Bend crash spotlights N. Highway 97 safety issues
(Update: Adding OSP info on crash details)
Highway 97 was blocked for over an hour, and restricted for two more hours Tuesday morning by a four-vehicle injury rear-end crash on the north end of Bend, authorities said.
Deschutes County 911 dispatchers confirmed the crash occurred shortly after 8 a.m. at Highway 97 and Cooley Road.
Oregon State Police said Wednesday a southbound semi truck failed to stop and hit a white cargo box truck that was stopping for backed-up traffic north of the intersection, near milepost 133.
The cargo truck then struck a Ford pickup. which in turn struck a Toyota pickup. The injured semi driver, identified as Robert Magennis, 67, of Vancouver, Wash., was taken to St. Charles Bend, where he was in fair condition Wednesday, according to a house supervisor.
By 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, authorities reopened the northbound lanes and allowed one lane of traffic through in each direction, but the southbound lanes were still closed until shortly before 11 a.m.
In 2015, the Oregon State Legislature voted in House Bill 3402, allowing for a speed limit increase on Highway 97.
Melody Lood lives near Cooley Road, off Highway 97, and said Tuesday she believes the speed limit is too high for that area.
Lood said she has called in many accidents while living near the highway in just the past six years.
“Everybody comes way too fast into the town,” Lood said. “So, I figure, slow it down, bring the speed limit back down. People, if they want to live, they’re going to have to slow down.”
According to the Oregon Department of Transportation, about 60,000 cars can travel that stretch of highway on a given day.
ODOT Region 4 spokesman Peter Murphy said there have been 48 reported crashes near Cooley Road between 2011 and 2016, none of which have been fatal.
“Things are going to happen, it’s just a reality. So we are trying to fix it with our new Bend north corridor,” Murphy said. “It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it is going to make these crashes reduce, if not go away.”
The Bend North Corridor project aims to make the Cooley Road intersection safer, and to move the highway just to the east of where it is currently located, with a northern extension of Third Street (Business 97) to the west of the realigned parkway.
Murphy said ODOT does have some of the funds secured for this project, but no timeline has been set.
Our new KTVZ.COM Poll asks what you think the speed limit should be on Highway 97 north of Cooley Road — keep it at 65 mph, lower it to 55 mph or to 45 mph, to match the speed limit south of the intersection? Find it halfway down the right side of our home page.
