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The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

Plans move forward for Sisters couplet
By Jim Cornelius

As summer traffic jams annoy travelers and challenge local drivers' skill at maneuvering across town, the City of Sisters is moving ahead with plans to create a couplet running on Hood and Main avenues.

City Administrator Eileen Stein said staff is working on an RFP (Request for Proposal) for a consulting firm to create a "refinement plan" that will firm up the ideas for a couplet presented in the city's Transportation System Plan (TSP).

"They will be working with actual road widths and road lengths," Stein said. "It will be just about as complete as you can get short of going into actual road engineering."

With that in mind, Stein hopes to find a consulting firm with traffic engineering expertise. She also wants the selected firm to have a background in urban planning -- a background that will help make the couplet pedestrian- and bike-friendly and not simply a swift-flowing thoroughfare through town.

Stein acknowledges that the couplet will only be judged a success "if it's done right." She said the refinement plan will wrestle with "what does ‘if it's done right' look like."

The Transportation System Plan notes that there is a "fragile community consensus" for a Hood/Main couplet. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) prefers a Hood/Cascade couplet, Stein noted.

Some still favor the idea of a bypass, although that possibility has been completely dismissed as unfeasible and enormously expensive.

Stein said the city council will soon solicit participants for an advisory committee for the refinement plan.

"Part of the purpose of the advisory committee is to raise these issues," Stein said. "I think it is important that the refinement plan confirm that the community preference is Hood and Main."

All of the options in the TSP keep Cascade Avenue operational as a two-way street. According to Stein, on less busy days or during the off-season, many travelers would likely continue to use Cascade Avenue.

However, if a Hood/Main couplet is established, that would become the officially designated Highway 20 and Cascade Avenue would revert to the status of a city street.

The refinement plan is expected to cost about $50,000.

A U.S. Forest Service grant will cover $30,000 and the Sisters City Council has budgeted the remainder.

According to Stein, it is unlikely that funds will be available for the actual engineering and building of a couplet until the 2008 planning cycle of ODOT.

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