A long-sought project to add a lane to a portion of Interstate 84 will go before the Metro Council on Thursday.
The project, which will extend one eastbound lane of I-84 about a half mile past Halsey Street in the Gateway District, is being fast-tracked by the Oregon Department of Transportation after it found cost savings around the state.
Drivers heading east on I-84 or toward Clark County on Interstate 205 have long suffered in the Gateway District, where I-84 narrows to two eastbound lanes.
"That far right lane is always backed up going to 205 north," said Rian Windsheimer, a policy and development manager at ODOT. Drivers "zoom up in the left lane and cut over, so there's no through lane," he said, because drivers often slow down to cut in.
When the $6 million project is completed, the third eastbound lane will become an exit-only lane toward northbound I-205. Windsheimer said drivers are likely to still try to cut in, but they'll be doing it from the middle lane, instead.
"Hopefully that left lane will have people actually get through," he said.
The engineering of the project was originally scheduled for the 2012-15 Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Plan, but construction of the project was not scheduled. If the Metro Council approves the amendment to the transportation plan – the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation has already signed off on it – it would give ODOT clearance to move forward with the construction.
ODOT is planning on doing the work in conjunction with a planned repaving of I-84 west of I-205 in 2013.
Two other transportation plan amendments are on the Metro Council agenda Thursday: adding a bike and pedestrian path to the MAX bridge over Kellogg Lake in Milwaukie as part of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail project, and engineering on a bike and pedestrian project in Beaverton.