Can Sisters solve traffic conflicts?
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Last updated 6/11/1996 at Noon
Big events emphasize these problems, but conditions can get rough on any summer weekend.
According to City Planner Neil Thompson, there's probably not much Sisters can do about the traffic on Highway 20 through town. The Oregon Department of Transportation has said there is no money to build a bypass and Sisters rejected a one-way couplet.
But Sisters area residents may soon be able to find a way around the Cascade Street gridlock on what Thompson calls "a kind of local bypass."
The route of the "by-pass" would be from a turnoff on Highway 20 just east of the Three Winds Shopping Center, across the National Forest-managed triangle to the McKenzie Highway and on across the northeast corner of Pine Meadow Ranch along a new extension of Hood Street.
The Forest Service will develop an access road from Highway 20 to its planned East Portal kiosk on the triangle of land at the junction of Highway 20 and the McKenzie Highway.
According to Mike Hernandez of the Sisters Ranger District, the portal project will probably have to be conducted in phases. The project will be constructed with Federal Highways Department money and the Forest Service hasn't been told yet what the final allocation will be. Hernandez said that costs for the project may be greater than the money available.
If the job is undertaken in phases, Phase I will provide a deceleration lane on eastbound Highway 20, a 90-degree turn-off and a two-lane road partway across the triangle. The road would then be completed in Phase II of the project to connect Highway 20 and 242.
At the same time, Pine Meadow Ranch Development Co. plans to extend Hood Street through the northeast corner of the ranch property and link up in a 90-degree intersection with the McKenzie Highway.
According to Hernandez and Steve McGhehey of PMR Development Co., if everything goes smoothly, PMR will contract to complete the connection between Highway 20 and the McKenzie Highway. The whole connection could be completed as early as mid-1997.
As McGhehey described it, the route would allow someone coming to town from Black Butte Ranch to pick up their mail to dodge around the downtown core and get to the Post Office without encountering Cascade Street traffic.
The route conjures images of a potential one-way couplet, but planners say the 90-degree intersections make that impossible.
"It won't work as a couplet," Thompson said.
Although he believes "a couplet is a good solution to our problem," Thompson said the Sisters transportation plan has moved away from that possibility.
Thompson noted that as traffic volume increases, the turn-off from Highway 20 across the triangle will have to be regulated.
"We're setting ourselves up for the inevitability of a traffic light," Thompson said.
A similar "local bypass" is envisioned for the north side of town.
Thompson said that a route from Highway 20 to Camp Polk Road is part of the transportation plan, although it probably won't become a reality for at least three years.
That route would go through the Sisters Industrial Park and across the Barclay Ranch. Thompson said that development of such a road will be a condition for development of the Barclay Ranch property.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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