Bond / Reed Market Roundabout Update
On Thursday November 12, the Bend City Council discussed which design to pursue for the Bond/Reed Market Roundabout improvements. For clarity, attendees at the October 29th Open House were shown “Option 1” and “Option 2” which were actually “Alternative 1” and “Alternative 3” in the presentation to City Council. So, what were these alternatives?
- Alternative 1 is a full two lane roundabout, both entrances and exits. A note is included that suggests this will be more expensive and that for the eastbound exit lanes “…current traffic volumes do not require the additional lane.”
- Alternative 3 is a full two lanes for Bond-Brookswood traffic with Reed Market having dedicated right turn lanes added. In other words, a single-lane exit for both east and westbound Reed Market.
- Alternative 2 would be mostly a full two-lane roundabout except for the westbound exit onto Reed Market would be one lane. This saves money and lessens the impact on the Deschutes Landing neighborhood.
- Alternative 4 was the two-lane entrance and one-lane exit design.
- Alternatives 2 & 4 were not planned to be included in the presentation.
City Council directed the Project Engineer Kevin Kramer to pursue Alternative 3, but to build longer retaining walls in the southeast corner to more readily allow for future expansion. Essentially, this would be make it easier in the future to change Alternative 3 into Alternative 2, by allowing for eastbound Reed Market to have a full two lanes. Alternative 2 is the best option, at this point, for the SCNA Board’s desire to facilitate wildfire evacuation. SCNA’s Chairman thanked Kevin Kramer for his thoughtful presentation, and asked him to provide Council with not only the incremental cost for the extended retaining wall, but also the incremental cost to install Alternative 2 now.
If you would like to reach out to Council, e-mail them at council@bendoregon.gov. Please start your e-mail with thanking them for accelerating the timeline for this project and for listening to the community’s input on wildfire evacuation, long queues, and cut thru traffic concerns. If you are still concerned about wildfire evacuation, please ask them to consider not only the extended retaining wall in the SE corner, but also going ahead and building both exit lanes and adopting Alternative 2. It really is a good compromise between Alternative 1 and 3. Also consider including Kevin Kramer in the e-mail, kkramer@bendoregon.gov.
- The strongest feedback he has from the community is the desire for quick construction (~3 months) using a full shutdown of the intersection. The City also desires to rapidly get this done before they start the Reed Market Bridge over the railroad near 9th Street.
- For eastbound wildfire evacuation, the City plans to direct half of the traffic to turn south or north off Reed Market while half goes straight under Alternative 3.
- The design is based on current traffic conditions and it’s predicted growth and does not anticipate any efforts to improve Reed Market from the Roundabout to US 97 nor the possible addition of a new vehicle bridge further south. Additional apartment building permits were also not considered.
- Bond-Brookswood traffic volumes are slightly higher than Reed Market Road.
- Long queues of vehicles will occur, particularly on Reed Market under Alternative 3, when surges of traffic arrive. Metered traffic lights were considered to clear these queues. Based on the 2020 test that solution was rejected, though conduit will be installed for possible future road sensors and lights.
- A request was made to move the bike path and sidewalk to the backside of the power station to create more room on the Roundabout’s westside on Reed Market and to have a safer path away from vehicles. The gradient was determined to be too steep to meet construction standards.