The Oregon Department of Transportation issued its Request for Proposals for a consultant for the 82nd Avenue of Roses Implementation Plan March 31. The deadline for applicants was April 21. The RFP listed some of the duties to include project management; public and stakeholder outreach and communication; transportation planning; conceptual design engineering; traffic, financial and land use analysis; and graphics and visual imaging. The consultant’s contract will last approximately 15 months, according to the RFP.
“I would suspect we’ll have a consultant in the next couple of months,” said Mike Mason, ODOT’s project manager for the plan. “The planning will begin in the summer. That doesn’t mean it will take that long to select a candidate, but we have to negotiate a contract and do all that, so that always takes a while. Once we gear up to start, I feel comfortable saying it will be this summer, once we get going.”
Members of the 82nd Avenue Improvement Coalition, a volunteer group working on improvements for the busy corridor, met in March. The group was pleased that the RFP had been issued, even though it was delayed, according to Brian Wong, chair of the coalition. This winter ODOT had said the consultant would be on board and the community work groups created by March. Wong said ODOT’s original timeline on hiring had to be adjusted.
“This is our job as a group: to keep an eyeball on this stuff and make sure it actually happens,” Wong said. “We have to acknowledge that the whole point of us being here is to keep issues and the planning process as a priority so that they do get implemented, even though they get delayed. We need to expect delays on many things. We just have to make sure that they don’t get delayed forever.”
At that same meeting, the group discussed Oregon House Bill 2621, which would allow an electronic speed enforcement camera on high-crash corridors. Wong said there are 10 such corridors in the state, and 82nd Avenue is one of them. Gabriel Graff, from the Portland Bureau of Transportation, spoke at the meeting, requesting members’ support of the legislation. “No one likes the “Big Brother” element to this piece, but we all recognize that we don’t like high-speed traffic moving up and down that corridor, either,” Wong said.
After some discussion, the group agreed by consensus, with one abstention, to support the bill. However, the group required that the drafted bill keep its current language, which requires an electronic board 100 yards before each camera that will post drivers’ speeds and inform them that they’ll receive a ticket if they continue over the speed limit.
“The goal is to reduce speed,” Wong said. “It’s the result that matters, not the mechanics of it.”
State Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer presented information to the group about a bill she is sponsoring that would ban exclusionary zoning in housing in Oregon.
Members of the group also heard Nan Stark from the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services discuss the formation of town centers at different points along 82nd Avenue.
John Mulvey volunteered to become the communications chair for the group. Mulvey set up a Facebook page for the group at www.facebook.com82ndavenue. “We’ll continue to leverage the social media pages to communicate with everyone [about] what’s going on,” Wong said.
In order to attend a meeting organized by Madison High School students that includes city officials discussing concerns about adults businesses along 82nd Avenue and human trafficking, the 82nd Avenue Improvement group canceled its regularly scheduled May meeting.
For more information, contact Brian Wong at wong.brian57@yahoo.com.
