Bend City Council approves Greenwood Avenue infrastructure design despite hearing community grievances

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Bend City Council was task with approving the Midtown Multimodal Connections & Streetscaping Progressive Design build contract with K&E Excavating, which includes improvements to Greenwood Avenue - adding bike lanes, eliminating parking on the north side of Greenwood, and eliminating traffic lanes which all falls under, what the city is calling a “Quick Build.”

Ryan Oster, Director of Engineering, for the City of Bend said:

“If you look at the existing conditions on Greenwood, there's some portions of the sidewalk that are only about four feet wide and there's no bike lanes at all. What we're proposing to do is a dramatic improvement over what is there today. With that comes a little compromise. In order to build all of these improvements, we are going to be eliminating the parking on the north side of Greenwood in front of some of those businesses. We will be eliminating one lane of traffic in each direction. We're basically going from a four lane section two or three lane section.”

Community members as well as business owners came out to express their grievances, specifically, unprotected bike lanes and removing parking.

“My issue is putting the bike lane directly on the side of the drive aisle and not just even with the buffers making the drive, it’ll feel that much wider for drivers. That to me is just too wide and it doesn't achieve the safety goals that for the safety, the goals that we know are possible,” said Bend resident, James Teeter.

Other citizens had concerns over parking.

The city says their goal for improvements on Greenwood Avenue is to access lower costs as well as less permanent treatments, to provide safer bicycle and pedestrian access to meet all project goals and stakeholder needs.

Despite push back from the community, Bend City Council approved the Quick Build design, with construction beginning soon, and will take about a month to complete.

The cost of this project is estimated at just under $5 million dollars, and has been included in the 2023-2025 biennial budget.

The city council says they will continue to receive community concerns, suggestions and comments, on this project moving forward.