PORTLAND -- Sunday began a three-week period of historic change in Portland's Central Eastside Commercial District with the conversion of Burnside and Couch streets into one-way streets.
Sunday, drivers saw new signage and new, still-dark stoplights popping up around this district.
Couch will become a one-way street headed west. A week later, Burnside will convert to an eastbound-only street.
All this change will take place between the Willamette River and 14th Avenue, on the east side of town.
It's a historic shift in traffic patterns for cyclist Arne Osteraat and 15,000 daily drivers on Burnside.
"What used to be three lanes of traffic on Burnside is going to be two lanes of traffic (on Couch)," lamented Osteraat who said she was expecting a "bottleneck" on Couch.
Moving forward, the city will install new, timed stoplights at every block along Couch to eventually improve traffic flow through the Central East Side District.
At Norse Hall, members of the Norse Club were celebrating a 100th anniversary this year on Couch. The changes were being analyzed carefully.
"The obvious benefit will be that the two roads will each flow more quickly in the direction they are flowing," said Norse Hall dance student Duke Bishop, who admitted that he'll miss the relative tranquility of Couch Street when it starts carrying thousands more drivers each day as part of the couplet.
As part of the project, the city will reconfigure the notoriously dangerous and confusing intersection of 12th Avenue, Sandy Boulevard and Burnside.
The changes will "make traffic move easier over there, increase pedestrian safety, driver safety, bicycle safety on the Eastside and really try to make things run smoothly," said Dan Anderson, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
The City promised that these next three weeks of confusion will lead to years of new development and progress in this fast-evolving neighborhood.
The State of Oregon and the Federal Government were helping Portland pay for the $18 million project which had been planned for more than a decade.
