Ah, road construction. No matter when it comes, or how long it delays us, it’s going to be a perennial source of conversation. But this month, with the double whammy of lots of snow and the closure of key streets that allow Bendites to get around the center of town, the City of Bend has outdone itself. If you’ve been downtown in recent weeks, you’ve seen it: lines of cars and trucks, backed up on Greenwood Avenue as far as the eye can see. Turning into the fray from Harriman or other side streets? Forget about it.
The traffic snarls are a combination of a “road diet” on Greenwood that limited the formerly two-lane, each-way road to one way, each way with a turning lane and the closure of the Olney and Wall intersection just north of downtown. This all means that drivers coming from the west side have few options but Newport/Greenwood or Reed Market to get into the downtown core. Those coming from the east side are also limited to Greenwood or the single lanes that are Franklin Avenue. It’s a mess.
City officials say the closure of Olney and Wall — to be under construction until June! — is necessary to not only add in the pedestrian and bike safety features that voters supported under the Transportation GO! Bond, but also for water and sewer improvements that could not be put off any longer.
But all drivers are going to remember is that the projects aimed at improving transportation for everyone NOT in cars is creating a maelstrom in downtown Bend. And this will go on for months.
Don’t get us wrong. We are in support of expanding access to all forms of transportation — biking, walking, rolling, bussing and carpooling — that can help the city manage the inevitable addition of more traffic as the city grows. We still believe in the “if you build it, they will come” model of encouraging people to get out of their cars to access the city core. And, it seems, voters believed in it enough, too, when they supported that GO! bond and all its active transportation projects.
Still, this all feels like the perfect storm. The rollout of so many traffic-snarling endeavors at once, which leaves Greenwood being the only major arterial for getting in or out of downtown, or to evacuate in an emergency, is certainly one way to radicalize people against alternative forms of transportation all together.
Traffic calming, as city officials have patiently tried to explain, is going to come with some discomfort. But this is not uncomfortable. It’s painful and it makes people downright angry.
Right now, the road diet efforts on Greenwood Avenue consist of several plastic barriers intended to designate a bike lane from the one lane of traffic going each way. Would it be so difficult, during this time of increased pressure on Greenwood, to temporarily remove those barriers and to return the street to two lanes, in the name of safety, as some of our readers have suggested? Cities elsewhere employ strategies to move cars in and out of downtown areas at certain times of the day. What if one lane for cars going one way in the morning might be changed, via signs and signals, to two or more lanes at night, for example.
We are not traffic engineers, but we do keep a pulse on the mood of the city. And right now, going over voters’ pain threshold is a good way to get people to abandon their support of projects like the GO! bond, now and in the future.
This article appears in The Source Weekly February 13, 2025.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
It is abundantly clear that city officials, both elected and administrative, did not plan well. They blithely said these projects will come with discomfort. Yet, why not plan to alleviate some of the issues?
Not enough attention has been paid to the side effects of conducting so many closures at once. Most cities find ways to manage construction and traffic flow without closing roads entirely.
The “road diet” is an obvious example of poor planning. At a time in which so many other roads are closed, it has only pushed traffic into residential neighborhoods creating safety and traffic concerns in surrounding areas.
Where I disagree with the editorial is that the “if you build it, they will come” model is based on hope not data. Some obvious questions to ask when considering policies that try to change public behavior:
1. With our population projected to grow significantly and policies intended to significantly increase housing construction, will vehicular trips decline regardless of creating artificial hurdles like eliminating lanes?
2. Despite the general public’s hope that people will use alternative forms of mobility, what does the average American do to transport themselves distances greater than a ½ mile?
3. What is the population density within ½ mile of downtown? 1 mile downtown? 2 miles of downtown? What is the likelihood they will drive?
– what is the unintended consequences of creating artificial traffic? Perhaps a declining willingness to go downtown?
4. What is the volume and percentage breakdown of vehicular traffic on Greenwood that…
– is crosstown and does not stop downtown?
– includes a stop downtown?
5. What is the percentage mix of forms of mobility (i.e., car, bike, walk, public transport/bus, other, etc.) that leads to a stop downtown? Or, crosstown?
– How does that mix change based on key factors (see Q6.)
– What is the current capacity of Bend’s public transportation (buses)?
– And, what is the percentage of ridership daily?
6. How do mobility behaviors change when…
– Weather is factor – both snow and heat?
– Nighttime vs. Daytime? Week vs. Weekend?
– Elevation change is a factor?
– Surrounding areas outside downtown core are not conducive to walk/bike?
– Shopping (w/ purchases larger than a book, et.)?
Have these questions been asked and answered?
I just find it to be incredibly poor planning for the city to have narrowed down Greenwood first. Why not complete the Portland mess (that has been going on for how long), then reduce the Greenwood lanes? As someone that works downtown this has been incredibly frustrating.
We’ve been talking about this in our household as well! The intentions by the city are good, the execution has been poorly thought out (this seems to be a theme here in Bend, generally speaking).
There is already a strong anti-bike sentiment here in Bend when it comes to commuting and the city has made it worse by implementing the Greenwood road diet and then shutting down some major east/west travel routes. There are so many comments about there not being that many bikers to warrant bike infrastructure, but we’ve had friends visit in Spring/Summer/Fall who have all commented on how many more bikers they see than in their respective towns.
Our household mainly travels by bike and we love the increased safety on Greenwood. I’m not sure why Olney needs better bike safety from Wall to 2nd (it’s well lit, wide, and with the median is one of the safer ways to move east/west. But overall, we don’t love that now the city has created an even more strained relationship between bike commuters and cars by creating this traffic mess with multiple projects going on at once.
I also agree with the taking down of the poles on Greenwood during the winter/winter storms. Right now that road real estate is unusable by anyone – car or bike – because plows can’t approach it and the city clearly isn’t interested in investing in a small plow to take care of bike lanes.
We’ve been talking about this in our household as well! The intentions by the city are good, the execution seems to have been poorly thought out (this seems to be a theme here in Bend, generally speaking).
There is already a strong anti-bike sentiment here in Bend when it comes to commuting and the city has made it worse by implementing the Greenwood road diet and THEN shutting down some major east/west travel routes. There are so many comments about there not being that many bikers to warrant bike infrastructure, but we’ve had friends visit in Spring/Summer/Fall who have all commented on how many more bike commuters they see than in their respective towns. However, even the heartiest of bike commuters would struggle to utilize a bike lane that remains unplowed through several snow/ice cycles.
Our household mainly travels by bike and we love the increased safety on Greenwood. I’m not sure why Olney needs better bike safety from Wall to 2nd (it’s well lit, wide, and with the median is one of the safer ways to move east/west. But overall, we don’t love that now the city has created an even more strained relationship between bike commuters and cars by creating this traffic mess with multiple projects going on at once.
I also agree with the taking down of the poles on Greenwood during the winter/winter storms. Right now that road real estate is unusable by anyone – car or bike – because plows can’t approach it.
Overall, it would be great to have better infrastructure in place – in this case a plan and method for clearing bike lanes in the winter so that this valuable travel space doesn’t go completely unused, especially during multiple east/west shut downs for other projects. This feels very similar to removing parking minimums prior to addressing the fact that Bend is very car-reliant and will need better/more substantial public transportation options before we can expect people to trend away from their cars.
Why not make bike lanes open (and closed) during peak and non peak commute hours? Or better yet run them seasonally like Cascade Lakes hwy. An unplowed bikelane is a prime example of poor city planning.
Thank you for keeping the pulse on this hot topic. There are two additional elements to understanding how this could have been done better. The first element is how this was poorly, communicated by the city, not only to residents using one of the only east west corridors but more importantly to the residents, affected by the additional burden of heavy traffic and congestion. The city expected residents to learn information from road signs that were posted two weeks before the beginning of construction. There were zero individual notices sent to residents of Portland, or Newport avenues, nor was there a campaign to alert citizens leading up to the disastrous start of this project. In fact, the city didn’t coordinate with the Oregon Department of transportation, to create signage, decreasing the impact until there was ask outcry cry from citizens on social media. There is still no signage on Highway 97 urging drivers to move right and allow those coming off of Lafayette and other downtown detours to more easily merge in the right lane, to decongest the downtown area.
The second critical miss to this project was the timing. It was deliberately done during the winter months instead of the summer, when biking and pedestrian traffic could have benefited from the revised roadways. It would have been a forcing function to encourage adoption, and instead created more resentment towards Californian drivers (as if there could be any more).. and backlash towards bike lanes and efficiencies.
I am certain that there are also ways that this project could have been phased / detours implemented in early days .. in order to reduce the impacts
The questions posed above are excellent and the city should answer them publicly. The other data point should be a survey of downtown businesses including what effect has the road disruptions had on those businesses in the downtown core. Have customers commented? Is business better or worse?
I too got caught out on this the other day. I had some chores to do downtown, and was coming in from the north on the parkway. I exited at Revere only to find a sign blocking my access to the downtown…
I had Google Maps running, and it was suggesting I take a later exit, but it always does so I ignored it. But as soon as I was on the offramp I saw something strange out of the corner of my eye. It was suggesting I make a u-turn and get back onto the parkway.
Of course, as soon as I came around the bend at the end of the offramp and saw the barrier I knew what was up. I agree with one of the other commenters that the city should have coordinated better with ODOT to get a flashing sign onto the parkway letting folks know that the Revere offramp shouldn’t be used to access the downtown.
After the chores were done I went onto Greenwood to get back out of the downtown and, of course, was immediately caught in the maelstrom that others, and the article, mentioned. However, it wasn’t that epic. I think it took me 2-3 lights all the way up at 3rd St. to get me out of the downtown (I hit the backup right after Bond St.).
OK, so all things considered am I massively bugged by this? Not really. It was a small distraction that, all in all, didn’t cost me more than 10 minutes. I’m sure most of the folks that need to commute through this area have already found ways to accommodate the delays and detours from the construction projects.
At the end of the day we’ll end up with a better city, as we usually have after these types of projects. Let’s all take a breath, enjoy what’s on the other side, and remember the small trials we had to go through to get there. For all the growth and change, it’s still Bend.
To answer a previous comment/question, our business Downtown has been down 17% compared to last year since the Olney closure went into effect.
This is so on point – stuck by the school on Newport trying to get to the East side is typical – and yet your letter of the week is from a supporter of this mess … the City needs to figure out that there is more traffic now than ever – OH – and don’t forget the narrowing of Greenwood to Franklin to one lane each way this summer will create even more chaos – where are the actual planners and engineers who can foresee the havoc we will be facing, definitely not here in Bend.
And through it all the Bicycle Mayor remains silent (although I’ll bet she drives her Subaru to Costco to buy toilet paper).
There are all kinds of tools in the traffic engineer’s toolbox. Unfortunately, Bend has a liberal city council who thinks you shouldn’t be driving cars.
– One-way streets
– Roundabouts (an A+ to Bend for having these)
– Disallowing pedestrian crossings at certain intersections
– Disallowing bikes on certain roads
– Disallowing left turns at certain times of the day
– Reversible lanes
– Allowing left turns after yield (get rid of the arrow)
– Yield signs rather than stop signs
Be creative! And this problem will be a lot easier solve if people stop thinking of growth as inevitable.