Citizens ponder Cascade Avenue traffic fix

Last updated 5/2/2000 at Noon

Sisters area residents rolled up their sleeves on Tuesday, April 25, and got to work on solving Sisters' looming traffic problems.

The citizens looked at options ranging from a bypass around the city to a one-way couplet to more moderate proposals such as removing some parking from Cascade Avenue to create extra travel lanes.

The citizens' advisory committee is working on the city's Transportation System Plan (TSP), which will guide road construction and traffic control decisions in the City of Sisters over the next 20 years. The plan is expected to be completed in the fall.

"What it came down to is that we've got a traffic problem 10 to 13 times a year where the system basically breaks down," said city planner Neil Thompson.

Those breakdowns generally occur on summer weekends, triggered by heavy tourist traffic to and through Sisters.

According to Thompson, the citizen planners debated whether it is practical to "build a 365-day facility" such as a bypass or couplet to handle a mostly seasonal problem.

The committee agreed that more can be done, at least for the next five years, to control traffic with relatively simple local solutions.

One proposal is to take parking off of one or both sides of Cascade Avenue. According to Thompson, that could theoretically allow four 12-foot travel lanes.

Realistically, according to Thompson, the plan would likely be to create a center refuge lane for drivers turning left. Drivers stopping to make left turns commonly back traffic up along Cascade Avenue.

The city could also restrict where drivers are allowed to turn left, both from the highway and onto the highway.

Committee member Bob Grooney, who owns Sisters Liquor Store and The Gallimaufry on Cascade Avenue, supports the idea.

However, he favors removing only 92 spaces on one side of the highway, making up the lost parking with improvements on side streets. He thinks completely removing parking from Cascade Avenue is asking too much.

"I think that would create a hardship for merchants and make it hard for tourists," Grooney said.

The committee also agreed that the city should continue to route traffic through the industrial park on busy weekends, perhaps expanding the use of this local alternate route.

"These are simple Band-Aids that will help until a bigger plan is in place," Grooney said.

Coming up with a long-term solution may be more difficult.

The city would have to demonstrate nearly catastrophic failure of its traffic system to qualify for a bypass, according to Thompson. The city would have to try many other solutions, including a couplet, before a bypass would be considered appropriate by state land use planners, Thompson said. Constructing a bypass around the town would be expensive and involve a lengthy land use process.

The citizens' committee was not enthusiastic about creating a couplet, running traffic one way in each direction down separate city streets. One configuration could send east-bound traffic down Hood Avenue while west-bound traffic went up Main Avenue.

"All the different configurations were discussed," Thompson said. "That (a couplet) was not popular in the group at all. I don't think there were any champions of the couplet."

Citizen planners believe that local solutions could make Sisters traffic flow better -- at least for a while -- without resorting to traffic signals.

"People were thinking that, inevitably, eventually a signal would come, but maybe we could delay the time until we need one," Thompson said.

The citizens advisory committee will continue to meet to discuss traffic management options.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

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.