When will the city of Albany try to get an additional entrance to the freeway?
A: (Answered by Ron Irish, Engineering Technician IV)
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has jurisdiction over Interstate 5 and must approve any new or modified access to it. There is a long-range ODOT/City plan to re-configure the Pacific Boulevard interchange to add a southbound on-ramp. That will relieve some of the existing pressure on the Santiam Highway interchange, the location of Albany's only current southbound freeway on-ramp. There is also a tentative plan shown on our Transportation System Plan (TSP) to eventually construct a full interchange in the vicinity of Seven Mile Lane.During development of the TSP, the City asked ODOT about the possibility of adding an interchange at Grand Prairie Road. The answer was "definitely not." ODOT believes that Grand Prairie Road is too close to the existing interchange at Santiam Highway and an interchange at that location would create conflicts. Basically, the on and off-ramps between Santiam and Grand Prairie would come very close to overlapping and in ODOT's experience, that results in high crash rates and extra congestion on the freeway. Seven Mile Lane was the only location we could get them to agree to as a future possibility; they have not committed to when the interchange might be built. Until then, Albany residents will be limited to freeway access at Pacific, Santiam, and Highway 34 via Waverly Drive.