At our October 2024 General Membership Meeting, there were a number of questions to the presenters that did not get addressed due to running out of time. We forwarded the remaining written questions to the appropriate presenter. These are the responses we received.

Jackstraw Development

• Where are parking spaces and how many are there?
  • Our plans for parking at Jackstraw include 457 parking spaces located along Lava Rd, in a surface lot north of the building, and in a two-story parking garage inside the Jackstraw building.
• How is parking being handled at both properties?
  • Parking will be shared between the Box Factory and Jackstraw. The upper floor of the garage at Jackstraw is reserved for residents only. The remaining spaces at Jackstraw will be shared with retail users.
• Why allow cars on Lava rather than just bike/pedestrian only?
  • To provide access to parking lots on both sites, efficient traffic flows on both sites, and ease of access to on-site loading areas.

Bend Transportation and Mobility

• How can surrounding streets handle so much new traffic?
  • Developments are required to do a traffic study to look at how their traffic will impact the surrounding streets. If they add more than the street can handle they are required to make improvements such as adding a left turn lane, adding a driveway access, improving a signal/roundabout, and adding walking, biking, and transit connections. The standards for “handling” the traffic do allow for some queuing and delays during the busy morning and evening times. The bottom line, we may not like to hear it, but the streets are really designed to handle much more traffic than most of our streets get.
• What are the plans to reduce the backups at the Reed Market/Bond/Brookswood roundabout?
  • The City’s 5 year capital project list includes a project to improve the Reed Market/Bond roundabout (approx. $4M). The City evaluated a number of alternatives and the two main ones were:
    • Widen to add a second lane to all of some of the approaches.
      • cost of approx. $5M
      • requires retaining walls and property purchase
      • is estimated to last 20 years
    • Use metering signals, like used on highway ramps, to help pace traffic during the busier times to allow more people to enter the roundabout.
      • cost of under $1M
      • requires education on a new tool
      • is estimated to last 5 – 7 years
      • we pilot tested and there is quite a bit of variability in the volumes so some additional programming is needed
    • The city selected the widening option, and the design is scheduled to start in late 2027 to 2028. The project is funded in the capital improvement program and you can track the status at What’s Being Built. Additionally there are upcoming improvements at 3rd/ Reed Market and a new interchange at Murphy that will also help reduce congestion at this location.
• We get traffic from SE Bend on Brookswood. Will there be access to 97 North for people in that area?
  • Yes, ODOT with the City just kicked off the Murphy Parkway ramps project. Design is expected to start in Summer 2025 with construction complete by Winter 2028. Check the Go Bond website for updates at: Go Bond Project Dashboard
• How can speeds be reduced on Brookswood?
  • Reducing speeds is a challenge without a project to change the characteristics of the street. We did take advantage of a recent paving project and restriped to narrow the travel lanes and add buffered bike lanes. We will continue to look for opportunities to lower speeds. The City is increasing our communication and education on speeding in general with the aim to increase speed limit compliance city wide. We will be implementing speed radar enforcement cameras including some near 3rd/Badger.
• On Wilson there is a 35 mph speed limit, should it not be 25 mph since bikes are sharing?
  • Oregon state law requires speed limits are set based on specific characteristics of the streets. It is not just the on-street bike lanes but also the spacing of streets, number of driveways, frontage or sides of buildings, etc. The speed limit is 30 mph west of 15th street and 35 east of 15th street where there are more access points. The characteristics don’t meet the requirements to be posted 25 mph.
• Any change in the future for the 3rd and Reed Market intersection?
  • Yes, the changes could range from restriping and lane reconfiguration to a separated, widened intersection. The exact configuration will be identified in the coming years as part of the Reed Market Corridor Go Bond project that also includes interchange improvements and the railroad overpass. Project planning started this year and the full project is estimated to be constructed by 2030.
    • More information on the planning study US 97 at Reed Market Operations Study and intersection alternatives
    • See the City’s Go bond site for updates on the Reed Market corridor project.
• How are we adapting our snow removal to serve people and bike streets/pathways?
  • The city purchased smaller sweeping and plowing equipment that is designed for shared use paths and separated bike lanes. As the City builds more projects like the Wilson corridor and the upcoming cross town bikeways, we will expand our plowing to include more bikeway/shared use path routes. Since most of our current bike facilities are striped on-street lanes, they get plowed along with the streets.
• What will be done for traffic calming?
  • We continue to implement traffic calming as part of the Neighborhood street safety program and as part of our capital projects. See the Neighborhood Street Safety Program website for the upcoming projects.
• Are the two new roundabouts guaranteed?
  • The new roundabouts at Industrial Way/Bond and Aune/Division are required to be built with the Timber Yards project. There is currently no city project to build them, so they will be built with the development.

You can also download city engineer Janet Hruby’s presentation on transportation projects here.