News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Even as the City of Sisters earns significant grant support to improve the streetscape on Cascade Avenue, some local citizens are wondering about traffic controls at a couple of key intersections.
For years Sisters residents have been concerned about the intersection of Barclay Drive and Highway 20 at the west end of town - the site of several serious accidents. Likewise, locals worry about the Locust Street/Highway 20 intersection, near Sisters Elementary School.
Funding for traffic controls is not part of the Cascade Avenue project. However, there is funding in the pipeline, through the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) and Systems Development Charges paid to the city by developers whose projects have an impact on traffic.
"There's some money in the STIP, and the city has some money as well for the intersection at Barclay, so that would be first," said City of Sisters Community Development Director Pauline Hardie.
Gary Farnsworth, of the Oregon Department of Transportation, told The Nugget that an intersection project could occur "no sooner than 2013." He said "the assumption is that we would need right-of-way" and the process of acquiring it would take a year.
While some kind of traffic control at the Locust Street intersection is contemplated in the Sisters Transportation System Plan, there is currently no state funding in the pipeline for a project.
"ODOT doesn't have any phase of funding for that, per se," Farnsworth said.
What form traffic control would take at Barclay Drive or Locust Street remains up in the air.
An effort to ban roundabouts on highways fell short in the legislature, and the feasibility of such roundabouts remains under study. The City of Sisters could decide that it wants roundabouts, even though they're not endorsed as a "preferred option" by ODOT.
"We're not in a position to tell the city its needs," said ODOT spokesman Peter Murphy.
If the city went that route, it would most likely trigger a policy decision at the state level.
"The decision would likely be referred up to the Oregon Transportation Commission itself," Murphy explained. "It would be a commission decision whether that would come to pass or not."
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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