Washington County and the City of Beaverton are moving forward with their Farmington Road Project, which calls for the widening of Farmington Road from Murray Boulevard to Hocken Avenue.  As set forth on the Project’s website:

Farmington Road, between Murray Boulevard and Hocken Avenue, is a heavily-used four-lane section of roadway that lacks continuous bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

This project will make needed safety and traffic capacity improvements to this section of Farmington Road, for all modes of transportation.

Improvements include:

■   Widening the roadway to five lanes (two travel lanes in each direction with a center turn lane)

■   Continuous bicycle facilities

■   Continuous pedestrian facilities

■   Street lighting

■   Realign 141st and 142nd Avenues

An aerial strip map showing the extent of the takings and impacted properties is found here.  While this Project appears to serve a legitimate public purpose, whether the owners of the impacted properties will receive the just compensation to which they are constitutionally-entitled is a wholly different matter.

The Project’s published schedule indicates that the government has begun “right of way acquisition,” which will continue into the Fall of 2014.  Construction was slated to begin in the Spring of 2015, but has been accelerated to the Summer of 2014 according to recent reports.