The city of Bend plans to begin road closures for the second, more complex phase of the $18.3 million Reed Market Road corridor project this week.

David Abbas, the Reed Market Road project manager for the city, said in an interview last week that employees already built a two-lane bypass for drivers to detour around the southwest corner of the intersection with 15th Street.

“They’ve already been out there doing some work this past week,” Abbas said. “We just haven’t impacted traffic yet. Monday, though, is the groundbreaking and when we’ll close the intersection.”

Crews will begin work Monday to build a roundabout at the intersection of Reed Market Road and 15th Street. Soon, they will also begin work on the stretch of road from Third Street to 15th Street. The project will ultimately result in bike lanes, sidewalks, two lanes for vehicles and a center turn lane or median on Reed Market Road all the way from Third Street to 27th Street, according to a city news release. It will bring a new look and more urban infrastructure to a former county road on which, according to the city, farmers historically brought goods to market.

The Reed Market Road project is the largest and, according to the city, most complex of several projects for which voters approved a $30 million bond measure in 2011. The city already completed other projects funded by the bond, including roundabouts at Simpson Avenue and Mt. Washington Drive, 18th Street and Empire Avenue, and Brookswood Boulevard and Powers Road.

When the city begins work on Reed Market Road from Third Street to 15th Street in the next month or two, it will keep one lane open for eastbound traffic, Abbas said. Westbound traffic will have to use a detour up Ninth Street, to Wilson Avenue.

The city expects to complete the Reed Market Road and 15th Street roundabout by November. “That’s the idea, to finish it by wintertime,” Abbas said.

Other work will continue through the winter, including the realignment of American Lane and construction of a new bridge across the Central Oregon Irrigation canal. The city will install a traffic signal at the new intersection with American Lane. The city expects to wrap up work on the project by November 2015.

— Reporter: 541-617-7829, hborrud@bendbulletin.com