State, city and community leaders joined the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to celebrate the groundbreaking of the 82nd Avenue Major Maintenance project today, bringing improvements to a 2.5-mile stretch of 82nd Avenue, one of the most dangerous streets in the city.
Construction on PBOT's 82nd Avenue Major Maintenance started recently and will continue to ramp up through the winter, as part of the bureau's multi-year Building a Better 82nd program. In the coming weeks, the public can expect to see periodic lane closures for underground utility work along 82nd Avenue and on side streets in the area. This fall, construction of ADA corner ramps, sidewalks and driveways will begin.
Safety improvements are focused on some of the major community destinations in the corridor, including McDaniel High School and the Jade District.
Over 10 years (2012-2021), there were 14 traffic deaths and 122 people seriously injured in crashes on 82nd Avenue south of Lombard Street within the City of Portland. Preliminary estimates for 2022 to 2023 include four more traffic deaths on this city-designated high crash corridor.
In the 10-year period, more than 90% of traffic deaths were people walking or biking, or people in cars turning left at locations without signals. Two-thirds of all serious injuries were pedestrians or bicyclists, or people in cars turning left or crossing at locations without signals.
Maintenance upgrades include new pavement, from curb to curb at the NE Fremont intersection, from NE Siskiyou to Schuyler streets, from SE Mill to Franklin streets and SE Schiller Street to Foster Road. Some sections of roadway will be completely rebuilt, from the ground up. The project will also build new or improved traffic signals or pedestrian crossings at seven intersections and widen or repair over 10,000 linear feet of sidewalk.
The project will improve access to TriMet's Line 72, the most-used bus route in Oregon.
At $55 million, The Major Maintenance Project is the largest of more than a half dozen projects PBOT will build on the corridor through 2026. This project is a key piece of the $185 million overhaul of 82nd Avenue that the legislature approved in 2021, with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), Oregon Department of Transportation, and the Portland Clean Energy Fund. The funding was an essential part of the agreement to transfer the road to PBOT control in 2022.
Source: Portland Bureau of Transportation