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Congestion: No solution is perfect By PETER WONG If you think traffic at south Medford's freeway interchange is bad now, a traffic engineer says it will be unbearable in 20 years if nothing is done. But Jim Hanks told a panel of citizens Wednesday night there are solutions, none of them perfect. One combination involves moving the Interstate 5 interchange south from Barnett Road, realigning it, and linking it with a new street connecting Garfield Road in southwest Medford and Highland Drive or Ellendale Drive in southeast Medford. The realigned interchange would be "single point," where one traffic signal would control traffic on two ramps. "Those are the ones that seem to work as well as any," Hanks said. "I think there are problems with most of the rest." Hanks is president of JRH Transportation Engineering in Eugene, which is assisting the Oregon Department of Transportation on the south interchange project. Members of the citizens advisory committee began to sort through the alternatives with an eye toward whittling the list. ODOT has proposed seven alternatives, and Hanks studied two other suggestions. The panel plans to choose at least two alternatives for a closer look as part of an environmental impact statement. Also required in that study is a projection of what will happen to traffic in 20 years if nothing is done. Hanks said actual traffic on some streets, notably Barnett Road east of the interchange, already exceeds the capacity to handle it. "In 20 years, you will have (traffic) backups so big that people will not want to go there again -- and that is bad," he said. "Something has got to be done at the south interchange." Several alternatives turned up problems of their own: A proposed beltline connecting South Stage Road with North Phoenix Road and Foothill Road, eventually linking in the north with Highway 140. Hanks said such a bypass would do little to relieve congestion at the interchange. Use of north-south streets in southeast Medford without major work at the interchange: Although they would relieve congestion, "you'd transfer the freeway's problems to the neighborhoods," he said. A new street (a westward extension of Alba Drive across Interstate 5) to parallel Barnett Road. Alba would be one way westbound, and Barnett one way eastbound. Hanks said it might be cheaper to build and it would not have to cross Bear Creek. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA