Council reviews traffic plan

A draft transportation plan, couplet and all, was presented to the Sisters City Council on Thursday, March 15.

The council will review the plan in workshops and pubic hearings. The draft will then be presented to other agencies prior to being incorporated in the city's comprehensive plan. The $100,000 document was paid for by the Oregon Department of Transportation.

David Knitowski, of David Evans and Associates, author of the plan, told the council that there were some areas where the plan did not represent views of the Citizen Advisory Committee.

For instance, the CAC recommended taking parking off Cascade and installing left turn lanes to improve traffic flow.

"When I went to ODOT with their (CAC's) recommendation, ODOT asked that we go to the businesses," Knitowski told the council. The business on Cascade were opposed to losing the parking.

Consequently, the recommendation of the advisory committee was overruled and another solution given a higher priority. That solution, retaining parking and widening sidewalks, will also be compatible with a couplet.

Councilor Tim Clausen asked: If only 20 percent of the traffic was "through" traffic on the highway and 80 percent had a "local" destination, why was so much of the emphasis on providing a solution for the through traffic?

ODOT responded that high priority projects such as a signal on Cascade near the elementary school would benefit local drivers. Knitowski did not have facts on how a signal would affect congestion.

The couplet was assigned a lower priority, but once it is in the transportation plan, even as a low priority, ODOT can build a couplet whenever it wants, according to ODOT planner Peter Russell.

Council member Dave Elliott seemed to agree with Mayor Steve Wilson that a couplet may be the best long term solution to transportation problems. Wilson said he didn't want people 20 years from now to ask why this council had not tackled the problem.

However, Wilson and Elliott also indicated they felt another couplet configuration, such as on Main and Hood, might have fewer negative impacts and provide greater traffic capacity.