Project could cause traffic headaches downtown

Construction crews embarked on a major road

project in downtown Lake Oswego this week: repaving A Avenue, which carries an estimated 20,000 vehicles each day.

For the next month and a half, drivers should expect delays on A Avenue as crews repair and repave the road from State Street to 10th Street.

Workers will also install a new turn lane from eastbound A Avenue to northbound Third Street, which will require the removal of several trees in one of the medians. In addition, they will replace catch basins, rebuild pedestrian ramps at curbs and add ramps where they don’t already exist.

The new catch basins will offer better pollution controls, and the new curb ramps will better serve people with disabilities, said Associate Engineer Crystal Shum, the city’s project manager.

The road was identified in 2010 as needing repairs. Fixing it now will prevent more costly work in the future, Shum said.

“We do this type of work now while the road is fairly decent so that we avoid having to do full reconstruction of the roadway, which gets expensive,” she said.

The project, at a cost of nearly $1.4 million, will swallow as much money as the city typically spends in a year on maintenance of multiple streets.

Crews will work between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays and occasionally Saturdays. They will also work at night.

Shum said drivers should be aware of potential night closures and detours. While one lane will remain open in each direction during the day, crews will completely close A Avenue some nights. This work is likely to happen between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays, she said.

Also, the road will feel bumpy to drivers for awhile, she warned, because crews will grind 3 inches from the surface before making repairs and repaving the street.

The work is expected to wrap up in September. For updates on the project, visit www.ci.oswego.or.us/publicworks/avenue-rehabilitation-project.