PORTLAND, Ore. — If you drive through the Duniway-Laird Hill area in southwest Portland, you know this intersection well and you probably hate it. Some we talked to go out of their way to avoid it, even if it means adding time to their commute.
The latest data from PBOT and ODOT suggests at least 21,000 cars a day converge on this group of intersections around Southwest 6th Avenue at I-405. Admittedly some of those traffic counts are nearly 20 years old.
You’ve got traffic pouring out of downtown up Broadway, dumping off the I-405 South exit ramp, and rolling down the hill from Terwilliger Boulevard. Throw in Barbur Boulevard and the Ross Island Bridge, just upstream, and you’ve got a recipe for a traffic nightmare. Not only is that intersection busy but it’s at the end of a crash-prone corridor from the Ross Island Bridge. ODOT data shows nearly a crash per week over the past five years in that 1-mile corridor of US-26.
If you’ve got something about your commute that drives you crazy, let Chris McGinness know on Facebook, Twitter or you can email Chris here.