The City of Bend later this month plans to remove part of a center median on Greenwood Avenue between the U.S. Highway 97 underpass and 3rd Street, aiming to reduce vehicle backups on one of the City’s busiest east-west thoroughfares.
Construction will take place between Aug. 24 and Labor Day, the City announced Monday. The project involves digging up about 200 feet of rebar curb between First Street and Second Street, said David Abbas, director of the City’s Transportation and Mobility Department. That will require lane closures, but the City aims to keep one lane of traffic flowing in each direction.
The change will lengthen the left turn lane approaching the intersection, which should reduce backups of eastbound traffic heading away from downtown during peak hours, according to a City press release.
Abbas said he hopes extending the turn lane will help ease extra traffic expected on Greenwood due to the Franklin Avenue underpass closure a few blocks to the south. That closure is slated to begin in September and continue until June with a one-month break for the holiday season.
Road construction work began on Franklin Avenue in May, causing ongoing lane closures.
The City plans to replace most of the median with delineators, so the change won’t allow new left-turn movements on to Second Street or nearby driveways, Abbas said.
Status of Greenwood’s ‘road diet’
Abbas said the center median has been there for years — long before Bend in 2024 transformed a six-block section of Greenwood Avenue with a resurfacing that removed one car lane in each direction while adding bike lanes and a turning lane. It also added pedestrian medians and painted curb extensions.
Greenwood’s ‘road diet’ became a flashpoint for frustrations over traffic congestion, growth and change amid a flurry of road projects introducing new safety features for people riding bicycles or walking.
Calling Greenwood a “pilot project,” the City aimed to evaluate performance by studying traffic changes before and after construction. A consultant’s study found that bicycle and pedestrian activity jumped, car volumes decreased slightly and travel times increased by an average of about 26 seconds.
Meanwhile, public feedback on the new Greenwood Avenue was substantially negative: About 80% of people responding to a voluntary City survey said they “Hate it.”
But City engineers said conditions might not have been the best for experimenting, as nearby road closures and construction were probably affecting traffic flow. City councilors agreed to keep the design in place for more studying.
“I think it’s important for us to give this a chance and really see how it performs without the closures,” Bend City Councilor Mike Riley said in September.
Consultants collected another set of data in March following the reopening of Olney Avenue, a neighboring east-west corridor to the north, according to Ryan Oster, Bend city engineer. The road had been closed for a year to fix utilities and construct bike lanes and shared-use paths.
Oster said he plans to present the data from this spring at a City Council meeting Sept. 2.
Beyond that, there are no specific plans to continue studying Greenwood Avenue, according to Oster. The City is no longer contracting with the consulting firm, and while there are plans to roll out new automated traffic counters, timing and location remain uncertain.
At some point, the City Council will have to whether to make the Greenwood Avenue ‘road diet’ a permanent design.
“Right now we just put paint on the ground with those vertical markers,” Oster said. “If we wanted to formalize this and make it permanent, we would pour a concrete curb there.”
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I enjoy the new Greenwood Ave design. I find it much easier, as a driver, to enter Greenwood from side streets in the area, and to see pedestrians and bicyclists. The single lane in each direction is wider without worrying about the car next to you or in parking spots. Keep the design!
I guess 80 % does not cut it with the council what does that tell you
The median between 3rd and 4th should be removed as well. Traffic going west backs up just as bad. How about also enforcing all the people cutting in vs the right turn lane between greenwood and second.
Nothing like representative government. 80% of your constituents hate the greenwood diet, Ha ha. Let the people eat cake while we do our thing and ignore them.
We were told it was a test of traffic engineering that would be evaluated with results impacting other projects. Traffic runs slower; accidents increased, very few bikes use the expanded lanes and fewer will in the winter. Over 80 percent of survey respondents “hated it”. Now putting lipstick on the pig. The new intersection at Wall and Portland also shows the city’s contempt for drivers. Thank you mayor K. and our city council.