- After the re-opening of the Galveston/Riverside intersection on Sept. 17, traffic will flow more freely to Galveston Avenue businesses.
The people spoke, and the City listened.
After hearing complaints from business owners at the Sept. 4 City Council meeting, the City announced Friday it will re-open the intersection of Galveston Avenue and Riverside Boulevard on Sept. 17.
10 Barrels Brewery partner Garret Wales told the Council the poorly publicized closure of the Galveston Bridge was having a dramatic effect on business.
“If the numbers from today and yesterday continue, we’ll have to lay off employees. Today…we sent home half of the staff. Twelve people didn’t make any money today,” Wales said at the meeting. “Galveston is a ghost town right now; the streets are bare.”
(Some commenters on our earlier post disagreed.)
Here’s the release, sent out Friday:
In listening to the business community along Galveston Avenue, the City has decided to make a change to the schedule of the project. Through these changes, the intersection of Galveston Ave. and Riverside Blvd. will re-open on September 17. The Tumalo Avenue portion of the project will remain closed as will Riverside Blvd south of the Galveston Ave. intersection.
This change will allow for East-West traffic access from downtown Bend to Galveston Ave.
City Manager, Eric King asked for this change after a careful review of the reported impacts to the businesses along Galveston Ave. The review included City staff, elected officials and affected businesses.
In reaching this decision Eric King has said, “City Council and Staff recognized that our outreach efforts to the businesses primarily impacted by the project fell short of what was necessary for them to adequately plan.”
The intersection was initially scheduled to remain closed through Oct. 31. Do you agree with the City’s decision?
This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2013.
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On the surface, this seems like a reasonable decision. I’d like to hear from folk who think otherwise.
i don’t particularly care about this intersection or this issue, but if Garrett Wales is going to go to city council to talk about convenience vs. hassle, etc., perhaps someone should ask him about the parking situation his business has created in it surrounding neighborhood? that whole area – residential areas included – is a nightmare because it turns out a popular brewpub needs more parking spaces than a sleepy coffee shop! who could’ve seen that coming?
sorry … in ITS surrounding neighborhood. source ppl feel free to fix that rather than post this.
What former galvestonian said.
Wales is quick to bitch with a little (alleged) hit on the till but hasn’t offered the neighborhood much in the way of compensations from all the dough he has been raking in for the past two years to cover the traffic and noise impacts of his bar.
The decision to re-open seems reasonable to me too.