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PAC and TAC members favor large shared‑roundabout options to preserve Front Street access
Summary
Advisory committees said they gravitated toward large shared roundabout concepts that would retain Front Street movements; ODOT staff cautioned about FHWA access‑management rules and the need for operational validation and potential bridge footprint increases.
During concept review, several PAC members and TAC participants expressed strong preference for a large shared‑roundabout variant that maintains Front Street access and minimizes property takings compared with alternative interchange forms.
Marlo Stanton (ODOT Region 5 traffic engineer) emphasized operational and safety benefits: “They’re a far safer option,” she said when asked about roundabout terminals. Brian Wood (ODOT technical services) agreed that roundabout options could reach ODOT support if operational analyses show they work, but he warned the group that mixing freeway and local traffic into one large roundabout raises policy and future‑growth concerns under FHWA access rules. TAC members asked staff to test roundabout footprints versus signals in operational models and to confirm whether required bridge changes could be staged or minimized.
The PAC’s preference was not unanimous: several participants and emergency‑response staff raised concerns about fire apparatus turning radii and heavy‑truck tracking and asked the design team to include truck and apparatus templates in the next sketches.
