Bend to tackle potholes along NE 27th Street

The city of Bend is set to repave 27th Street from Butler Market Road to Rosemary Drive in an effort to fix some areas of the roadway that haven’t seen any major work in two decades.

“The potholes are pretty bad,” Tawnua Riddle, who drives along 27th to work each day, said Tuesday. “I have a bad back, so I feel it a little bit more.”

Driver Amanda Murphy said she wishes the city would have fixed the road a long time ago.

“It’s bumpy, it’s nasty,”Murphy said. “I worry about blowing out my tires.”

June 1st crews will repave the roughly 1.5-mile stretch of road. They’ll also patch up potholes along the road from Highway 20 to Medical Center Drive. It’s expected to cost about $35,000.

City Public works spokesman David Abbas said drivers should expect some delays and congestion during the construction, but two lanes of traffic will be maintained for most of the project.

The project on NE 27th Street will be a “grind inlay” of the travel lanes, then a crack seal, said Joshua Oliver, the city’s utilities asphalt lead. Next season, the city plans a chip seal on the stretch from Butler Market Road to Neff Road. To the south, a paving and chip seal is planned next year on the southern end of the street, from Reed Market to Ferguson roads, he said.

One driver NewsChannel 21 interviewed wondered if all the work is worth the trouble and money.

“It’s not going to solve the problem, because the studded tires are going to mess it up and it’s going to be ripped out and redone again,” Gary Beebe said.

Others said the road is so bad that they welcome the mayhem.

“I would rather deal with the construction than have problems with the road that cause more damage to vehicles and cost more money in the long run,” Riddle said.

Abbas said the project is just one small piece of a larger one planned for 27th Street. The entire stretch of road from Reed Market to Butler Market roads will be redone in the next decade in conjunction with a sewer project.

Abbas said overall, Bend’s roadways have received a “D” grade, which he said means there’s a lot of work to do and many roads are in poor shape. Abbas said the city hopes to eventually move to a “B” grade. He added the city has about $80 million worth of backlogged road maintenance projects that there’s no budget for.

The city is considering pitching to voters a 5 cents-per-gallon gas tax to help fund road improvements. Abbas estimated it would bring in $2.5 million annually.