Connecting Sisters, Sparking Bicycling Joy

Situated in the northwest pocket of Deschutes County, Sisters includes varied outdoor recreation options, beautiful scenery, and top tier hiking and mountain biking trails. The city’s thriving downtown is bisected by East Cascade Avenue, which bustles with economic activity and serves as a throughway to Redmond, Bend, and central Oregon. The street is often congested with vehicular traffic, which keeps speeds slow and makes crossing for most pedestrians relatively easy, if not slightly uncomfortable. Crossing this primary street by bike, however, is more difficult, especially for less confident cyclists such as youth and the elderly. Parallel streets to East Cascade Avenue also enjoy robust commercial uses, contain extensive car parking for the entire downtown region, and run the risk of acting as alternative ‘through streets’ for motorists trying to avoid East Cascade. A downtown bypass road to the north of East Cascade Avenue, primarily for diverting freight trucks from the city center, is being planned and developed, and will likely reduce truck traffic through the heart of Sisters, making viewsheds of pedestrians and cyclists crossing East Cascade Avenue slightly easier, though congested conditions are likely to be the norm due to the popularity of Sisters as a regional destination and ‘on the way’ between central Oregon and the more populous regions to the west. Population and housing growth are expected to continue over the next decade, putting pressure on Sisters to both accommodate new residents and maintain a high level of community livability. Sisters Elementary School will soon be moving to join a middle and high school on a single campus area on the southwest side of town. New housing developments are occurring throughout the entire Sisters community and many students live in outlying communities in the region as well, creating automobile traffic to the school and through the community during school drop-off and pick up. Because of its small size, travelling within the city is relatively easy to do by foot, bike, or driving, though there could be more to explicitly support people on bike both in terms of infrastructure connectivity design and in encouraging its use. And with better support for cycling, both residents and tourists to the community stand to benefit. Below are some of the key ideas that can help move the community in this direction.