Oct. 4, 3:36 p.m.: When you’re stuck in traffic on North Albany Road and an ambulance with lights and siren appears in your rearview mirror.
Friday afternoon’s North Albany traffic tie-up was worse than most. The underlying cause was the same as always: Too many cars.
The proximate cause, according to several commenters on Facebook Friday, was that a stalled vehicle blocked one of the two lanes on the Ellsworth Street Bridge. By the time I got to that spot, the problem had been sorted out, and as far as I could tell the congestion eased.
Even without obstructions, though, traffic congestion during peak hours on weekdays is becoming more common on Highway 20 west of the bridge and its two feeder roads, North Albany Road and Spring Hill Drive.
I have made daily trips on those roads for 47 years. Now, when we’re all inching along in stop-and-go traffic, it is natural to ask where all those cars are coming from.
And the obvious answer is the growth of the mid-valley’s population, which implies a proportional increase in the number of drivers and vehicles, and in the number of trips those drivers and vehicles take.
A report related to housing for the City of Albany starts this way: “Between 2000 and 2023, the city of Albany grew from an estimated 41,000 people to 58,000 people, according to the US Census and ((Portland State University) Population Research Center. Since 2000, the city has added an estimated average of 250 new households per year.”
That’s between 250 and 500 new drivers every year. And we all use the same main street network that has been around for decades without any major additions except for the Pacific-Ninth couplet 26 years ago.
In that same time frame, 2000-2023, the population of North Albany nearly doubled from about 5,100 to more than 9,800. Across the river, the main part of Albany, in Linn County, went from fewer than 36,000 people to more than 48,000.
The way our communities have developed means that for the most part people have to drive every day — to work or to get groceries or to do all the other things that people must do.
People might like to have a job down the street so they can walk or take a bike, but for most workers that’s not possible. When the grocery is five miles away across town and you need milk, well, get in the car.
There is no possible way to build all the new streets or bridges or ring roads or bypasses that might reduce the frequent congestion on the main roads we experience now.
And unless the economy collapses or we run out of fuel, resulting in empty roads but also widespread misery, when we keep adding households and residents, more and more traffic is the inevitable result. (hh)
Burning gas but not moving on North Albany Road on Friday afternoon, Oct. 4, 2024.
Some reason I’m hearing Karen Carpenter singing “We’ve Only Just Begun”
Just don’t ask where they’re all coming from…. That’s not polite.
A road connecting north Albany to millersburg would offload SO MUCH of that traffic (albeit potentially to the harm of downtown Albany).
If you look at a map North Albany does not line up with Millersburg. Not only that no one in Millersburg wants this!
I’d love to know the % of bridge traffic that actually stops downtown. It has been cultivated for aesthetic instead of function. It’s flanked by historic districts, so increasing residential density is hamstrung by preservation requirement minutiae. It’s not much different than Corvallis NIMBYism, which results in people flowing to Albany to shop & live (usually in cars).
Seems like the real “downtown” is the area around Heritage Mall, followed by Costco. Increasing residential density in that area would make Albany more walkable, and likely distribute some of the Hwy 20 traffic to I-5 & Hwy 34.
You’r right Coty. A bridge from Conser to Spring Hill Road would be a big help. It’s hard to bridge the Willamette any where else because of the large flood planes most other places along its course. Thus, bridges at Corvallis and then Albany. Conser to Springhill is the next good opportunity going north. There’s a ferry at Buena Vista , but no more bridges until you get to Salem. Removal of traffic from N. Albany to the freeway would be a blessing for downtown Albany and for thru traffic in general.
Could it have been avoided, or at least reduced? Yes! And it is only going to get worse:
Prior government decisions disregarded common sense and kept allowing more houses without any increase in traffic methods. When it was realized a bypass to I-5 would help, it was ignored. When trying to add NA into the city, concessions for responsible growth were ignored. Now, they continue to accept more growth, ie the large housing complex on Gibson Hill, without any traffic mitigation. All, while surrounding areas keep pumping more traffic thru NA.
When will government wake up, stop screwing the public over, quit passing the buck, and actually do something? …Sadly, I doubt it will happen anytime in the next twenty years, at least. Parhetic.
Local governments are REQUIRED by state law to continually provide incremental land growth for housing and commercial activity to accommodate population growth. Every city has an Urban Growth Boundary that is amended every 10 years.
Why? To protect the agricultural and forest lands so that Oregon doesn’t end up like California.
Don’t like that? Move back to California.
I’m sure you haven’t noticed, but from the Willamette River at Wilsonville to the the Ilani
Casino at milepost 16 in Washington, is non-stop housing. If your land use laws are so valuable why is that?
One way to reduce traffic to go get the “Milk” or groceries is to shop North Albany IGA and make use of our resources in the North Albany shopping center.
Would make sense if IGA prices weren’t so inflated because of the convenience.
Traffic is bad where there are lots of drivers, the drivers have to take a car to meet basic needs, and the cars are funneled onto a small number of routes.
Like you said, it’s the way North Albany was developed.
And who dictates development decisions? Not you the consumer, the business owner, or the employer.
It’s a bunch of bureaucrats in city hall and the state capital. Therein lies the problem.
Spring Hill to Conser, looks legit. A new bridge over the river there!!!
Perhaps it has to do with the bridge construction in Corvallis? That construction might be slowing traffic onto Hwy 34.
A large percentage of the traffic is coming from Corvallis on Hwy 20 into Albany. Perhaps some of these drivers would normally get back to Albany via Hwy 34.
If wait times on Hwy 20 keep getting longer, I would expect more drivers starting in Corvallis to choose the Hwy 34 route. If more of them did choose that route then it would free up space for North Albany drivers heading over the bridge.
The bridge construction in Corvallis doesn’t allow (yet) for vehicles (trucks) over a certain weight to cross the river onto Highway 34, so they have to go the Highway 20 route and cross the river in Albany.
Actually, the temporary Van Buren bridge does not have a weight restriction, so all trucks can cross the one-lane temporary bridge over the Willamette to Highway 34.
Thanks for the info. Then, it must be that the trucks do not want to get in the about mile-long trek down Van Buren to inch their way over the temporary bridge. Or, big trucks may not get a long enough opening in the traffic to turn onto Van Buren in the first place.
It does not seem like there is less traffic on Hwy 34, it just takes more time to get over the bridge but once we are, traffic is the same. Some may be taking 20 to Albany but most of us just wait our turn to get over the bridge. 20 always backs up in the 5 and 6 o’clock hours. I chose to take 20 about 3 weeks ago because of an ‘incident’ at the top of the Van Buren temp bridge. That night 20 was backed up a mile or more.
I believe the construction in Corvallis is also contributing. Getting out of Corvallis over the Van Buren bridge is so challenging right now, a lot of folks are going north to highway 20. Once they’re done, getting out onto highway 34 should be greatly improved and reduce that traffic. (Fingers crossed!)
The city of Corvallis and their obstruction of housing development is greatly to blame. They make it as hard as possible on developers inflating the prices on housing over there, so much of that traffic is people employed in Corvallis living in Albany. Albany representatives need to start putting some pressure on Corvallis.
No, Albany needs to follow suit with Corvallis and start making it harder on the developers. ENOUGH expansion!
Oh, and just stop building housing? Okay.. people are ridiculous
Put some reasonable thought into developing. Don’t build without infrastructure to support it. Get the developers involved in the infrastructure (at THEIR cost). After all, outside of the city, it’s the developers making all the money.
“at their cost”.. how do you think that works? It all gets passed down to the “us” the consumers. Need less government, not more
I’m sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for folks who live in North Albany who deal with the traffic…it was your CHOICE to purchase homes and/or rent in North Albany and then commute over the bridge. Hubby and I had briefly considered moving to NA because he worked at HP and thus it would have been convenient, but else-wise, it would be a pain in the butt so we didn’t.
Why don’t you live in Corvallis. where he is employed?
So he commutes over the bridge everyday, exactly my point.
Regarding Hasso’s pointing out that, yes, we have to get in the car to go get milk and bananas: If Albany officials could see beyond their own noses, they should have put pressure on Oregon Freeze Dry, or whoever it was, who would not let Walmart build their store on the old Stone Forest Plywood plant site. We would have then had a grocery store in West Albany…especially since the City let Safeway close their grocery store on South Pacific Blvd. and move it to Heritage Mall area.
I realize this would not help the “bridge” problem, but it sure as hell would help the traffic problems and lessen number of cars all going to the same area of town.
Toll bridge or tunnel near Hyak park into the backside of Albany. If you want less traffic attach a toll. Otherwise tear down the old and reconstruct a new bridge and plan to handle all the traffic.
Our local “leaders” have certainly failed us!
Past and Present.
Gut instinct tells us that most of the afternoon traffic is coming from the west. Among the many flaws in our statewide land use system is that it restricts or eliminates the ability of the marketplace to properly respond to housing demand thus creating this situation where half the people who work in our region do not live here and the result is a much higher number of work commuters than would otherwise be necessary. In addition, we as a state decided 30 years ago that building new transportation infrastructure was something we were not going to do. Neither of these statewide public policies enhance the livability of Oregon, yet no one seems to be calling for them to be revisited.
There’s no money for keeping up roads we have — let alone building new ones.
Marketing. 125 + years. Motorists are a higher class / of road user. Rugged Individualists.
I don’t have a solution to the problem; but, additional bridges mean additional 4 lane roads, which means more cars which means no solution.
Portland is a prime example. I-5 was built to take the load off the old HWY 99 route into Vancouver. It didn’t take long until traffic of I-5 was a night mare. Solution? Build I-205!
Great solution now both of them are crammed.
I have noticed that Richard. Additional lanes were added to I5 and then Glenn Jackson Bridge and I205 were added, now both are congested. I used to drive I5 going south from Portland in the late evening in the 70’s & 80’s and it was like a ghost town on 5 south of Salem on into Eugene. Not anymore. When I drive north on 5 now days, I am amazed at all the traffic between here and Portland. Then, Portland traffic is like a zoo when ya finally get there. I try to avoid driving north like the plague. Of course, you know what it reminds me of, driving in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. No, I am not from California. I am just an old Oregonian trying to deal with the change of Oregon! My comments are a little off subject on the congestion on Hwy 20 and the bridge to downtown. I do not see a solution to that for many years. It WILL get worse and I guess we will have to live with it. And, yes, I am one of those “poor souls” that live in N Albany and have the link to the main part of Albany across the bridges. It was not a problem in years past and I never thought we’d have rush hour traffic in little ol Albany OR.
People complain about their city population increasing but some have large families. Children have to live somewhere.
You know that some hours in the morning and late afternoon the traffic is more than at other hours of the day. I wonder how many of you are thinking I should have gone with Hwy 34 when standing in traffic. For those that just comute 2/3 miles over the bridge , you could walk or bicycle and you could be thinking what an idiot’s to wait in your car .
In the old days, there used to be these people called “urban planners” who would figure out this stuff with great community input and an eye towards the future needs and growth of their city. In the 30+ years of living in the PNW I see the same mistakes in every community I’ve lived in, and they all stem from growth with this backwards mantra: if you build it, they will come. This needs to stop because with all that future building, what gets left out is the preservation and keeping in good repair the existing infrastructure that gets left to rot: roads, schools, parks, utilities and everything else we depend on.