Locust Street speed limit changed

The Sisters City Council recently approved a change in the speed limit for North Locust Street (also known as Camp Polk Road) from Highway 20/126.

The speed limit will remain the posted 25 mph from the highway to Green Ridge Street. A 40 mph "transition zone" will be added from Green Ridge to about 0.2 miles north, just outside the Sisters City Limits.

Frequent travelers of Locust Street/Camp Polk within the city limits know that the area has had a 25 mph limit for a long time.

Apparently the City of Sisters posted the lower speed sometime in the 1980s without authorization from the Oregon Department of Transportation, which is charged with setting speed limits state-wide.

According to ODOT's Vicki Freeman, Region 4 Traffic Investigator, the county requested a review of the Camp Polk Road speed limit on September 29, 1994. ODOT sent a traffic investigator, Eric Brown, out to review the situation in 1996.

It was recommended at that time that the Camp Polk speed limit be reduced from 55 mph to 45 mph, according to Freeman, but nothing was done.

It was also discovered that the City of Sisters had improperly posted the section of road from the north city limits to Highway 20/126 at 25 mph, when 35 mph was the speed last approved by ODOT on November 28, 1973.

The city and county were informed, according to Freeman.

On May 14, 1998, the county again requested a review of the Camp Polk limit from the city limits out to Wilt Road.

On November 18, 1998, City Administrator Barbara Warren wrote ODOT asking that the in-town limit be reduced from the ODOT-approved 35 mph to the actually-posted 25 mph.

On January 13, 1999, ODOT Traffic Investigator Freeman went out and reviewed the traffic. She recommended no change from the 55 mph and 35 mph then approved.

The city and county disagreed, and on May 18, 1999, Freeman revisited the area with Paul Davis, ODOT Investigations Coordinator from Salem.

As a result of the "re-review," according to Freeman, ODOT will keep the 55 mph speed from Wilt Road to the Sisters city limits.

This will be followed by the 40 mph "transition zone" which extends to Green Ridge Street, until drivers encounter the finally approved 25 mph speed within the city limits.