Oregon Route 217
Oregon Route 217 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Route 217 highlighted in red | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by ODOT | ||||
| Length | 7.52 mi[1] (12.10 km) | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| South end |  I-5 in Lake Oswego | |||
 OR 99W in Tigard OR 210 in Beaverton OR 141 in Beaverton  OR 8 / OR 10 in Beaverton | ||||
| North end |  US 26 in Beaverton | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | Oregon | |||
| Highway system | ||||
| ||||
Oregon Route 217 is an Oregon state highway which serves the western suburbs of Portland. OR 217 is a controlled-access highway which connects U.S. Route 26 with Interstate 5.
OR 217 consists of the Beaverton-Tigard Highway No. 144 (see Oregon highways and routes).
Route description
 | This article needs to be rewritten in a south-to-north and west-to-east direction to meet our quality standards for road articles. |
For most of its length, OR 217 is a freeway with two travel lanes in each direction, with a third weave lane for exiting and merging, with the exception of its two termini.
The southern terminus of OR 217 is an interchange with I-5. From there, OR 217 proceeds north, through suburbs of Tigard and Beaverton. The northern terminus of OR 217 is an interchange with US 26, at that point a freeway known as the Sunset Highway.
Commuters heading towards either terminus will find themselves on surface streets if they fail to exit. Indeed, southbound travelers wishing to get onto northbound I-5 have to turn left at a traffic signal; southbound travelers of I-5 wishing to become northbound travelers of OR 217 must turn right at a traffic signal at the end of the off-ramp. Access from I-5 North to OR 217 North used to be routed through a 270-degree ramp. A major rebuild of the I-5/OR 217 junction in 2001 resulted in the construction of a flyover ramp, relieving some of the severe congestion associated with the old design.[2] This reconstruction also left room for future freeway-to-freeway connections in other directions.
Traffic on OR 217 is frequently heavy, especially during rush hour. The freeway has several major design issues, one of which is the many closely spaced on and off-ramps (sometimes less than 1/4 mile) that result in conflict between entering and exiting traffic. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has started working on an Auxiliary Lanes Project, but is also investigating a major overhaul of this route.
TriMet's Westside Express Service, a commuter rail line, runs parallel to the highway between Tigard and Beaverton.
History
Before the freeway was completed in the late 1960s to the 1970s, OR 217 ran along surface streets. It originally started at the junction of OR 8 and Hall Blvd. in Beaverton, continuing along Hall Boulevard through Beaverton, Progress, Metzger, and Tigard for 7 miles (11 km) until it reached Durham Road. There, it took a left onto Durham Road, following it for about 0.8 miles (1.3 km) until the intersection with Boones Ferry Road. It remained on Boones Ferry Road through Durham, Tualatin, and Wilsonville for about 8 miles (13 km), crossing the Willamette River on the Boones Ferry and continuing south for another 5 miles (8.0 km) until finally ending at Oregon Route 99E at Aurora, for a grand total of about 20 miles (32 km) or so. The southern terminus was scaled back to Wilsonville (current I-5 exit 286) with the completion of I-5 to Portland. This older highway, called the Beaverton-Aurora Highway, was kept in the state highway system as the Beaverton-Tualatin Highway No. 141, and was recently given the route designation OR 141. The intersection of OR 217 and US 26 in Beaverton was replaced with an interchange in 1986 after two years of construction.[3]
Future
In October 2021, ODOT started construction of auxiliary lanes southbound from Exit 2A to Exit 6 and northbound from Exit 6 to Exit 4. The Allen Boulevard southbound on-ramp and Denney Road southbound off-ramp will be removed for a new frontage road being constructed in place of it.[4]
Exit list
The entire route is in Washington County.
| Location | mi[1] | km | Exit | Destinations | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tigard | 7.52 | 12.10 | I-5 – Portland, Salem Kruse Way – Lake Oswego | I-5 exit 292; roadway continues as Kruse Way | |
| 6.69 | 10.77 | 7 | 72nd Avenue | Only accessible from northbound on-ramp coming from Kruse Way | |
| 5.90 | 9.50 | 6 | OR 99W – Tigard, McMinnville | ||
| 4.95 | 7.97 | 5 | Greenburg Road – Metzger | ||
| Beaverton | 4.27 | 6.87 | 4B | OR 210 (Scholls Ferry Road) | Signed as exit 4 northbound |
| 3.82 | 6.15 | 4A | Hall Boulevard (OR 141) | Southbound exit and entrance | |
| 3.02 | 4.86 | 3 | Denney Road | Southbound off-ramp to be removed by 2025 | |
| 2.48 | 3.99 | 2B | Allen Boulevard | Southbound on-ramp to be removed by 2025 | |
| 1.76– 1.47 | 2.83– 2.37 | 2A | OR 8 (Canyon Road) / OR 10 – Beaverton | ||
| 0.91 | 1.46 | 1 | Walker Road | ||
| 0.19 | 0.31 | — | Cedar Hills | Northbound exit and southbound entrance | |
| 0.01 | 0.016 | — | US 26 (Sunset Highway) – Tillamook, Astoria, Portland | Northbound exit and southbound entrance, US 26 exit 69A | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | Barnes Road | |||
| 1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi | |||||
References
- ^ a b Oregon Department of Transportation, Public Road Inventory Archived 2008-02-24 at the Wayback Machine (primarily the Digital Video Log), accessed March 2008
- ^ compare before and after satellite photos
- ^ Hill, Jim (March 27, 1986). "Sunset-217 interchange work nears completion". The Oregonian. p. E4.
- ^ "Oregon Department of Transportation : Oregon 217 Auxiliary Lanes Project : Oregon 217 : State of Oregon". www.oregon.gov. Retrieved 2022-05-05.