Should metered traffic lights be added to a busy SW Bend roundabout?
(Update: adding video, KTVZ.COM Poll, comments from City of Bend engineer and city councilor)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) --If you've traveled through the Reed Market Road/Bond Street/Brookswood Boulevard roundabout during peak traffic times, you're likely aware of how heavy and tricky the traffic can be.
"You see cars backed up all the way back up above the Old Mill and all the way back to the Parkway." said City of Bend Director of Engineering Ryan Oster said Wednesday.
City officials are considering several ways to alleviate congestion. One of the options discussed at the recent Bend City Council Subcommittee meeting was adding metered traffic lights to the roundabout.
"It's very similar to what you see on ramps onto highways where you have the lights that just go back and forth." Oster said.
The use of metered signals - first tested at that roundabout nearly five years ago - would hold back vehicles on one lane from immediately entering the roundabout, to improve traffic flow on another leg where congestion backs up traffic.
"We only had a couple of days to test it, and the results were mixed." Oster said.
Oster says implementing metered signals to roundabouts has been effective in other states, including Washington. Adding the signals would cost the city around $750,000, and they would only switch on during peak traffic hours.
Another option under consideration is expanding the roundabout by adding additional lanes. This solution is more costly, with an estimated price tag of around $5 million.
"If we continue to grow at the rate we are, then maybe in five or `0 years we're going to have to widen the roundabout anyway," Oster said.
At the subcommittee meeting, city councilors were open to signals but wanted to have a full council discussion before any decisions are made.
City Councilor Ariel Mendez said, "It's important to look at the long-term picture and the short-term picture to see what we can do about both."
Mendez mentioned other overall alternatives for reducing traffic, including driving off-hours, carpooling, walking or biking.
"All of those are going to be cheaper than adding the widening lanes all across the city," Mendez said. "It's kind of a never-ending cycle of fixing the bottleneck. And then quickly, we have to fix this bottleneck because another one has popped up. So it feels like Whack-A-Mole."
If you have feedback on this or other traffic issues, councilors encourage you to reach out to council@bendoregon.gov.
