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Two through lanes will be removed from 40 blocks of Southeast Foster Road for bicycle lanes and a middle turn lane.

(PBOT)

Hoping to make one of Portland's high-crash corridors safer, the City Council has unanimously approved a $5.25 million plan to remove two of Southeast Foster Road's four automobile through lanes.

In what amounts to one of the city's most aggressive road diets to improve traffic safety and livability, the streetscape refurb will add two bicycle lanes and a middle turning lane on Foster from Powell Boulevard to 90th Avenue.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation said the changes will make the 40-block stretch of busy road, which connects Interstate 205 to inner Southeast Portland, more of a "Main Street destination" than a highway.

At the same time, PBOT engineers say the changes will slow traffic by only about three minutes at peak hours. The Oregonian has asked for an explanation of the methodology used by engineers to develop that prediction.

Some 24,000 automobiles a day use that stretch of Foster.

"Every stretch of a major street is a neighborhood street for some people and a commuting or freight route for others," said City Commissioner Steve Novick, who oversees PBOT. "The people for whom Foster is a neighborhood street between 50th and 90th are very supportive. Some people who live farther out and drive through are not."

However, Novick said he hopes critics of the plan will consider the students of Arleta School and other schools along Foster, where many kids now have to cross a four-lane street "one way or the other to get to school."

Indeed, a parade of Foster neighborhood residents showed up at Wednesday's hearing at City Hall to praise the the proposal.

Construction is scheduled for 2016.

PBOT expects any increased traffic congestion caused by the removal of two through lanes to be minimal.

Foster Road is one of the city's so-called "high crash corridors," meaning it is one of ten areas in Portland that has the highest need for safety improvements. In the past decade, the 40-block stretch of Foster, which is a major commuting connector between Interstate 205 and downtown Portland, has seen more than 1,200 crashes and eight fatalities in the past decade.

PBOT expects a 20 percent reduction in all crashes after the project is completed.

The streetscape plan also calls for wider sidewalks as well as more trees and lighting.

Funding for the project is coming from $3 million in federal grants and $2.25 million in urban renewal funds from the Portland Development Commission's Lents Urban Renewal Area.

-- Joseph Rose