Couplet funding opportunity slides past as city debates plan

Sisters area residents who dislike a proposal for a one-way couplet on Hood and Main Avenues may not have to worry about seeing a couplet in the near future.

The City of Sisters' difficulties in getting a plan together for the couplet are threatening to kill the city's chance of winning state funds for the estimated $2 million to $3.5 million project.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) told the city earlier this month that it missed the deadline to present proposals for the couplet in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) for 2008 to 2009.

The City of Sisters hired Cogan Owens Cogan (COC), an engineering consultant, to work with the city and a Couplet Advisory Committee in August to create a couplet refinement plan. The plan is supposed to lay out the most feasible design for a couplet that will relieve congestion on Cascade Avenue during peak periods.

Eileen Stein, City Manager, said the plan should have been completed by May so the city could present it to ODOT for acceptance into the STIP.

If the couplet had been included in the STIP it would have had a good chance of receiving funding for the entire estimated $2 to $3.5 million project, Stein said.

But a series of couplet committee meetings has hit one speed bump after another in trying to navigate through highway standards, possible configurations and the interests of the community.

ODOT officials sent back the city's proposal for a westbound Hood Avenue and eastbound Main Avenue in February saying the sharp right hand turn that would be needed to access Main Avenue at the Locust Street/Cascade Avenue intersection would not comply with federal regulations for a state highway.

As a result, the city council voted unanimously in May to increase the contract price for its engineering consultants by 53 percent ($18,462) to conduct additional analysis. The price increase will cover the costs of additional CAC meetings, public workshops and research.

City staff members are crossing fingers in hopes the additional money and time spent to design a traffic relief plan that will fit the community and meet ODOT approval will not become a wasted effort.

There is still a chance the couplet could make it into the STIP -- if the couplet plan can be put in the place of another transportation project within the next 12 months.

"I hoped we would have been finished in time to be eligible for the 2008 to 2009 STIP," Stein said. "But it will take one-and-a-half years to go through the process of finalizing the 2008 to 2009 STIP, so there is some remote chance we will be finished with the CAC project at that time."

If the couplet plan is completed soon, the city could try to swap it with a project that proposes to add a third passing lane on Highway 20 near the Sisters KOA Campground, Stein said. Or the city could apply for a later STIP cycle, but that cycle may not favor this type of project.