Vehicle traffic and residential water service will be impacted by the project. Door hangers will be distributed two days in advance to residents and businesses notifying of water service disruption.

The project will be completed in three phases. The waterline replacement is expected to be competed in December 2011, followed by work on the Harrison St. railroad crossing for the Quiet Zone implementation in early spring 2012, and then reconstructing S.E. Harrison St. from S.E. Campbell St. to S.E. 42nd Ave. in late spring 2012.

For more information about the waterline replacement project, please visit the City of Milwaukie website.

A one-block section of S.E. 43rd Ave. in Milwaukie will be closed this Sunday to through traffic for a community event.

S.E. 43rd Ave. will be closed between S.E. Johnson Creek Blvd. and S.E. Roswell St. for the Davis Graveyard open house event on Sun., Oct. 17. The same section of S.E. 43rd Ave. will be closed again on Halloween night (Sun., Oct. 31).

Motorists are advised to use S.E. 42nd Ave. as a detour.

Motor vehicle access is restricted on S.E. 43rd Ave. for residents residing on the closed section of S.E. 43rd Ave. and for emergency vehicles.

More information on Davis Graveyard events is available at www.DavisGraveyard.com.

(Photo: Milwaukie High School Dance Team performs Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at the Davis Graveyard open house event in 2009. Photo by Bryan Dorr.)

Portland Parks & Recreation announced today that Springwater Trail between S.E. 28th Ave. and S.E. Linwood/Flavel Ave. has reopened, but trail users should be aware that there is still some finishing work to be done.

The trail was originally set to reopen on June 15, but an unusually wet June and production delays for fabricating the metal bollards pushed back the completion date.

On August 9, the Springwater Trail segment between S.E. Linwood/Flavel Ave. to I-205 will close.

Traffic on S.E. Johnson Creek Blvd.within Ardenwald-Johnson Creek neighborhood may be congested during the emergency repair as workers may need to disrupt traffic.

Milwaukie Public Works expects the repairs to take a couple of days, depending on the extent of the damage.

The Portland Parks and Recreation say the contractors had a delay in the production of the metal bollards and should be getting it installed, along with striping over the next couple of weeks.

With the shoulder rock in place and making the trail safer for pedestrian and bicyclist, contractors will not be completely barricading the trail while waiting for the bollard installation. Contractors will close the trail and ask users to leave when the bollard installation and striping work resumes.

The project began on May 24, but has been delayed twice before because of spring’s wetter than usual weather.

More Information: http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?c=52437&

A detour route has been established via S.E. Sherret St., S.E. 33rd Ave., S.E. Johnson Creek Blvd., and S.E. 45th Ave.

Bicyclists are advised to use caution at the S.E. 28th Ave. trailhead because the connector between the trail and S.E. 28th Ave. & S.E. Sherret St. is loose gravel.

Download Detour Map (PDF)

Project Information Page at Portland Parks & Recreation

Milwaukie city staff Wendy Hemmen and Kenny Asher presented a report before the Milwaukie City Council on April 20, recommending a traffic signal light at the intersection of SE Johnson Creek Blvd. at SE 42nd Ave for traffic mitigation.

Milwaukie Mayor Jeremy Ferguson read a revised resolution that would have allowed a signal but function as a “flashing red light” mode, making the intersection a three-way stop and then turn into full traffic signal when needed.

Public comments from the audience were mostly in opposition of the signal lights and the flashing red light idea.

Ardenwald Chairman Matt Rinker, Secretary Bryan Dorr, and Transportation Chairman Michole Jensen addressed the City Council the Neighborhood’s position and concerns from the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail project reports.

Two Ardenwald residents at the meeting spoke in favor for the signal lights.

Milwaukie City Council discussed the matter at length before making motion to vote.

The council voted 4-1 to reject the resolution affirming the light rail project staff’s recommendations to signalize the S.E. JCB and S.E. 42nd Ave.

Councilor Greg Chaimov voted against the rejection of the recommendation.

S.E. 32nd Ave. and S.E. JCB intersection’s signal is in the Portland city limits and was not part of Milwaukie’s resolution. Oregon Department of Transportation mandated mitigation at the 32nd Ave. intersection due to traffic backup onto Hwy. 99E.

Related Documents:

• Mayor Ferguson’s Response to JCB Traffic Letter From Jan. 12, 2010
• Letter from Neighborhood regarding position and suggestions for SE Johnson Creek Blvd. traffic. (Jan. 12, 2010)

Metro Councilor and Ardenwald resident Carlotta Collette proposed the idea in January, which was published on Ardenwald.org (read proposal here).

Collette discussed more on the topic at Tuesday’s Neighborhood Association meeting with discussions and feedback from NDA board members and residents.

The tolls are collected through a transponder device.  Cars without transponders would have license plates photographed and a bill sent monthly for the toll.

Tolls would be applicable during traffic peak hours during the day.

The costs for the equipment, installation and operations is unknown.

The gantry would be set up in Ardenwald neighborhood on the S.E. 32nd Ave. bridge just north of Johnson Creek Blvd. before turning into Tacoma Street.

Tolling would be used to reduce traffic congestion on a residential street. Johnson Creek Blvd. connects I-205 with 99E and the Sellwood Bridge.

Johnson Creek Blvd. was one of the five locations in the region selected as an option for the tolling project, but approval has not been finalized.

February 10, 2010

Dear Members of the Ardenwald NDA,

Thank you very much for your January 7 letter regarding the future of Johnson Creek Boulevard. The Milwaukie City Council has been following the various discussions that are underway about possible changes to the street due to the Portland-to-Milwaukie light rail project. Johnson Creek Boulevard is an important route, as it serves at least three Milwaukie neighborhoods and neighboring jurisdictions and businesses.

The City of Milwaukie is carefully weighing the trade-offs that are necessitated by this difficult situation. We have clearly heard from your NDA that traffic signals, speeding, blocked driveways and increased traffic volumes are unacceptable and incompatible with neighborhood livability.

From those working on the light rail project, we understand that Johnson Creek Boulevard’s future will resemble a parking lot along part of its length during certain hours, and that if nothing is done to ameliorate this condition, cut-through traffic on 32nd , Roswell, Filbert, Olsen and Logus will worsen. We also understand that the light rail project will be required to install a traffic light at 32nd to ensure that cars do not back up on to 99E during the late afternoon.

The City is engaged with the other governments that have jurisdiction over the street. As we participate in these discussions, we will keep your recommendations close at hand. Although trade-offs are inevitable and all the Ardenwald recommendations may not be workable, we will make every effort to balance the competing demands that continue to characterize Johnson Creek Boulevard.

Perhaps most importantly, we agree with you that the City should not allow increased traffic volumes or speeding at the expense of neighborhood livability and safety. The City has its highest degree of control at the intersection of 42nd and JCB. The best solution for this intersection will be informed by the choices that are being made by the other jurisdictions on the corridor, as well as the input of neighborhoods like Ardenwald.

Thank you again for your letter and for sharing your ideas on possible improvements to Johnson Creek Boulevard.

Respectfully,

Jeremy Ferguson

Mayor

How many times have you said: “I wish we could just put up a toll booth on Johnson Creek Boulevard and charge everyone cutting through our neighborhood”?

Living on the boulevard, I’ve said it a lot and heard it said often as well.

Well here’s the deal: we could actually get a pilot tolling project on the boulevard if we’re interested. We will need to request it and write the conditions under which we’d accept it, but we could be the first community in the region to toll people cutting through our neighborhood if we are interested.

Here’s the story:

When the legislature passed the Jobs and Transportation bill in the last session, there was a component that called for a “congestion pricing” pilot project to be implemented in the region within the next three years. The legislative intent was to set up a tolling project to reduce congestion on one of our freeways. This has been done successfully in many places around the world, but never in the Portland area. The idea is that by charging a toll with variable pricing depending on whether it is rush hour or not people might drive at different times of the day or on different routes. This is much cheaper than adding additional lanes to freeways just to accommodate rush hour traffic, which doesn’t work anyway because the traffic just increases and fills the new lanes.

As the discussion around the table has gone forward, it became clear that no major road congestion pricing project could be implemented within the three year time constraint, so ODOT has been looking for other options. One they are considering is changing the one HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane in the city – the one heading north on I-5 approaching Vancouver, into a HOT (high occupancy/tolling) lane. This approach has been used quite a lot elsewhere, but it’s not really the best opportunity for a pilot project where the intent is to get information about how people respond to having to pay to drive at certain times or in certain places. There are a couple of other options they are considering as well.

As some of you may know, as part of my role as a Metro councilor, I chair the region’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, which makes most of the decisions on how transportation dollars from the federal government are spent in our region. I also get to sit in on some of these other discussions around state dollars.

As I listened to some of these conversations I asked whether it might be possible to use this pilot project approach to try to reduce cut-through traffic on a neighborhood collector that is treated as a major throughway. My point was that our neighborhood safety and the quality of life in some of our communities is a worthwhile reason to test tolling, and it could be a much smaller scale and more cost-effective approach. We would learn much of what the pilot is intended to explore – whether people would change their driving habits if they had to pay a premium to take the short cut or drive at rush hour. If it doesn’t work, or people really are opposed to it, it’s pretty easy to pull the equipment out.

I guess no one had thought of this more limited approach. ODOT had a consultant that studied every tolling project in the world and there is only one example, in Rome, where they used this approach to limit access through a neighborhood. Eventually, folks around the table started to like the idea, and the sponsoring legislator really likes it.

A number of streets have been suggested, and I added Johnson Creek Boulevard into the mix. There are some good reasons to select JCB.

* We are within blocks of a school, and the speed and amount of traffic is a real hazard for kids

* The boulevard already has far more traffic than it is designed to carry and the new light rail station will increase the traffic

* This is a street that has significant impacts on one of our region’s few free-flowing salmon bearing streams – Johnson Creek

* There is a commercial area just below us – Sellwood – that is trying to reduce cut-through traffic on its main street, which happens to be the extension of JCB (this is also an argument against JCB from businesses down there who would balk at potentially losing customers)

* There are alternative routes – highway 224 to the south and Powell Boulevard to the north – that are designed to take the through traffic

* There are alternative modes of travel – light rail on 205, frequent buses (the 75 line) and the Springwater Corridor for bikes and walking

* It would be relatively easy and inexpensive to install a tolling gantry on the 32nd Street bridge so tolling would not interfere with the industrial area and jobs east of 45th

* The neighborhood has been asking for traffic calming for decades with little response from the various jurisdictions because, frankly, it’s really hard to fix without tolling people.

So here’s how it could work: Cars would not have to stop at the tolling equipment (called a gantry). Neighborhood residents would get an in-car transponder that would signal every time we pass under the gantry. Whether we would pay a reduced rate or pass free is probably up to us, since this is a voluntary pilot project. Regular commuters not from our neighborhood could purchase a transponder (photo below) and pay a monthly fee or get charged for every trip. Irregular drivers who don’t have a transponder would have their license plate photographed like we do with photo-enforced speed limits, and they’d receive a bill in the mail.

The revenues from the tolling may not be that significant if it really works (meaning people would take other routes). But if revenues are significant one option I’d be interested in proposing is that we would use the money to get a direct bus between Clackamas Town Center, to the light rail station on Fuller Road, then down JCB to the new light rail station to be built at Tacoma, then either to downtown Portland or across town to Washington Square. That would give commuters a transit option to enable them to leave their cars on either end of JCB.

This idea has been described as pretty “out of the box,” but if the neighborhood is interested in pursuing it, I think we have a good chance of making it happen. The Johnson Creek Boulevard Congestion Pricing Pilot Project is currently on a list of options being considered, and frankly, it makes the most sense to a lot of us.

But what do you all think?

I’d be happy to answer your questions and explore your ideas both through emails and at the next neighborhood meeting. The sooner I start getting a sense of the neighborhood’s interest the better. Please let me know how you feel. Keep in mind that if we try this out and it doesn’t work in our best interest we can have it pulled out. We could, and I believe we should, set our own requirement for how this works. We should, for example, set a time limit – say somewhere between six months and a year – after which we revisit the project and decide if it is working and whether or not we want to keep it. We can require that residents of Johnson Creek Boulevard and 32nd at a minimum have either reduced or no tolls. We can decide if we want tolls all the time or just during rush hour. And we can have some say in how much the tolls are.

So what do you think?

Carlotta Collette
3905 SE Johnson Creek Boulevard
Milwaukie, Oregon 97222
Email: carlottacollette@comcast.net