Document text
Interchange safety issues to move park entrance To keep pedestrians and bicyclists safe when a new interchange is built in south Medford, the state and city will move Bear Creek Park's eastern entrance and widen the Barnett Road overpass. The South Medford Interchange Citizens Advisory Committee sub-team held its final meeting Wednesday to discuss safety concerns regarding the $50 million project. The sub-team is made up of business owners and east Medford residents. The team will make its project recommendations to the Citizens Advisory Committee in May. The advisory group makes its recommendations to the project's solution team, which in turn submits those ideas to the Oregon Department of Transportation. According to project information specialist Gary Leaming, the sub-team favors moving the park entrance on Highland Drive south to Greenwood Street to protect pedestrians. Recommendations also call for adding sidewalks, bike lanes and a landscaped median strip along Highland. The team approved installing a 5-foot sidewalk and 5-foot bike lane on the west side of Highland. The bike and pedestrian lanes would be separated by 10 feet of landscaping. Highland's north and south traffic lanes would both be widened to 11 feet and separated by a 16-foot-wide landscaped median. The east side of the road would include a 5-foot-wide bike lane and 7-foot-wide sidewalk. The sidewalks will meet national disability standards. When the new interchange is complete, Leaming said ODOT will widen the Barnett Road bridge. That work, which includes widening sidewalks and traffic lanes, will take place when the interchange is finished and new, east-west connection roads are complete. The bridge, which is more than 50 years old, also has "deficiencies" that must be addressed before it can be widened. "We don't want to cut off a main collector (street) now," Leaming said of the expansion delay. Other safety aspects under consideration include installing a LightGuard System, an automatic sensor that activates crosswalk strobe lights installed in the road to alert oncoming traffic of pedestrians. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.