Lawton, I-44 & Gore Blvd. Pedestrian Deaths

[Bobby5280]

Yet again, another pedestrian was killed on I-44 in Lawton last night, hit by a truck while trying to jay-walk across the freeway's main travel lanes. This tragedy happened in roughly the same place as other pedestrian fatalities and injuries.
http://www.kswo.com/story/30613613/man-killed-while-crossing-i-44

Just a few months ago a lady was killed and her daughter injured when trying to cross in the same area.
http://www.kswo.com/story/28401170/woman-hit-by-car-critically-injured

Some of the not so bright people in Lawton have made jokes about these tragedies or ignorantly said these people should have used the "sidewalks" on the Gore Blvd. bridges over I-44. News flash to these idiots: there are no real sidewalks on those bridges. There certainly are no sidewalks on those bridges that come anywhere near conforming to ADA standards.

ODOT and the OK State legislature both need to pull their collective heads out of their backsides and do something about this problem already. How many more people have to get killed for them to act? This interchange is their responsibility, not the City of Lawton. Yet the city is getting all the flak for it.

The Gore Blvd. interchange with I-44 is deficient in its design. Pedestrian access stinks. Lighting in that area is minimal. On top of that, traffic flow is a cluster**** due to Gore Blvd. having 3 traffic lights in short succession near this interchange.

At the very least, the Gore Blvd. bridges over I-44 need to be modified so real sidewalks & crosswalks of legal width can be added. That's the bare minimum solution, something that should be done ASAP.

ODOT needs to install some damned lights in this area along I-44. I'd like to see some median lights along I-44 from the Lee Blvd. exit up to the Gore Blvd. exit. Then Gore Blvd. across I-44 needs more lighting.

It would be nice if ODOT could build a dedicated pedestrian bridge over I-44 South of the Gore Blvd. interchange. I see people jay-walking across I-44 on a frequent basis going to and from Comanche Nation Casino. There is still a good bit of foot traffic on Gore Blvd. headed to and from places like Apache Casino farther East. If a pedestrian bridge can't be built, then ODOT needs to improve the fencing along I-44 to make it more difficult to cross there. They need to improve the fencing while improving pedestrian access on Gore Blvd. over I-44.

I talked about the idea of a SPUI in a previous post about this particular interchange. A SPUI is not very pedestrian friendly due to all the crosswalks. However, a SPUI would at least provide a lot more space for sidewalks big enough for proper pedestrian/bike access. The SPUI could dramatically cut the traffic light bottleneck currently taking place along Gore Blvd.

A Diverging Diamond Interchange would not work for Gore Blvd. There is too much through traffic on the main lanes of Gore Blvd. The pair of traffic lights at either end of the interchange would cause back-ups and actually worsen the overall traffic situation. Traffic exiting from I-44 would gain hardly any benefit.

[Scott5114]

Looking on the satellite view of the interchange, it's hard to say that they could be called side-anything.

[Henry]

This is an unfortunate situation indeed. They should either put up a pedestrian bridge or a better fence, because isn't that illegal to walk across an Interstate/limited-access highway anyway? And at the very least, high-mast lights should go up at these interchanges, to complement the median lighting in between them.

[rte66man]

Maybe there isn't any urgency about pedestrians getting turned into street pizza, especially if they're lower income people likely walking to and from a casino. If the powers that be can't think about the safety of those pedestrians, then what about the well being of the motorists? If you run over a person with your vehicle you're going to be traumatized by it (not to mention your vehicle is going to be damaged). I saw a man hit by a van when I lived in New York City. The guy died in the hospital a couple days later. I'll never forget how distraught the van driver was. He was also visibly scared as if he did something wrong. I really felt bad for him.

What have you done to remedy the situation?  Have you contacted the District 7 office?  The development of the CWP starts with their understanding of the needs in their district (p.8 of the Construction Work Plan FFY2015-23).  If they don't see this as a priority then any upgrades are not likely to ever be made.

Have you contacted your state Senator and Representative? Do either of them serve on their respective Budget Committees? If so, they may be able to get some light on the problem.  However, given the FY2017 budget outlook, it it more likely that less money will be available.

IMO, the Comanches should pony up for improvements as they are the ones that created the problem to begin with.  What kind of traffic improvements were made when it was built?  No one, regardless of the nature of the business (retail, tribal, housing, etc) should be able to build a traffic-generating item without contributing to traffic improvements.  Yes, sometimes I do live in my own little dream world

[Bobby5280]

KSWO TV here in Lawton ran another news story about the Thanksgiving Day pedestrian death:
http://www.kswo.com/story/30645402/man-killed-crossing-i-44-identified-city-looking-for-solutions

According to this ODOT and the Lawton City Council have been discussing this for some time. But the way the news anchor put it at the end of package, it sounds like the best thing any locals can hope for is (maybe) some improved fencing along the sides of the highway. A dedicated pedestrian bridge is mentioned as one option as well as the option of adding one or more sidewalks to the 2 Gore Blvd bridges over I-44. But they're seen as too costly. As for fencing, the hotels and other businesses along the highway have been fighting those efforts. They claim a fence would block their visibility to highway traffic and accumulate trash. I wonder if those guys realize there is already a fence there accumulating trash and weed overgrowth, but that existing fence is short and very ineffective at blocking access to pedestrians. The fencing might keep a stray cow off the highway (it looks like cattle fencing). People hop over it easily.

[AlexandriaVA]

But the way the news anchor put it at the end of package, it sounds like the best thing any locals can hope for is (maybe) some improved fencing along the sides of the highway

Ah yes the heartland approach to pedestrian safety: make it more difficult for people to be pedestrians.

[The Ghostbuster]

The area around the Gore Blvd. bridge looks pretty rural. Maybe that is why there never were any pedestrian access at this location. The bridge also looks kind of old. Maybe the situtation could be remedied when the bridge is slated for reconstruction, though it should probably be remedied sooner.

[Bobby5280]

The Gore Blvd. & I-44 interchange was designed like an ordinary rural diamond interchange, but there is a lot of commercial and industrial development near the interchange. The North side of the interchange only looks rural because that land is trust land owned by the Comanche Tribe and they've done very little with it except build a water park prone to flooding from Cache Creek.

7 hotels are adjacent to or very close to the interchange (Spring Hill Suites, Fairfield Inn, Comfort Suites, Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites, Homewood Suites and Sleep Inn are on the West side of I-44 and Best Western Plus is on the East side of the interchange). Comanche Nation Casino next door to Best Western to the South. Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop G HQ, Cracker Barrel, Mike's Sports Grill and Salas Urban Cantina are just West of the exit. Apache Casino & Hotel is 3/4 mile East of the exit along with several restaurants and other businesses. 1/2 mile West of the interchange there is a bunch of new retail development along 2nd Street.

I-44 divides the East and West sides of Lawton. There are only 3 crossings over I-44 joining both sides of town (Roger's Lane, Gore Blvd. and Lee Blvd./OK-7). Gore Blvd. is by far the most heavily used route. Cache Road is another I-44 exit in town, but it dead ends at I-44. It doesn't connect with East Cache Road on the East side of town (mainly because of all the trust land it would have to cross).

As important as the Gore & I-44 intersection is to Lawton traffic this interchange really needs to be a lot better. ODOT could at least install more lights in this area. It's ridiculous how dark it is through there at night. I think a SPUI would be a huge improvement, partly because it would eliminate one of the 3 traffic lights along Gore over I-44. It would give pedestrians and bicyclists a much safer crossing over I-44 than what exists now. Plus it would look a hell of a lot better.

[CtrlAltDel]

But the way the news anchor put it at the end of package, it sounds like the best thing any locals can hope for is (maybe) some improved fencing along the sides of the highway

Ah yes the heartland approach to pedestrian safety: make it more difficult for people to be pedestrians.

Are you suggesting that it should be easier for pedestrians to access the interstate?

[AlexandriaVA]

But the way the news anchor put it at the end of package, it sounds like the best thing any locals can hope for is (maybe) some improved fencing along the sides of the highway

Ah yes the heartland approach to pedestrian safety: make it more difficult for people to be pedestrians.

Are you suggesting that it should be easier for pedestrians to access the interstate?

Access? I'm indifferent to that. Cross? Absolutely.

[Bobby5280]

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your post. Removing I-44 in the style of a new urbanism effort is a non-starter. That's the only path for I-44 to bisect the Lawton-Fort Sill area. Any I-44 bypass would be very expensive to build because it would have to go so far out of the way to avoid the East or West ranges of Fort Sill, the Wichita Mountains Wildlife refuge West of I-44 and a lot of development. The Interstate doesn't need to be disconnected into some kind of "Breezewood" either.

I-44 doesn't bisect a "neighborhood" in the Gore Blvd. area. Nearly all of it is commercial and industrial development. There's very little residential space nearby.

ODOT as well as the state/federal government simply need to stop treating I-44 in Lawton as if it is some minimal rural highway with no development along side of it. The Gore Blvd. interchange with I-44 is a glaring problem. The pedestrian deaths are one thing. Traffic flow is another. It's just a badly inefficient interchange.

The highway has a number of other deficiencies as it runs through Lawton. It's dark as hell for one thing. There's hardly any lighting between the Rogers Lane and Lee Blvd exits. Usually an interstate running through an urban area would have a column of lights in the median. Not so in Lawton.

The Cache Road & I-44 interchange has 10 high rise lighting towers. At least 4 of them are turned off completely. A couple others have had lamps out for a long time. Of the lamps that do work they're all these dim white-ish lamps rather than the amber colored lamps I've seen in all high rise lighting towers everywhere else. ODOT is getting off on the cheap with this old interchange. The whole thing should have been re-built. They recently finished a "remodel" which replaced two smaller on ramp and off ramp bridges and patched up everything else, including the tri-level bridge which looks at least 50 years old.

[Bobby5280]

There's a little more news regarding this topic. Last night the issue of pedestrian deaths on I-44 was (once again) a topic of discussion on the Lawton City Council agenda. KSWO-TV covered the meeting and posted this report:
http://www.kswo.com/story/30761614/plans-to-keep-people-from-crossing-i-44-moving-forward

The council voted 5-3 on a motion to have the City Manager approach ODOT and request chain link fences to be built along both sides of I-44 in the affected area. Councilman Jay Burk, who lives on the city's East side pushed for a separate walkway, complaining bicyclists and pedestrians can't safely cross I-44 at Gore to get out of the East side of town. He said a fence alone wouldn't stop people from climbing over and crossing the highway anyway.

The council ordered city staff to apply for an ODOT Enhancement Grant to get funds to build a sidewalk on one of the Gore Blvd. bridges over I-44. The project's estimated cost is $900,000; the state grant would cover $600,000 of it. ODOT wants surrounding businesses to help cover the remaining cost of the sidewalk expansion.

If Lawton's city government and ODOT follows through on the fences and sidewalk on Gore Blvd over I-44 that would be an acceptable minimum solution.

If this was an intersection in Norman or Edmond I think a much more comprehensive solution would have been put into place: re-build the Gore Blvd & I-44 interchange as a SPUI to improve both traffic flow and pedestrian/bike access and build a pedestrian bridge over I-44 halfway between the Gore Blvd & Lee Blvd exits (the point where people are taking the short cut across the main lanes of the Interstate). I guess Lawton is lucky to get any table scraps it could possibly get despite the traffic flow in that interchange.

[Bobby5280]

So add a sidewalk and a bike lane. Note that a sidewalk is not a bike lane, and is not a suitable substitute for one.

If the sidewalk has to serve to separated purposes the sidewalk needs to be extra wide and have a lane separation for people on foot and people on pedals. It is only flat out idiotic to expect bicyclists to use the street with 2 ton vehicles and heavier who have absolutely zero regard for anyone pedaling a bicycle. Motorists hate bicyclists almost with a homicidal tendency.

I like to ride by bike, but I know about picking my battles. Laws and their lame attempts at enforcement mean zero to me when it comes basic survival. I'll be dead and street pizza by the time the laws are enforced, which given the perspective of being dead mean the laws are completely irrelevant to my safety as a bicyclist.

If they want to force me to ride a bicycle on the street I won't ride my bicycle at all. I'll just keep on driving my pickup truck everywhere, letting it barf exhaust fumes into the greenhouse gas effect instead. Want me to bike it to work? Do it on my terms. Not on risking my life terms.

[yakra]

Come to Portland sometime. There have been some high profile cases of motorists being cited for unsafe passing recently, including a city bus driver.

I may not be forced to ride in the street per se, but I choose to do it anyway. It's the safe and expedient place to ride. My fear of being mowed over by an inattentive motorist is so close to nil that it makes no odds. Even complete idiots have to watch their surroundings in order to drive. And there are things I can do too to ensure my own safety.

[yakra]

The original and primary. Them dinks ah named aftah us, bub.


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[Scott5114]

If this was an intersection in Norman or Edmond I think a much more comprehensive solution would have been put into place: re-build the Gore Blvd & I-44 interchange as a SPUI to improve both traffic flow and pedestrian/bike access and build a pedestrian bridge over I-44 halfway between the Gore Blvd & Lee Blvd exits (the point where people are taking the short cut across the main lanes of the Interstate). I guess Lawton is lucky to get any table scraps it could possibly get despite the traffic flow in that interchange.

I'm not so sure about that. I don't really follow Edmond that well, but Norman is only starting to get what it needs now after years and years of having a 1970s-era four-lane interstate as the only freeway in town. (There was a rumor that Gary Ridley, an OSU grad, purposefully avoided pursuing any upgrades in Norman because of the rivalry between OU and OSU. I have no idea if that's true or not, but if so it is entirely irresponsible.) Norman makes some attempts at pedestrian/bicycle access (there are some bike lanes on minor collectors, but no major streets) but there seems to be a policy that undeveloped lots don't need sidewalks, so in areas that aren't fully built out the sidewalks just start and stop at random. Norman's government does seem focused on civic improvements as of late (they just put up a referendum, which passed, to build new libraries and parks), so perhaps we'll see them take on this issue as well at some point.

[Bobby5280]

Lawton is still mired with the consequences from decades of little if any urban planning. A few of the traditionally higher income neighborhoods have sidewalks. Most do not. There's no practical way for Lawton to overcome the problem completely any time soon. But the city could at least address some key hot spots, such as the intersection of Cache Road and Fort Sill Blvd. Pedestrian access there totally stinks, but lots of middle school and high school kids are expected to walk through that area regardless of the dangers.

One example of Lawton's poor city planning: some neighborhoods were allowed to build backyard fences of properties right over the utility easements, all to appease the "that's my property!" blow-hards. Result: trees between backyard fences grown up into power lines. Utility workers have to deal with all kinds of hazards as they have to go back yard to back yard to check gas & electric meters or deal with other problems.

Another great example of stupid planning: the location of the industrial park on Lawton's west side. One of Goodyear's biggest tire plants is located there, along with big plants from Bar-S, Republic Paperboard and Silverline Plastics. There is no direct highway connection to this huge industrial park. None of it connects directly to US-62 or I-44. Much of the truck traffic going to and from these plants pounds down city-maintained streets like Lee Blvd. Here's a big laugh: none of the tax revenue benefits Lawton's school districts; it all goes to Cache. Yet some people want more industrial stuff out there, regardless of what it does to the city's infrastructure and limited supply of resources (like water).

[rte66man]

If this was an intersection in Norman or Edmond I think a much more comprehensive solution would have been put into place: re-build the Gore Blvd & I-44 interchange as a SPUI to improve both traffic flow and pedestrian/bike access and build a pedestrian bridge over I-44 halfway between the Gore Blvd & Lee Blvd exits (the point where people are taking the short cut across the main lanes of the Interstate). I guess Lawton is lucky to get any table scraps it could possibly get despite the traffic flow in that interchange.

I'm not so sure about that. I don't really follow Edmond that well, but Norman is only starting to get what it needs now after years and years of having a 1970s-era four-lane interstate as the only freeway in town. (There was a rumor that Gary Ridley, an OSU grad, purposefully avoided pursuing any upgrades in Norman because of the rivalry between OU and OSU. I have no idea if that's true or not, but if so it is entirely irresponsible.) ....

Geez, those OU people will believe ANYTHING  .  Scott, you know better.  ODOT's capital plan is established well in advance.  Gary wasn't there long enough to have that kind of effect.

[rte66man]

Resurrected

https://www.ok.gov/odot/documents/TAP%20PROJECTS%20AWARDED.pdf

Item #7 is the long-awaited ped bridge.

[Bobby5280]

Item #7 is the long-awaited ped bridge.

There's not much detail about the pedestrian bridge design in that PDF. I imagine it is probably a retrofit to add a protected sidewalk to one of the existing Gore Blvd bridges over I-44, the South side one probably. A separate pedestrian only bridge might cost more than $1.3 million given the sky high prices of concrete, steel, etc.

[rte66man]

Item #7 is the long-awaited ped bridge.

There's not much detail about the pedestrian bridge design in that PDF. I imagine it is probably a retrofit to add a protected sidewalk to one of the existing Gore Blvd bridges over I-44, the South side one probably. A separate pedestrian only bridge might cost more than $1.3 million given the sky high prices of concrete, steel, etc.

You are correct:

https://www.ok.gov/odot/documents/REV1-115-TAP-AgendaItem-EX.pdf

pp89-90

Work Description:
This project will require a bridge to be constructed/affixed to the existing bridge over I-44 for the purposes of placing a 6' wide ADA Compliant sidewalk. Starting in the
west at SE 7th Street, the 6' sidewalk will continue across the proposed pedestrian bridge until ending at Lawrie Tatum Road.

General Goals of Project: Pedestrian access across I-44 is a critical need for the community of Lawton. As it currently exists, the pedestrian infrastructural network does not connect across the interstate. This project will afford pedestrians from the area west of the interstate access to tribal amenities in the form of culture and entertainment located on both Comanche and Apache tribal lands. Pedestrians east of the interstate will be afforded a connection to the majority of the city and all the services and commerce that is
contained therein.

The goal of this project is to provide safe pedestrian access across a barrier where fatal accidents have occurred; and likely will continue to occur without intervention.
Safe pedestrian access across Interstate-44 is truly a matter of life and death for the City of Lawton--until there is a safe means for pedestrians to get from one side of the
Interstate to the other

[Scott5114]

tribal amenities in the form of culture and entertainment located on both Comanche and Apache tribal lands.

This is the most ridiculous euphemism for a casino I've ever read. (Correct me if I'm wrong—is there anything else in the tribal lands mentioned?) I'm gonna start describing my job as "tribal amenities in the form of culture and entertainment".