NE Bend residents say detour on Wells Acres Road causing more speeding, traffic, danger

(Update: Adding video, comments from resident and city engineer)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- After a Bend man was injured by a speeding driver over the weekend, some residents who live along Wells Acres Road in northeast Bend said Monday they want the city to enforce traffic safety rules in the area and consider other steps to improve the situation.

John Smith, who lives on Wells Acres Road, told NewsChannel 21 he was working on his travel trailer Saturday on the side of the street when a driver going above the 25 mph speed limit rammed into the back of his RV.

He said he and the driver were taken to St. Charles Bend and treated for their injuries. 

“I was inside rearranging things -- and all of a sudden, I was tossed up against the counter,” Smith said. “Round there like a pinball machine and ended up in the back. I got rug burns and stuff on my arms from it.”

Tina Desouza, Smith’s neighbor, said she was in the area after Smith was injured.

In an email to NewsChannel 21 Saturday, she said, “The traffic on Wells Acres was bad before the road construction detour, but now it is quite literally a freeway of constant traffic of people driving upwards of 50 to 60 miles per hour.”

Smith and Desouza both said they are highly appreciative of the Bend Police Department, but they want the city to do more to enforce traffic safety in the area.

Smith said he was one of the lucky ones to survive an accident, but he is concerned about the children and other people who live in the neighborhood.

He said Wells Acres is often used for cut-through traffic from Butler Market to 27th Street, and it has become even busier, due to being used as a city detour for nearby road projects.

“The city needs to do something before they have some fatalities,” he said. “I hate to say this, but the blood’s going to be on their hands.”

Since April, three intersections on Northeast Butler Market Road in Bend have been closed as part of the city's Empire Avenue Corridor improvements project, including the construction of new roundabouts.

The city says the closures on Butler Market at 27th Street, Deschutes Market Road, Cole Road and Eagle Road are expected to be in place until mid-September. Northeast 27th Street north of Jill Avenue is expected to reopen later this month.

Sinclair Burr, a project engineer with the city, said the roundabout at 27th and Butler Market is expected to be completed in two weeks.

“We’re in the home stretch of the project, so we’re hoping the residents can hold out for a little bit longer,” Burr said.

He said city road engineers are working with the Bend Police Department to enforce traffic laws in the meantime.

“We have been putting up a lot of ‘no thru traffic’ or ‘neighborhood traffic only’-type signs,” Burr said. “We’ve been working with the Bend Police Department to enforce some traffic laws, be it speeding, reckless endangerment, or even just stopping at stop signs.”

Another man who lives along Wells Acres said in the 30 years he has lived in Bend, he has never seen worse traffic and speeding until the detour was put in place.

He told NewsChannel 21 his children went to school at Mountain View High School years ago, and they used to feel safe walking to and from school.

He said his children are grown adults now and have moved out of the area, but he now fears for the other children who live in the neighborhood. 

Smith and some of his neighbors said they plan to write letters to the city, asking officials to consider adding speed bumps and more speed limit signs along Wells Acres.

After similar issues were raised by residents in a southeast Bend neighborhood, David Abbas, the transportation and mobility director of the city of Bend Streets Department, said adding speed bumps is “a tool in the tool box” for neighborhood greenways, but not all local residential streets.

The city says it is pilot-testing speed humps to slow speeds on greenways where existing speeds are around  five to seven miles per hour more than the posted 25 mph speed limit.

Current detour routes for drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists can be found at www.bendoregon.gov/empire.