As one drives east of Gresham on Highway 26, the first intersection after Powell is Palmquist. Given Gresham’s growth over the decades, commuters often have to wait through three lights to cross Highway 26, turning left to head west. This is a bottleneck about to get worse — much worse.

Proceeding east on Highway 26, the next intersection is Hillyard, where drivers wishing to turn onto 26 heading into Gresham cannot do so; they cannot cross 26, and they can only turn right. If they want to go to Gresham, their choices are to:

• Head east and make a U-turn at the next intersection, Southeast 267th (which likely won’t be allowed);

• Turn left and head over to Orient and drive on what once was a neighborhood street with still a 35-mph speed zone; or,

• Simply avoid Highway 26, choosing instead to drive parallel to 26 along the surface streets of Telford, Palmquist and Palmblad, neighborhood streets with limited speed zones.

What’s not well known is that the Oregon Department of Transportation has, for months, been surveying intersections at Southeast 267th, Stone and Haley. Their intention is to control those intersection in the same way they control Hillyard.

Want to go to Gresham to the left? Then turn right and work your way there by doubling back through neighborhoods with narrow streets, houses with driveways that dump directly onto those streets and children at play. There goes what’s left of your quiet little community.

There are hundreds of families that access these intersections every day — to commute to work, to shop, buy gas, bank, eat and use all the services supposedly easily available to these people. But at some point, when the distance is nearly the same to get to Sandy as it is to get to Gresham, why go through the contortions to go to Gresham?

There’s no question that Gresham has been beaten bloody by the economy. There’s also no question that if access to Gresham is made more difficult, it will exacerbate this economic catastrophe by diminishing the buying public.

Why haven’t we heard of this? Other than a hand-printed sign at Southeast 267th and Highway 26, no one I know who lives in the area has received notification of ODOT’s intentions, and Gresham City Hall seemed surprised with this news.

In part this may be because we live in unincorporated Damascus as we previously lived in unincorporated Gresham; we don’t really belong to anybody.

We’re not Gresham citizens, but the money we spend in Gresham is every bit as valuable as what Greshamites spend.

One simple example: We’ve shopped Gresham’s Fred Meyer for 32 years, spending about $900 a month. Why jump through hoops to shop Gresham when we can shop at Sandy’s Fred Meyer? Or buy our gas there.

Certainly not everybody will skip Gresham, but what percentage do you need to skip to impact the city?

I did contact Gresham Fred Meyer and was told that the manager of the Gresham store also was the manager of the Sandy store — a win-win for them.

But sooner or later this will be a real problem for the general public. It would be nice to know if there’s a solution, because turning right may not be the economically right thing to do for Gresham’s economy.

Brad Davis lives in Damascus.