Medford looks to improve stretch of Foothill Road

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The Medford City Council is expected to authorize a $10 million loan agreement today that will pay for the bulk of a project to widen and improve a roughly mile-long stretch of Foothill Road north of Hillcrest Road. The $10 million will be coupled with a previous $3 million federal grant for the project, which will extend the North Phoenix Road design that now ends at Hillcrest Road where it connects with Foothill. The North Phoenix Road design between Barnett Road and Hillcrest Road now features four lanes, with a center turn lane — or a raised median in some spots — plus bike paths and sidewalks. Medford Public Works Director Cory Crebbin said if the loan agreement is approved, he expected the work to begin relatively quickly, as some of the funding has a construction deadline attached to it. He said he expected it would be completed within two years. The council is scheduled to discuss authorizing the loan during its noon meeting at City Hall. The Foothill work would take place between Hillcrest and East McAndrews Road. The road in that stretch is two lanes with narrow shoulders, running on the west side of the Hillcrest Orchards property. Eventually, Crebbin said, the city hopes to extend the Foothill project to the northern city limits beyond Delta Waters Road. He said there also have been preliminary discussions with the county about extending it farther north, but there are no set plans and no funding for that portion of the project yet. The North Phoenix Road-Foothill Road corridor often has been mentioned as an alternate route for north-south traffic in the event that Interstate 5 is closed by a major accident or natural disaster. The I-5 viaduct in Medford has been identified as a weak link in the freeway system that likely would be unusable in the aftermath of a major earthquake. Crebbin noted that the $10 million loan contains state and federal funding and comes with a low interest rate of 1.61 percent. "I'd borrow $10 million from them myself if I could get that interest rate," he said. "We normally avoid loans, but in this case we'll come out ahead." Bob Hunter is editor of the Mail Tribune. Reach him at [email protected].