The Baker City Council will talk about potential changes to Main Street traffic and parking during its regular meeting Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 6 p.m. at Quail Ridge Golf Course, 2801 Indiana Ave.

The meeting, like the Feb. 11 meeting, was moved from Baker City Hall due to water damage in council chambers from a leaking roof.

In a report to councilors, City Manager Barry Murphy recommends the city appoint a working group to discuss Main Street options for traffic patterns and for parking. The group should include representatives from the city, Main Street business owners and Baker City Downtown, the organization that promotes downtown events.

One potential change, Murphy wrote, is changing the current Main Street traffic configuration — two travel lanes in each direction — to one travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane.

The Oregon Department of Transportation made that change to Campbell Street east of Main Street in 2000.

According to ODOT, benefits of changing from a four-lane to three-lane street can include:

• Reduction of rear-end and left-turn crashes due to the dedicated left-turn lane, since drivers no longer have to stop in a travel lane while waiting to make a turn.

• Reduced right-angle crashes as side street motorists cross three versus four travel lanes.

• Fewer lanes for pedestrians to cross.

Restriping typically is done on streets with an average daily traffic count of less than 25,000, according to ODOT.

The average volume for Main Street in downtown Baker City is 3,800 to 6,300, according to ODOT. Campbell Street’s average is 5,000 to 11,200.

Murphy wrote in his report to councilors that the current configuration on Main Street “leads to vehicles having excessive speed through this downtown corridor. The speed of the traffic impacts some residents’ comfort level with parking on Main Street, and the crosswalks that are not at a traffic signal can be hazardous if there are cars parked that block the view of oncoming traffic or if vehicles are speeding. The four lanes of traffic are also a long distance for pedestrians using crosswalks, especially at night. Crosswalks that cover a shorter distance are safer and can be more comfortable for people enjoying the downtown business district.”

Murphy recommends councilors, with the proposed working group, look into the possibility of changing Main Street from four lanes to three.

He included with his report a 2018 ODOT study of several cities, including Baker City, where thoroughfares were reconfigured from four lanes to three, a tactic known as a “road diet.”

On Adams Avenue in downtown La Grande, where the change was made in 1986-87, traffic crashes dropped by 52% in 1988, and there were 45% fewer crashes in 2016 compared with 1985.

After ODOT restriped Highway 20 through Hines, just south of Burns, in 1998, crashes over the next five years dropped by 62% compared with the five-year period before the change, according to ODOT.

Campbell Street in Baker City had a smaller decrease in crashes after it was restriped from four lanes to three —15% for the five-year period after the change compared with the previous five years.

There was a larger drop in injury crashes, however — 34%.

In 2015 there were eight crashes on that section of Campbell Street, a drop of 35% compared with the five-year period before the lane change.

Also on the council’s agenda Tuesday:

Ambulance backup

In a report to councilors, Murphy wrote that work is under way to make the Baker City Fire Department the official backup to Pioneer Ambulance (formerly Metro West) if Pioneer’s ambulances are all on other calls.

The city has dispatched an ambulance a few times since 2022, when a previous city council decided to discontinue the ambulance service.

Baker County commissioners, who by state law are responsible for choosing ambulance providers, hired Metro West in June 2022.

The fire department still has an ambulance, and all firefighters are either paramedics or EMTs.

County commissioners have approved the first reading of a county ordinance that allows the city to serve as a backup to Pioneer.

On Feb. 19, Murphy and Tim Novotny, regional manager for Pioneer, signed an agreement under which Pioneer, when there is a projected delay of 10 minutes or more to respond to an emergency, can ask the fire department to respond if possible.

Under the agreement, which would be in place from April 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, Pioneer would pay the city 100% of the amount billed for an ambulance response.

Murphy wrote that other steps are needed, though, before the city can start responding to calls from Pioneer.

The city needs to obtain an ambulance license from the Oregon Health Authority. County commissioners sent a letter to OHA supporting the city’s application for a license.

Fire department employees will also need to train with Pioneer on its protocols.

“All of this is now in the works as we wait for the license to come through,” Murphy wrote in his report to councilors.

Public safety fee — assisted living facilities

In a report to councilors, Murphy wrote that the owner of commercial properties in the city asked the city to review the public safety fee, which the council imposed in June 2024, and specifically whether the city’s policy of charging the $20 commercial rate for assisted living facilities, rather than the $10 residential rate for each unit in such facilities, is consistent.

The city does charge the residential rate for each unit in larger apartment complexes.

In his report, Murphy recommends that the council continue to charge the commercial rate for assisted living facilities. He wrote that based on a city ordinance, a unit in an assisted living facility “does not appear to fit the intended definition of a ‘residential unit.’”

Murphy wrote that assisted living facilities “are not intended primary as residential units. They are intended as medical facilities that help residents with varying degrees of abilities to live independently.”

The council approved the public safety fee to offset a projected shortfall of about $900,000 in the city’s general fund for the fiscal year that started July 1, 2024. Councilors wanted to avoid possible cuts in the police and fire departments, which make up about 57% of the general fund.

The public safety fee generates about $750,000 per year. The ordinance setting the fee states that the money collected “shall be used for expenses in Public Safety Departments and for no other purpose.”