News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Hood Avenue is getting its landscaping irrigation and lighting properly tied in to the city grid.
Work crews are wrapping up a lighting and irrigation project on Hood Avenue. That project is just the latest in a slate of projects that have transformed the look and function of much of the city of Sisters.
The project is designed to get the street lighting and irrigation for landscaping on the city grid.
Most of that "had been fed off the adjacent businesses," according to City of Sisters Public Works Director Paul Bertagna.
Eventually the same work will be done on Adams Avenue as a part of parking and other street improvements.
"That will have the whole downtown core set forever," Bertagna said.
The Hood Avenue project is Phase I of a two-phase project.
"Phase II, we're in communication with the local artists in that area and they're interesting and doing some landscape and art displays along Hood Avenue," Bertagna said. "We're just setting up the infrastructure so that is possible."
The City is also converting street lighting from high-pressure sodium lighting to LED bulbs, to save on costs and maintenance with LED's considerably longer bulb life.
The biggest project of the past two or three years was, of course, the complete reconstruction and remodeling of Cascade Avenue, which has garnered statewide notice. And there was also the creation of Fir Street Park and improvements to the City-owned building that houses the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce.
The City has also improved the Barclay Drive/Camp Polk intersection as part of a water/sewer project; improved parking and sidewalks on Fir Street and Spruce Street.
The City has also done extensive ADA work and street maintenance.
Looking ahead, Bertagna's department is focused on wastewater treatment and traffic management.
Wastewater management capacity involves two factors - the ability to treat sewage, and the capacity to discharge the treated effluent.
Bertagna says that the City is fortunate to have the extensive lands of former Lazy Z property upon which to discharge effluent. Discharging on land is far less expensive than treating to a level that would allow discharge into surface water like Whychus Creek - and less prone to difficulties.
"We don't want to discharge to surface water," Bertagna said. "We just don't want to do that. So we're fortunate to have additional land to apply on."
The City currently discharges effluent onto forest land, but that option is approaching capacity.
"We need to have the Lazy Z online in 2018," Bertagna said.
That will solve the discharge end of the capacity equation for the life of a 20-year planning period.
On the treatment end, the City will replace 7.5-horsepower aerators with 15-horsepower aerators to increase treatment capacity. Bertagna says he will be looking for energy efficiency in the design and implementation of the capacity improvements.
Traffic will always be a sticky wicket in Sisters. The downtown will be a choke point for highway traffic, no matter what traffic controls are established at each end of town.
The major project on line right now is the planned roundabout for the Barclay Drive/Highway 20 intersection at the west end of town. That leaves the Locust Street/Highway 20 intersection still in need of improvement.
From Bertagna's perspective, the key to managing traffic in Sisters is "a fully functioning alternate route - a relief valve."
Such a route exists along Barclay Drive. The key is to encourage pass-through traffic to use it, while still getting traffic into the downtown core to support local businesses.
"Right now, it's set up pretty well for westbound traffic," Bertagna says. "We need to do a better job of informing people of that - without taking visitors from downtown.
"Once improvements are made at the two key intersections at each end of downtown in five years or so, "we should have a well-functioning alternate route."
Bertagna said the City is also focused on becoming effectively multi-modal, creating safe pedestrian paths and sidewalks and making it safe for cyclists in downtown traffic.
The City is now in the process of looking out 20 years and revising its five-year capital improvement plan so that it can identify and prioritize projects - and identify how they will be funded.
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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