City of Bend. Roundabouts and signal improvements include those at 15th Street and Wilson, Bear Creek and Pettigrew and Colorado Avenue at US 97.
City will undertake is the Reed Market Road railroad over-cross that will bypass the railroad tracks and eliminate any need for cars to stop for train crossings. As those who travel near the 15th and Reed Market intersection know, seeing a train crossing during busy commute times means backed-up traffic in many directions. An issue not technically funded by the transportation bond, but that will drastically affect driving conditions, is
“You can see we do not have the space for 50% more cars, whether that’s on the roads in terms of traffic jams and congestion, or off the roads in terms of parking.” —Ariel Méndez “There’s a lot of other projects that improve capacity as well as safety by implementing either signal or roundabout improvement,” Burr said. The City will work with the Oregon Department of Transportation on connectivity to highways—with major projects being ramps at Butler Market Road and Murphy Road. “Right now we just have a southbound on-ramp and a northbound offramp, but getting the other two ramps built is certainly going to improve capacity at that interchange,” Burr said of the Murphy Road projects. Another of the keystone projects the
the US 97/US 20 Corridor. The project will divert a portion of Hwy 97 that passes by the Cascade Village Shopping area to the east, and what was Hwy 97 will be converted into Third Street. The area frequently experiences high volumes of traffic. While 2020 saw lower numbers than years past, Highway 97 still saw plenty of traffic. “Our high month was August of last year was 57,552 vehicles going both directions per day,” said ODOT Public Information Officer Peter Murphy. “It declined last year a little bit due to COVID, I think, but the trend has been steadily upward.”
In June, ODOT will request bids from contractors, and construction is expected to begin in Fall of 2022. “This project will realign one of the most congested portions of U.S. 97 in the City of Bend and improve a section of U.S. 20. The U.S. 97 Bend North Corridor project includes a realignment of U.S. 97, improved intersections, new ramps connections at critical locations to improve local and highway traffic, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities,” ODOT wrote on its website. These projects will alleviate some of the traffic woes of people who are frustrated with more time spent in cars during commutes, but will also help commercial drivers have an easier way around the community. “We have a lot of different delivery vehicles to our residents throughout our entire community. We have delivery vehicles that come into our community that are larger and serve our retailers and our restaurants. We also have a lot of local delivery,” Russell said. “So we need to be sure that people count on those services to be able to move throughout our town and to get the products and the services they need.” But roads only make up a piece of the puzzle, and a lot of the bond will go toward “multimodal,” or more diverse forms of transportation, in the city. Pedestrian/Transit Much of the bond will go toward improving the walkability of the city. Many areas, more often in the older
