ROADWORK MAZE ABOUT TO GET WORSE.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

When road builders shut off Interstate 105 in Eugene next week and east-west traffic grinds to a halt and you're late, late, late - and sitting in traffic - consider this:

Most city dwellers in the United States spend days and days of their lives in traffic jams each year. But drivers in Eugene-Springfield idle for a mere nine hours a year, according to new data from the 2005 Urban Mobility Report by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Pensacola, Fla., drivers face twice as much traffic-jam time as Eugene-Springfield residents; Colorado Springs, three times as much; Seattle, five times; San Francisco, eight times. Los Angeles has the worst gridlock, with 10 times the average yearly wait of that found on Eugene-Springfield's roads.

So when you're getting steamed, keep this in mind: It's all relative. To you, nine hours in jams might be highly irritating. But to a driver from Tucson, Ariz., it would be a welcome relief. That Tucson driver expects to spend 36 hours a year hoping that the taillights ahead finally move.

That said, it's going to be bad enough in Eugene-Springfield beginning on Monday when the first major closure of the I-105 project begins.

So far, the Eugene-Spring- field Highway closures have consisted of no more than a ramp or two shut in the dead of night: Now, eastbound I-105 drivers will find a roadblock - one that will throw about 60,000 drivers a day off course.

"There will be a whole lot of ripple effect from the construction," Eugene City Engineer Tom Larsen said. "The traffic that I-105 handles cannot conveniently go anyplace else. People will be delayed."

Traffic planners expect some gridlock, but they're not sure where. It depends on where drivers are headed on Monday, the first scheduled closure date.

Drivers have limited alternative east-west routes over Interstate 5 to choose: Will they all take Franklin Boulevard and make Glenwood a parking lot? Or will they be bumper to bumper on Harlow Road?

ODOT spokesman Lou Torres said the traffic jams are unavoidable.

"We've never painted a rosy picture," he said. "There's going to be some congestion. There's no question about it.

"You've probably seen our slogan, `Find a New Way'? Well, we really mean that."

The city's traffic engineers tried to figure out how to ease the flow by, for instance, retiming the traffic lights on Coburg Road, a route that is likely to be heavily affected as drivers search for options.

But Larsen said they couldn't figure out which traffic flows to give more "green" time.

"The signals are just about maxed out right now and there's very little we can do to accommodate a lot of extra traffic," Larsen said. `We couldn't find a lot of alternative timing.'

The $14 million summer construction project will widen and resurface most of the 3.5-mile freeway spur.

Closures are supposed to be over by Aug. 1; the project is scheduled to be complete by Nov. 1 - although unexpected events, such as the three day rainout last week, could shift the schedule, state transportation officials said.

The construction project is not meant to add capacity to the freeway, but to give longer lanes for mergers - for safety's sake - and to rebuild the surface so as to preserve the road.

Still, the addition of a third "slip" lane between each exit is expected to ease the flow of traffic, assistant project manager Don McLane said.

"It probably does make everything work better from an efficiency standpoint. You won't have as much stop-and-go traffic with people trying to merge and weave, so we'll probably have greater through-put."

It's one more reason why Eugene-Springfield won't be like San Bernardino, where the drivers spend six times as long in jams.

"Overall, traffic moves pretty well in Eugene," Larsen said. "In the big picture, (construction) will be of short duration for some real community benefit, and we'll survive as best we can."

ROADBLOCKS

The Oregon Department of Transportation anticipates five major closures on Interstate 105 this spring and summer:

Monday to May 23: Eastbound I-105 over the I-5 interchange. (Closure dates could shift based on weather or other factors.)

May 24-31: Westbound I-105 over the I-5 interchange.

June 9-12: Westbound I-105 over Coburg Road.

June 13-24 : Eastbound I-105 over Coburg Road.

Want more? See ODOT's www.keepusmoving.info Web site on the project.

Be extra cautious: Project managers ask drivers to go slowly, move to the center lane and allow oncoming drivers plenty of room; ramps are shortened, which creates dangerous merges.