PORTLAND, Ore. — If you’re one of the roughly 120,000 drivers who use Highway 217 every day, your commute may already feel a bit smoother. The Oregon Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that the major elements of its 4-year, $174 million improvement project are now complete.

Highway 217 — once known as the Beaverton-Tigard Freeway — runs about 7-and-a-half miles, connecting U.S. 26 in Beaverton with Interstate 5 in Tigard. Built in the 1970s, the highway quickly became congested as the metro area grew.

Instead of widening the corridor, ODOT added auxiliary lanes: ramp-to-ramp connections between closely spaced on and off-ramps. These lanes give drivers more time to merge or exit without disrupting mainline traffic.

"This wasn’t originally built as a highway,” said ODOT spok

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