October 27, 2009
 
Peter Murphy, the ODOT Spokesman for the Central Oregon region is here to talk about changes to the north highway 97 corridor project and its future. The project has been under discussion for the last several years. It's important because it will dictate future traffic and congestion in Bend's NE land, Juniper Ridge area. The steering committee for the project came to a consensus earlier this year that it liked two options: an East option where Hwy-97 would move to the East, parallel with the rail road tracks. Also a West option, which would reroute Hwy-97 to the West side of Cascade Village Mall.
 
 
The project was running originally an estimated between 320 and 410 million dollars. Now because of a tight state budget, the steering committee realizes, there's no way they'll get the state dollars to do it. So they're taking both options, East and West, and mixing them to cost less, around 200 million dollars total for the project is the hope. For a perspective, the Redmond Reroute cost 90 million dollars.
This will likely mean cuts to the future highway path's exits, and other changes. Tonight, we're talking about where this project is at, and how it will move forward in the future. Next thing, the steering committee and citizens advisory board will get together on Nov. 5th, next Thursday, and talk about it.