We travel south to the Portland area lot.
So does Sue Grigsby of Lake Stevens, a Street Smarts reader with a sharp eye who noted that there were new electronic signs going up in the Vancouver-Portland area. The signs will note travel times to different exits and interchanges.
“Having recently spent more than an hour and a half traveling from the Columbia River to Wilsonville — a distance of about 25 miles — I would have loved to know if taking I-205 instead of I-5 might have saved me some time,” Grigsby said.
“I’m sure that many people would like to know when those reader boards will be operational so they could make the best choice to get through Portland as quickly as possible,” she added.
Amen to that.
The signs — four on the Washington side of the river and three on the Oregon side — are undergoing testing right now and should be up and running by the end of October, said Tamara Hellman, a spokesperson for the project on the Washington State Department of Transportation side.
Why the wait?
This is a joint project between WSDOT and the Oregon Department of Transportation, and getting their two different computer systems to talk to each other so the signs are coordinated is no quick task.
“We don’t want to turn this system on until we know it works,” Hellman said.
WSDOT is spending $951,000 on the project.
The changes are mainly aimed at the increasing numbers of commuters who travel across the river, in both directions.
“We know that if we give drivers tools and information, they can make better decisions. … This is another tool for divers to have to get to where they need to go,” Hellman said.
The weekends can get thick there, too, of course. So holiday travelers will also benefit.
The signs are placed at key decision points so drivers have time to decide if they want to hop off I-5 and take alternate routes, such as I-205 or Highway 14.
“Drivers can get to where they need to get faster, but it also helps us manage congestion on the system more efficiently … sort of spreading the wealth of traffic across the transportation system,” Hellman said.
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