What's Happening Now
Virtual Open Houses:
A live presentation and Q&A session took place on Zoom the evening of Thursday, June 10th. You can watch the video here.
A separate, self-guided open house featuring an interactive map covering the construction schedule and project details is available here:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6c526f12bc934701b3a2731e0bab4188
Construction Update:
The city's contractor Landis & Landis Construction LLC has started mobilizing. Tree cutting, tree trimming, clearing and grubbing on SW Capitol Highway will begin on June 14, starting at SW Spring Garden Street and moving south, focused on the areas where retaining walls will be built. Two-way traffic will be maintained on SW Capitol Highway with flaggers - be prepared for some delays. The week of June 21, pipe work will begin in SW Garden Home Road at SW 42nd Avenue, moving east. This will require closure of SW Garden Home Road, with local access only. Notices have been sent to directly affected residents for all of the above work.
The second half of July will feature about six nights of night work at SW Multnomah Boulevard and SW 40th Avenue to install a pipe underneath the intersection. This requires a noise variance. Residents within two blocks of this intersection received noise variance notices on June 8.
A major southbound detour of SW Capitol Highway traffic onto SW Garden Home Road, SW 45th/48th Avenues, and SW Taylors Ferry Road will begin in August and last for most of the remainder of the 18-month project. This detour cannot begin until the SW Garden Home Road pipe work is complete. PBOT will issue a Traffic Advisory in advance of the detour.
Construction news and project updates
Project Description
This project will improve safety and mobility for all modes of travel while improving stormwater management, protecting water quality in local streams, and updating water supply infrastructure to meet modern demands. Portland’s Bureau of Transportation, Bureau of Environmental Services, and Water Bureau are working on the project together to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance service delivery to the Portland community.
The project will add a continuous sidewalk and protected bike lane on the east side of SW Capitol Highway, and a multi-use path on the west side of the street, from SW Taylors Ferry Road to SW Garden Home Road. The project will collect and convey stormwater runoff through inlets and pipes to four new stormwater treatment and detention basins located nearby. The project also will upgrade the SW Capitol Highway water main to a larger, more seismically-resilient pipe between SW Marigold Street and SW Garden Home Road, with additional main replacement on SW Carson Street.
Please note that this project involves traffic detours. June-July 2021 will involve a series of closures of SW Garden Home Road and SW 40th Avenue between SW 45th Avenue and SW Capitol Highway, as well as several nights of night work at SW Multnomah Boulevard and SW 40th Avenue, for pipe installation. Then starting in August 2021, all southbound traffic on SW Capitol Highway will be diverted to SW 45th and 48th Avenues via SW Garden Home Road, and returning to SW Capitol Highway via SW Taylors Ferry Road. This includes TriMet buses. This detour will remain in place for the remainder of the 18-month project to help the contractor complete the project in a more safe, efficient fashion. Northbound traffic and TriMet buses will remain on SW Capitol Highway throughout the project. PBOT will issue Traffic Advisories in advance of these major traffic changes.
Project Background
Providing sidewalks and bike lanes on this segment of SW Capitol Highway has been a community priority for nearly 30 years. This segment, between SW Garden Home Road and SW Taylors Ferry Road, hosts over 8,000 vehicles per day, is served by TriMet’s #44 bus line, and currently has no sidewalks, bike lanes, pedestrian crossings or standard stormwater facilities.
The city’s project development process for this corridor began with the Capitol Highway Plan in 1996 and continued with the SW Capitol Highway Plan Refinement Report in 2011 and the Capitol Highway Corridor Stormwater Concept Design in 2016. In each of these cases, the city faced challenges in developing a buildable project with limited funding and challenging physical constraints.
In 2016 and 2017 sufficient funding came together from the voter-approved "Fixing Our Streets" ten-cent gas tax, development charges, Environmental Services, Water Bureau, and the State of Oregon, allowing the project to advance. The project team worked closely with the community from 2016 through 2020 to refine the design and discuss property and neighborhood impacts and benefits.
Project Funding
This joint PBOT-BES-PWB project is funded through the Fixing Our Streets city gas tax, Transportation System Development Charges, Oregon Lottery-backed bonds authorized by the 2017 State Legislature, Bureau of Environmental Services funds, and Water Bureau funds. Fixing Our Streets is contributing roughly $6.6 million of the total project budget of $27.5 million, making this the largest project funded by the Fixing Our Streets program. The construction contract value is approximately $14 million, with remaining funds attributed to planning, design engineering, right-of-way acquisition, project management, and construction management and inspection.