Oregon Route 217

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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
Major intersections	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 Highways Interstate US State Named Scenic
← OR 216 → OR 218

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

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

OR 217 originally ran along surface streets before it was relocated to freeway sections. The highway 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.^{[citation needed]}

The freeway carrying OR 217 was built in the mid-1960s to early 1970s in several stages, generally beginning at the south end. The full length of the freeway was repaved for the first time in the mid-1980s, along with the replacement of metal median barriers with concrete dividers. By 1985, approximately 60,000 to 68,000 vehicles used OR 217 daily.^[3] The intersection of OR 217 and US 26 in Beaverton was replaced with an interchange in 1986 after two years of construction.^[4]

Future

ODOT started construction on the Auxiliary Lanes Project in December 2021, which aims to add a southbound auxiliary lane from Exit 2A to Exit 6 and a northbound auxiliary lane 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.^[5]

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       Incomplete access

References