Rush hour traffic on Empire Avenue at U.S. Highway 97 in Bend. (Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin)

A major highway reconstruction project completed last fall allows cars to flow more freely and safely on U.S. Highway 97 and U.S. Highway 20 in the north part of Bend, bypassing busy intersections and railroad crossings. It also added safety, with roundabouts and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.

But drivers are discovering the $191 million project came with a side effect: Congestion on nearby city streets got worse.

That’s playing out on Empire Avenue, one of Bend’s key corridors for east-west travel and a fuse between the highways. The street was already overloaded with traffic, and the recent reconfiguration resulted in more cars added to the queue.

“Some of the congestion was absolutely caused by the completion of the project,” said Omar Ahmed, who oversaw the project for the Oregon Department of Transportation, in an email.

“We’re aware of the issues on the city system that have gotten worse since the opening of the North Corridor project,” said Ryan Oster, lead engineer with the city of Bend.

The city and state transportation agencies are talking over projects to remedy the problem on Empire Avenue. That discussion is part of a larger decision-making process to determine how the city and state will spend limited funding for much-needed improvements at several problem areas along the Bend Parkway in the next several years.

Called the Bend North Corridor project, the reconfiguration was one of the largest and most expensive improvement projects on the Bend Parkway since the road was built. The two-year construction project removed a portion of U.S. Highway 97 and built a new section farther east, allowing drivers to cruise past business traffic on their way in to Bend from the north, or on their way from Bend to Redmond and beyond.

But that took away the part of Highway 97 drivers coming from the east were using to access the Cascade Village Shopping Center or head to Tumalo and Sisters on U.S. Highway 20. Instead, those drivers must pass through an outdated traffic signal at Highway 20 and Third Street, where three directions of travel converge.

Residential and business growth, especially the new Costco that opened last fall along Highway 20, have spurred traffic.

“They’ve added so much housing, which is great, we need housing in Bend. But they’re not doing anything for the traffic,” said Mark Henion, a part owner of Van Henion Brewing, which opened in the budding Boyd Acres neighborhood in northeast Bend in 2021. “Empire has been a thorn in my side trying to get on the parkway since I started working in this location.”

The highway reconfiguration was not meant to address the traffic problems on Empire Avenue, said Ahmed, the ODOT official. The agency had hoped to limp along by adjusting the timing of the Highway 20 traffic light. The idea was that a new southbound Highway 97 access ramp on Robal Lane to the north would remove southbound cars from Highway 20, so ODOT could give more green lights to cars on Empire.

But not as many people are using the new Robal on-ramp as hoped. Adjusting the signal could be accomplished in a matter of hours, but would only shift backups to another part of the intersection.

“Unless folks modify their routes, we really can’t do anything at that signal,” Ahmed said.

Lack of awareness for how to use the reconfigured road has been a problem since the project was completed last year, when drivers formed a habit of making dangerous U-turns on Highway 97 after missing exits.

ODOT has plans to replace the signal’s hardware to improve operations, but that will take more time and money. It’s part of a larger project planned for 2027 that could also include adding a right-hand turn lane to ease congestion. Funding has not been identified for the project, estimated at $5 million.

A 20-year transportation planning document for the Bend area states Empire Avenue could be widened to five lanes in the next five to 10 years, an $11.6 million project.

The most ideal solution would be to build a connection between eastbound Highway 20 and southbound Highway 97, estimated to cost between $30 million and $40 million, Ahmed said. But that project is not realistic for the near future given mounting demands for projects along the Bend Parkway, Ahmed said.

How much funding is allocated to Empire Avenue will depend on how the city and state prioritize. The city has earmarked $10 million from its 2020 transportation bond to build new highway ramps at Murphy Road in south Bend. Oster, the city engineer, said the project will likely cost twice that much, with the remainder coming from ODOT. If ODOT decides to shift more funding to Empire, the city could reconsider.

There is also a need to improve the interchange at Reed Market Road, Oster said.

“You can’t fund it all at once,” he said. “You have to pick which one you think is the most important and go attack that.”