A proposal to reroute U.S. Highway 97 on Bend’s north side has generated nearly 1,800 pages of testimony submitted by local residents, businesses and government agencies.

The Oregon Department of Transportation is working its way through the material to respond to the different points raised, a process that could take eight to 12 months, according to spokesman Peter Murphy. The testimony and ODOT’s responses will be forwarded to the Federal Highway Administration, which will determine if the project is eligible for federal funding.

It is expected the federal government will cover 90 percent of the cost of construction, estimated at $175 million to $200 million.

Two proposals are under consideration.

Both call for four new travel lanes a short distance east of the current highway alignment between Cooley Road and the interchange of U.S. Highway 97 and U.S. Highway 20. The current highway would become a local road, an extension of Third Street, providing access to the Cascade Village Shopping Center and other nearby businesses.

The plans take different courses near Cooley, where what would become Third Street would be built a couple hundred yards west of the current highway. In one plan, Third Street would swing back east and connect to the highway just south of a cemetery with a limited-access interchange. In the second, Third Street would extend further north through a rural residential neighborhood and connect to the highway about half a mile north of the cemetery with a large, diamond-style interchange.

The accumulated testimony raises a number of concerns about how the project could impact life, business, traffic and the environment on Bend’s north side.

The Swalley Irrigation District, which operates the canals in the area, does not take a position but raises several points about how the highway expansion could affect its operations. Construction could limit access to or require the relocation of some district facilities, and inadequate stormwater management could create runoff into the canals.

The Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization expresses a strong preference for the proposal, including the larger interchange on the north end. The larger interchange would provide superior connectivity for goods, people and emergency services, the organization states, and could be more easily linked to the Juniper Ridge area east of U.S. Highway 97.

A large portion of the testimony comes from residents living west of the highway, in the path of the alternative preferred by the Bend MPO.

Resident Scott Siewert proposed an alternative alignment, where the highway would run through vacant city-owned property at Juniper Ridge. Not having to condemn private property west of the highway could save money on the project, Siewert wrote, while providing income to the city.

“You might avoid a huge fight to the Court of Appeals while saving a ton of money using city property instead of devastating neighborhoods West of 97,” he wrote. “The city can’t sell the property anyway … How will they repay their massive debts with no income?”

A neighborhood group, Hunnell United Neighbors, provided ODOT with dozens of pages of testimony, much of it in the form of pictures depicting life in the rural neighborhood that could be cut in half by the highway. Pictures include a variety of geologic features, some of the homes and barns owned by local residents, and a portrait of “Matt the Cat,” a free-ranging feline resident of the neighborhood who recently died and is buried in the area.

Management of The Riverhouse wrote that the hotel could support either alternative, but is concerned that southbound traffic could miss its property and other businesses on Bend’s north end due to a lack of exits on the improved highway. An additional exit for southbound traffic located at Robal Road could address the problem, wrote property development manager Gary Cox.

Murphy said if the federal government finds ODOT has adequately addressed concerns raised by the public, construction could begin in 2015 or 2016. However, because of increasing competition for federal dollars and declines in both federal and state gas tax revenues, Murphy said forecasting the future precisely is difficult.

“It’s hard to put a date on that, honestly, because it’s a matter of securing funding, and that’s anything from firm” Murphy said. “Right now for me to speculate would just be me pulling a number out of thin air. I don’t think anyone has an answer for that.”