Changes intended to make travel safer for users of Greenwood Avenue will be coming this summer after the Bend City Council on Wednesday approved a plan to add bike lanes and pedestrian crossings while reducing driving lanes and parking spaces by half.

The decision allows a contractor to begin work on an $840,000 “quick-build” that will transform a section of Greenwood from Wall Street to Second Street in 17 days.

Construction begins July 29 and is expected to wrap up Aug. 14. The road will be closed for four nights and during one two-day period, tentatively Aug. 5 and 6, during construction.

The City Council received some pushback on Wednesday and in the days leading up to the meeting about the new street design, predominantly from a theater on the north side of Greenwood Avenue that said taking away parking on its side of the street would be a major blow to their business. Its representatives told the council not to go forward with the changes.

Others said the plan didn’t go far enough to protect bicycle riders. Others championed the project.

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Greenwood Avenue plan: Half the parking and car lanes, but better safety

City councilors did not waver in the belief that the project will make the busy road safer for all traffic, including cars, bicycles and pedestrians.

“The proposed concept is better than what we have,” said Councilor Ariel Mendez, who described parking, bicycling and crossing the street on Greenwood Avenue as “terrifying.”

The changes coming

Currently, the road has four lanes of traffic, with two driving in each direction, and no bike lane. The upcoming construction work, labeled a “road diet,” will remove a lane of traffic in each direction, add a center turn lane and a bike lane a few feet away from the driving lane. It will also add enhanced crossings for pedestrians to get across Greenwood.

The city expects the changes will reduce driving speeds and increase congestion to a small degree, lengthening trips using Greenwood Avenue by about one minute.

Studies have shown that road diets like the one set for Greenwood can decrease car crash rates by 19-47%, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, cut bicycle crashes by 47% and crashes involving pedestrians by 31%, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

“Greenwood is not currently safe enough for anyone using the corridor,” Mayor Melanie Kebler wrote in a Wednesday email response to people and businesses. “There are too many traffic incidents, it’s too hard to cross, there’s no bike lanes so cyclists often ride on the narrow sidewalk, and people are driving too fast.”

More coming in Midtown

Wednesday’s vote keeps the city moving forward on the Midtown Crossings Project, a cluster of improvements meant to make travel safer and easier on the streets that connect east and west Bend across U.S. Highway 97 and the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway tracks.

The city wants to have the Greenwood changes in place as other east-west routes become tied up in construction, including improvements to Franklin Avenue and a footbridge over the Bend Parkway on Hawthorne Avenue.

The hasty construction on Greenwood — which is only a pilot project — also allows the city to assess after one year whether the new streetscape is working properly before making it permanent.

Ryan Oster, engineering director with the city of Bend, said it’s possible to make tweaks to the design sooner than one year should problems arise.

“We’ll keep a close eye on this,” he said.