Chief
04-19-2008, 05:08 AM
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/120857731170220.xml&coll=7
After years of bottleneck, Clark County residents say it's about time
Saturday, April 19, 2008
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian Staff
After more than a decade of stop-and-go debate, one of Interstate 5's thorniest bottlenecks is about to get its fix.
Construction will start Monday on widening a segment of the highway near Delta Park in North Portland. Two southbound lanes will expand to three in a $70 million, 21/2-year project that is the costliest highway revamp in the Portland area this year.
By Halloween 2010, the third lane will open, taming a traffic hobgoblin known especially by Clark County commuters who suffer it daily. Now, as southbound I-5 motorists reach Delta Park, they go from driving on three lanes down to two -- and then back to three lanes about a mile south, near Lombard Street in North Portland.
Depending on the time of day, there's heavy traffic throughout -- often at a crawl in the two-lane segment.
Delta Park is one of several choke points on I-5 in North Portland, a path used by 134,000 vehicles a day. An Oregon-Washington task force in 2002 recommended expanding Interstate 5 to three lanes in both directions between Portland and Vancouver.
Regional planners say they want Portland area highways to have no more than three through-lanes in each direction, however, to avoid creating bottlenecks elsewhere and to help limit traffic and tailpipe emissions linked to global warming.
The Delta Park project will make the southbound roadway a seamless three lanes.
The project includes $1 million in "community enhancement" grants, including tree planting and other projects intended to mitigate impacts of the highway.
"The people on the other side of the river are going, 'It's about time,' " said Dave Thompson, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, referring to Clark County residents who commute to Portland. "This could have been done faster in the past, but it wouldn't have the public acclaim from the neighbors that this project has had."
North Portland neighborhoods, including Kenton and Piedmont, were heavily involved in planning the project and future neighborhood intersection improvements.
About half of the money for the Delta Park expansion comes from bonds approved by the Oregon Legislature in 2003, with the other half coming from federal sources.
Improvements to I-5 began to the north, in Washington. The task force had urged a widening of the freeway between 99th Street and Interstate 205 in Vancouver, where a $44.4 million project took the highway from two lanes to three lanes in each direction. Completed in 2006, it also rebuilt two interchanges and added two auxiliary lanes, short paths that connect entrance and exit ramps.
They then urged a fix to I-5's Columbia River bridge, a $4.2 billion proposal to replace the old spans with a new bridge, light-rail extension and six interchange replacements. That's becoming a reality, with recent federal backing.
But farther south, in Oregon, the commuter nightmare known as Delta Park topped the list.
Delta Park is familiar to anyone who listens to morning traffic reports. The transition from three lanes to two lanes clogs the highway daily, said Corky Collier, executive director of the Columbia Corridor Association, which represents businesses and neighborhood groups along Columbia Boulevard.
"It's been obvious for a long time that that needed to be widened to the extent that the rest of I-5 is widened," Collier said. "If you have three lanes north and three lanes south, then it makes sense there should be three lanes in the Delta Park area, too."
Nearby neighborhoods have not opposed the widening project, said Larry Mills, a lifelong resident of the Kenton neighborhood who served on an advisory committee on Delta Park several years ago.
But neighborhoods are eager to see some changes to local streets in the area, especially the heavily congested intersection of North Denver Avenue and North Argyle Street.
Columbia Boulevard, a popular truck route, has no northbound on-ramp onto the highway. So truck traffic cuts through the Denver-Argyle intersection, crossing the Interstate MAX line, to get to Denver Avenue to reach the highway.
"You want to get truck traffic out of a residential community, and the way they have it set up now, it all comes through that very congested intersection," Mills said. That mess could complicate aspirations for a two-acre mixed use redevelopment planned there, Mills said.
The transportation department and its neighborhood advisory committees identified about $50 million in such projects for Delta Park-area neighborhoods. But with limited money for highway projects and inflation eating away at highway budgets, the neighborhood projects have been packaged into a second, later project that still has no money or schedule.
The $50 million price tag is likely to grow with inflation.
The Delta Park project doesn't just widen the freeway southbound. It will bring the rest of the I-5's on- and off-ramps in the area up to current standards, said Adam Markell, assistant project manager for the transportation department.
The Columbia Boulevard southbound on-ramp will be widened from one lane to two, enabling more cars and trucks to line up to get on the highway, Markell said. A longer, gentler slope will make it easier for trucks to merge onto the highway, he said.
Work on the west side will continue through summer 2009. The 36-foot roadway will be widened to 54 feet, including the new traffic lane, a 6-foot shoulder by the inside lane and an 12-foot shoulder by the outside lane.
Motorists can expect to see orange cones and signs indicating construction work starting Monday, Thompson said. But the highway's two southbound lanes and three northbound lanes will remain open from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout construction, he said.
Intermittent lane closures will occur at night. Starting Monday night, motorists could be limited to one lane southbound in the Delta Park area, depending on the construction schedule.
In about eight months or so, crews will need to shut down the two southbound lanes completely, but only for 20-minute intervals, likely between 2 and 5 a.m., Thompson said.
From summer 2009 to fall 2010, crews will turn their attention to the east side of the highway, where they will widen shoulders but not add traffic lanes. The three lanes northbound currently are bordered by shoulders only a foot wide on each side, so stalled cars block traffic.
A single stalled car can back up traffic for miles, thwarting commuters and truckers alike, Collier said.
"The impact on the local economy is tremendous," he said.
Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532; dylanrivera@ news.oregonian.com For environment news, go to http://blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen
After years of bottleneck, Clark County residents say it's about time
Saturday, April 19, 2008
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian Staff
After more than a decade of stop-and-go debate, one of Interstate 5's thorniest bottlenecks is about to get its fix.
Construction will start Monday on widening a segment of the highway near Delta Park in North Portland. Two southbound lanes will expand to three in a $70 million, 21/2-year project that is the costliest highway revamp in the Portland area this year.
By Halloween 2010, the third lane will open, taming a traffic hobgoblin known especially by Clark County commuters who suffer it daily. Now, as southbound I-5 motorists reach Delta Park, they go from driving on three lanes down to two -- and then back to three lanes about a mile south, near Lombard Street in North Portland.
Depending on the time of day, there's heavy traffic throughout -- often at a crawl in the two-lane segment.
Delta Park is one of several choke points on I-5 in North Portland, a path used by 134,000 vehicles a day. An Oregon-Washington task force in 2002 recommended expanding Interstate 5 to three lanes in both directions between Portland and Vancouver.
Regional planners say they want Portland area highways to have no more than three through-lanes in each direction, however, to avoid creating bottlenecks elsewhere and to help limit traffic and tailpipe emissions linked to global warming.
The Delta Park project will make the southbound roadway a seamless three lanes.
The project includes $1 million in "community enhancement" grants, including tree planting and other projects intended to mitigate impacts of the highway.
"The people on the other side of the river are going, 'It's about time,' " said Dave Thompson, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, referring to Clark County residents who commute to Portland. "This could have been done faster in the past, but it wouldn't have the public acclaim from the neighbors that this project has had."
North Portland neighborhoods, including Kenton and Piedmont, were heavily involved in planning the project and future neighborhood intersection improvements.
About half of the money for the Delta Park expansion comes from bonds approved by the Oregon Legislature in 2003, with the other half coming from federal sources.
Improvements to I-5 began to the north, in Washington. The task force had urged a widening of the freeway between 99th Street and Interstate 205 in Vancouver, where a $44.4 million project took the highway from two lanes to three lanes in each direction. Completed in 2006, it also rebuilt two interchanges and added two auxiliary lanes, short paths that connect entrance and exit ramps.
They then urged a fix to I-5's Columbia River bridge, a $4.2 billion proposal to replace the old spans with a new bridge, light-rail extension and six interchange replacements. That's becoming a reality, with recent federal backing.
But farther south, in Oregon, the commuter nightmare known as Delta Park topped the list.
Delta Park is familiar to anyone who listens to morning traffic reports. The transition from three lanes to two lanes clogs the highway daily, said Corky Collier, executive director of the Columbia Corridor Association, which represents businesses and neighborhood groups along Columbia Boulevard.
"It's been obvious for a long time that that needed to be widened to the extent that the rest of I-5 is widened," Collier said. "If you have three lanes north and three lanes south, then it makes sense there should be three lanes in the Delta Park area, too."
Nearby neighborhoods have not opposed the widening project, said Larry Mills, a lifelong resident of the Kenton neighborhood who served on an advisory committee on Delta Park several years ago.
But neighborhoods are eager to see some changes to local streets in the area, especially the heavily congested intersection of North Denver Avenue and North Argyle Street.
Columbia Boulevard, a popular truck route, has no northbound on-ramp onto the highway. So truck traffic cuts through the Denver-Argyle intersection, crossing the Interstate MAX line, to get to Denver Avenue to reach the highway.
"You want to get truck traffic out of a residential community, and the way they have it set up now, it all comes through that very congested intersection," Mills said. That mess could complicate aspirations for a two-acre mixed use redevelopment planned there, Mills said.
The transportation department and its neighborhood advisory committees identified about $50 million in such projects for Delta Park-area neighborhoods. But with limited money for highway projects and inflation eating away at highway budgets, the neighborhood projects have been packaged into a second, later project that still has no money or schedule.
The $50 million price tag is likely to grow with inflation.
The Delta Park project doesn't just widen the freeway southbound. It will bring the rest of the I-5's on- and off-ramps in the area up to current standards, said Adam Markell, assistant project manager for the transportation department.
The Columbia Boulevard southbound on-ramp will be widened from one lane to two, enabling more cars and trucks to line up to get on the highway, Markell said. A longer, gentler slope will make it easier for trucks to merge onto the highway, he said.
Work on the west side will continue through summer 2009. The 36-foot roadway will be widened to 54 feet, including the new traffic lane, a 6-foot shoulder by the inside lane and an 12-foot shoulder by the outside lane.
Motorists can expect to see orange cones and signs indicating construction work starting Monday, Thompson said. But the highway's two southbound lanes and three northbound lanes will remain open from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout construction, he said.
Intermittent lane closures will occur at night. Starting Monday night, motorists could be limited to one lane southbound in the Delta Park area, depending on the construction schedule.
In about eight months or so, crews will need to shut down the two southbound lanes completely, but only for 20-minute intervals, likely between 2 and 5 a.m., Thompson said.
From summer 2009 to fall 2010, crews will turn their attention to the east side of the highway, where they will widen shoulders but not add traffic lanes. The three lanes northbound currently are bordered by shoulders only a foot wide on each side, so stalled cars block traffic.
A single stalled car can back up traffic for miles, thwarting commuters and truckers alike, Collier said.
"The impact on the local economy is tremendous," he said.
Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532; dylanrivera@ news.oregonian.com For environment news, go to http://blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen