ODOT officials presented a safety-focused redesign for the US 97 O'Neil Junction corridor, saying the project is intended to reduce fatal and severe-injury crashes by adding a tall median barrier and reconfiguring travel lanes.

"The real reason we're doing this project is that this intersection in particular has been, a top 10% SPIS site," Omar Ahmed, ODOT Region 4 Central Oregon and Lower John Day area manager, told the council, referring to the agency's Safety Priority Index System. "We continue to have them."

Ahmed and Abby Driscoll, ODOT project manager, said the current plan would remove a southbound passing lane north of the junction, install a concrete traffic separator at the O'Neil–Pershall intersection to channelize turns and construct a continuous tall median beginning just south of Northwest Galloway and ending north of O'Neil Junction.

Councilors pressed ODOT on local traffic impacts. Several said narrowing the southbound approach could push more commuter traffic onto neighborhood streets in front of the school and through Terrebonne. One councilor said the change would reroute morning commute traffic "through town and in front of the school," a concern echoed by others.

Driscoll said the project was scoped to address the most likely severe-crash mechanisms: high-speed left turns, crossover crashes and impaired-driving collisions. She said traffic engineers had modeled turning movements into and out of the junction, but had not studied secondary effects on the city and county road network. "They haven't obviously done studies on city [and] county system and where those folks are then going from there," she said.

Councilors asked whether alternatives had been considered, including roundabouts or shortening the length of the proposed barrier to preserve the existing two-lane stretch. Ahmed said roundabouts were unlikely to meet freight-mobility requirements and could present operational concerns for large trucks. ODOT said it had added a shorter right-turn lane and accelerated construction of the median within the current project scope to deliver a near-term safety improvement.

No formal decision or vote occurred. Councilors asked staff to continue the discussion and said they would provide a council position at their next meeting for ODOT to consider before final design. ODOT said the project is about 50% designed, is expected to go to bid next spring and is being advanced under a competitive safety funding program.