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Public hearing focuses on Garfield Street plan It sounds innocent enough, but a street-extension project before the City Council tonight could decide the future of a quiet southwest Medford neighborhood. Traffic engineers want final permission to punch Garfield Street through to Highway 99. Redefined as a "bypass arterial" five years ago, the residential street would thus become a minor Westside detour around Stewart Avenue. The public hearing gets under way at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The bypass would instantly go from minor to major, though, if the Oregon Department of Transportation decides to hook up Garfield to a new freeway overpass. Last month an ODOT traffic team narrowed down to three a number of proposals for relieving congestion at Medford's notorious south Interstate 5 interchange. The interchange is widely considered the region's worst traffic bottleneck. Two of the proposals involve Garfield. They call for a new freeway overpass, linking Garfield on the westside to Ellendale Drive or Highland Drive on the eastside. The idea is to bypass the current interchange, improving east-west traffic circulation. But before any of that can happen, Garfield has to connect to Highway 99. The street dead-ends at South Holly Street near Jefferson Elementary School. In December the city bought portions of railroad track along Highway 99 for more than $400,000. The city needed the right-of-way for a new intersection, near Bear Creek Corp. headquarters. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA