PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The improvements along Southeast Foster Road have long been planned. Though construction won’t begin until 2017, some businesses are upset with the plan to shrink Foster and add a turn lane.
The plan includes going from 4 lanes to 2, adding a turn lane, street parking, bike lanes, marked crosswalks and a pedestrian island. It’s a plan to slow the traffic.
“Foster’s a high crash corridor, high rate of fatalities,” said PBOT’s Dylan Rivera. “We’re committed to Vision Zero. No one should die in traffic crashes on our streets.”
But Clay Tyler of the Mt. Scott Fuel Company said the plan will hurt his business.
“They think we need to make it like Hawthorne and pretty. but it is a transportation corridor,” Tyler told KOIN 6 News. “Always was and always should be.”
He said moving his business has crossed his mind.
“That’s a possibility. When my customers line up in the road and there’s congestion and they say I can’t get into your place,” he said.
But Leah Orndoff, who owns Henry Higgins Bagels, said Foster Road is changing as the neighborhood changes.
“There’s a lot of people who speed down the street,” she said. “It will bring new business as the area is getting revitalized.”
