Parks board recommends traffic change

If the Sisters City Council approves the recommendation forwarded to them by the Park Advisory Board (PAB), the traffic ingress and egress for Creekside Campground (CCG) will be changed for a trial period.

Currently, traffic both accesses and leaves the campground on South Locust Street, across from the east end of the Buck Run neighborhood. A secondary, unmarked route in and out of the campground is from Buckaroo Trail on the west edge of FivePine onto Desperado.

Under the new proposal, all traffic into the park will be off of Highway 20 onto Buckaroo Trail, with a right-hand turn onto Desperado and into the campground. All campground traffic will exit onto S. Locust Street with a right-turn only to take them out to Highway 20. By splitting the ingress and egress between two locations, the impact of the CCG traffic is spread out over two neighborhoods, rather than all of the traffic impacting only the residents to the west and south of the CCG.

At their August 5 meeting, the PAB heard the results of the traffic study conducted by Kittelson and Associates, traffic engineers. The study was done in response to requests from the neighbors closet to the park access, in an effort to ameliorate the impact of CCG traffic on the neighborhood. Residents of the Buck Run and Coyote Springs neighborhoods have long objected to "lost" RV traffic wandering through their streets, parking along Locust and Tyee, creating noise, congestion, exhaust fumes and safety issues.

The traffic study involved the traffic volume and flow at two intersections - Highway 20 and Locust Street and Highway 20 and Buckaroo Trail. To no one's surprise, the Highway 20/Locust intersection is failing and will continue to fail in its current configuration regardless of any CCG traffic changes. There is decent sight distance based on the speed of traffic. There is potential for a sight problem for a high vehicle possibly being blocked by the Sisters Pumphouse sign.

The Highway 20/Buckaroo Trail intersection is well below capacity and could easily handle making that the start of the ingress to the CCG. There is a sight distance problem to the east with the current sign, fence and vegetation that should be corrected no matter what, according to the traffic engineer. Sight distance to the west is adequate and there is both a right-hand and left-hand turn lane onto Buckaroo from Highway 20.

According to the Kittelson report, whether leaving all ingress/egress for the CCG on Locust or splitting it with the entrance off Desperado, the Highway 20/Locust intersection will continue to fail and the other intersection that is adequate will continue to be adequate.

The worsening conditions caused by the CCG for the Buck Run and Coyote Springs neighbors will hopefully be reduced by changing the entrance to Desperado, and allowing only right-hand exit onto Locust.

Under the proposal adopted by the PAB - on a vote that was not unanimous - the change in traffic patterns into and out of the campground will be for a trial period, yet to be determined, after which the results of the change will be evaluated.

The recommended ingress/egress change forwarded to the council also needs the approval of the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department. The City community development department has been working on a new master plan for the CCG and is waiting to finalize it to include any approved traffic changes. The CCG Master Plan will be incorporated into the new overall Parks Master Plan for Sisters.

The Highway 20/Locust intersection will be addressed in the new City Transportation System Plan (TSP) but currently there is no money in the ODOT budget to make any major changes now.