US 69 Improvements in Oklahoma

Started by I-39, June 10, 2017, 06:46:20 PM

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I-39

Here is a place to discuss any improvements along US 69 in Oklahoma, moving it out of my previous post about the US 69 freeway in Kansas.

I wonder why Oklahoma isn't taking this more seriously if this is such as heavily used route?


Scott5114

Most of us take proper capitalization seriously too, but OkDOT doesn't, so why should we assume anything else we consider important matters to them?
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Road Hog


Bobby5280

At any rate, upgrading US-69 in Oklahoma to Interstate quality from the Red River to Big Cabin is a far more justifiable project than doing an Interstate quality upgrade of US-69 in Kansas from Kansas City down to I-44. The latter project has I-49 running parallel to it not very far to the East. The segment of US-69 in Oklahoma in question has no parallel Interstate highway within close proximity.

Perhaps if the toll gates were removed from I-44 a bunch of truck traffic might get off US-69 and then use I-35 and I-44 instead. But removing the toll gates is not likely to happen since so many Oklahoma residents believe roads are funded with fairy dust, prayer and other forms of wishful thinking rather than actual money. They're not going to stand for a big fuel tax increase to offset removal of those toll gates. That brings about another tough question. If US-69 ever gets an Interstate upgrade will it be a "free" road and signed as US-69 or be a new turnpike running parallel to US-69?

I-39

You'd think they'd be pursuing this more as opposed to the I-57 extension since it's a shorter route. But alas, I guess we'll have to settle for I-57/30 as the direct Chicago-Dallas route (which honestly, I like better anyway. It allows you to bypass St. Louis and pay no tolls).

Bobby5280

#5
Traffic along that route, particularly semi truck traffic, is really heavy. There are few non-Interstate routes elsewhere in the country that have truck traffic levels like this. CA-58 in California between Barstow and Bakersfield (which really needs to be an extension of I-40) is the only obvious example that comes to mind.

As per OK state politics, I agree the "lawmakers" calling the shots in the State Capitol are laying the ground work for an exodus of young adults, especially young women. They're playing a short-term game, pandering to older, white, conservative voters and not thinking one bit about the long term effect that game will have on the state's economy. Any young couple wanting to raise a family would be stupidly insane to do so in Oklahoma under the current conditions. Those couples who are able to move to another state will have every incentive to do so. Young couples who cannot afford to leave will have every incentive not to have children.

"Lawmakers" have designs on dismantling the public school sector and privatizing it (big tax cuts for home owners and death to "socialist" public schools). Who cares if the average young couple can't afford unregulated, sky high private school tuition rates? "Lawmakers" just dealt a blow to single working mothers with their cuts to Earned Income Credit. They're doing all they can to make health insurance coverage affordable to only the biggest companies and most wealthy individuals. They want to eliminate a woman's right to choose, yet make it punishingly expensive for young working families to have children. It goes on and on. So all this bluster I hear from these guys "looking out for the American Family," is a whole lot of crap.

Every state economy depends on a steady supply of skilled young people entering the work force. Young workers are vital to supporting the tax base, pension systems and many other elements of the broader economy. Retired workers draw more from the system than pay into it, but boy do they show up to the election polls! Oklahoma is already a flyover state as it is. Under this game plan it will end up as a totally broke, deteriorating, aging and dying flyover state.

But once that process is complete, towns like Atoka and Muskogee will have lots of empty, abandoned properties easy enough to clear and make way for an I-45 extension. The extension would be more to the benefit of Texas & Mexico traffic heading to the Northeast US anyway. So if the towns along the way in OK are dead and dying it will make building that road so much more easy!
:-P

US 89

This may have been said someplace, but I can't find it: I think I-45 could be extended up the US 69 corridor all the way to Kansas City. 69 is already a freeway in SE Kansas.

And then (although this is getting into fictional highways territory) I-35 could replace I-29 north from there, and I-45 can replace current I-35.

Henry

I agree that having I-45 would provide a way to bypass OKC at high speed if you're traveling from Dallas to St. Louis/Chicago and vice versa, but what about the route to Kansas City? With I-49 already in place, I really don't see any reason to build an Interstate along US 69, except for pork barrel purposes.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

rte66man

Even at 2 a.m. it is highly unlikely you can make it through Okmulgee and Henryetta without stopping.  That doesn't even include Weleekta, Wetumka, Coalgate, Atoka, etc.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

Brian556

Quote from Bobby5280:
QuoteAs per OK state politics, I agree the "lawmakers" calling the shots in the State Capitol are laying the ground work for an exodus of young adults, especially young women. They're playing a short-term game, pandering to older, white, conservative voters and not thinking one bit about the long term effect that game will have on the state's economy. Any young couple wanting to raise a family would be stupidly insane to do so in Oklahoma under the current conditions. Those couples who are able to move to another state will have every incentive to do so. Young couples who cannot afford to leave will have every incentive not to have children.

"Lawmakers" have designs on dismantling the public school sector and privatizing it (big tax cuts for home owners and death to "socialist" public schools). Who cares if the average young couple can't afford unregulated, sky high private school tuition rates? "Lawmakers" just dealt a blow to single working mothers with their cuts to Earned Income Credit. They're doing all they can to make health insurance coverage affordable to only the biggest companies and most wealthy individuals. They want to eliminate a woman's right to choose, yet make it punishingly expensive for young working families to have children. It goes on and on. So all this bluster I hear from these guys "looking out for the American Family," is a whole lot of crap.

Every state economy depends on a steady supply of skilled young people entering the work force. Young workers are vital to supporting the tax base, pension systems and many other elements of the broader economy. Retired workers draw more from the system than pay into it, but boy do they show up to the election polls! Oklahoma is already a flyover state as it is. Under this game plan it will end up as a totally broke, deteriorating, aging and dying flyover state.

I like what you said. I have always felt that the people in charge, and as a result, the entire system in general, are unfair to young people. I t sucks that all the people in charge are selfish old people that don't give two fucks about the younger generation.

Young people can't even afford to move out on their own because rent is astronomically high, because of greedy older people making it that way.
The education system is a dysfunctional scam designed to take advantage of and rip off young people. Its just a shame that most young people are too blind to see this. They should be raising hell.

I have strong disdain towards the older generation for their behavior over the decades and how their selfishness has made this country a shithole for the younger generation.

sparker

#10
Quote from: Brian556 on June 12, 2017, 11:52:31 AM
Young people can't even afford to move out on their own because rent is astronomically high, because of greedy older people making it that way.
The education system is a dysfunctional scam designed to take advantage of and rip off young people. Its just a shame that most young people are too blind to see this. They should be raising hell.

It seems like the most recent iterations of "conservatives" seem to be intending to set up certain jurisdictions -- and certainly the state of Oklahoma qualifies as a target -- as virtual "reservations" for followers of a mindset that thinks that anything introduced after about 1962-63 is an affront to their sociopolitical sensibilities (both ecumenical and secular).  From all appearances and evidence these folks would have rather avoided, in no particular order, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Pill, anything expanding individual rights (except for gun ownership & use), the Department of Education (they'll take USDOT with a grain of salt!), HUD, female congresspersons other than previous officeholders' widows, most of cable TV, popular music post-early-Elvis, the Summer of Love (duh!), moderate Republicans, yadda yadda.........!!!!  They've always been around, but now they've managed to convince enough gullible people to cobble up a working voting bloc and vote against their own interests!  And much of this is due to media manipulation -- repeating the same bullshit until it becomes the de facto truth to an audience that has been inured to seek simple answers to what are, for better or worse, complex problems.   The reality is that at this point in time we can't revert to pre-1963 sensibilities; at minimum a working plurality of the country no longer even pays lip service to many of the a priori standards promulgated prior to that time; the media and information expansion over the past half-century has taken care of that!  I doubted the concept when I first read it in the mid-'60's, but perhaps Marshall McLuhan was right -- the medium -- or control thereof -- has indeed become the prevailing message (no thanks to the likes of Fox News and even CNN for contributing to this phenomenon).  Maybe the political majority in Oklahoma may wish to shape their state as a shining beacon pointing to the past as future, but all they'll do in the longer run is to make a sizeable number of lives miserable (or at best really inconvenient) until their misadventures catch up with them.  The "dictatorship of the proletariat" eventually resulted in the downfall of the socialized state; the "dictatorship of the self-righteous" will likely be the bête noire of this particular ideological bent. 

And then maybe a few purse strings will loose and US 69 will indeed become a northern extension of I-45.  In the meantime, we'll all just have to push for the I-49 and the nascent I-57 corridors to be completed to effect relatively efficient egress from Texas to the upper Midwest and Great Lakes areas!     

I-39

Well, I certainly didn't intend for this to get political................

I started this to discuss a potential extension of I-45 and now it's turned into a thread for people to vent their rage about Oklahoma politics.  :-|

Bobby5280

Oklahoma's politics are why things like the present mixed-bag configuration of US-69 are in their current condition. They already started the process of converting US-69 in Oklahoma to a freeway. It's all freeway between the outskirts of McAlestser and Muskogee. The segment from Durant to Caddo is freeway quality. There are other short stretches of road where the main lanes are flanked by frontage roads or a wide median is available for building a future freeway. Obviously the state had some designs on converting this highway from the Red River to Big Cabin into a freeway. They just never finished the job.

And it's like this for so many other road projects in Oklahoma. The state has little if any sense of long term planning when it comes to highway corridors, whether they're roads needed for a metro area like OKC or a longer distance project beneficial to a multi-state region.

The Kilpatrick Turnpike is still just one-fourth of a loop highway around OKC more than 20 years after the road started getting built. It's growing ever more impossible to build any extensions of it. The proposed extension to Airport Road is a joke. But what else can they do? Planners were asleep at the wheel while the corridor directly South through Mustang got gobbled up by developers.

When they actually want to build something like a new road their concepts turn out to be a giant, head-scratching WTF. Like those proposed turnpikes from Duncan to Davis and Snyder to Clinton back in the 1990's. I have a few different ideas for new roads in the state, a couple of which would be great, beneficial additions to the overall Interstate highway system. But I don't know what kind of logic these guys were using to come up with those turnpike proposals. It all seemed like good ole boy network deal making crap rather than doing something that actually made any sense.

sparker

Quote from: I-39 on June 12, 2017, 07:09:21 PM
Well, I certainly didn't intend for this to get political................

I started this to discuss a potential extension of I-45 and now it's turned into a thread for people to vent their rage about Oklahoma politics.  :-|
Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 13, 2017, 12:18:46 AM
Oklahoma's politics are why things like the present mixed-bag configuration of US-69 are in their current condition. They already started the process of converting US-69 in Oklahoma to a freeway. It's all freeway between the outskirts of McAlestser and Muskogee. The segment from Durant to Caddo is freeway quality. There are other short stretches of road where the main lanes are flanked by frontage roads or a wide median is available for building a future freeway. Obviously the state had some designs on converting this highway from the Red River to Big Cabin into a freeway. They just never finished the job.

And it's like this for so many other road projects in Oklahoma. The state has little if any sense of long term planning when it comes to highway corridors, whether they're roads needed for a metro area like OKC or a longer distance project beneficial to a multi-state region.

The Kilpatrick Turnpike is still just one-fourth of a loop highway around OKC more than 20 years after the road started getting built. It's growing ever more impossible to build any extensions of it. The proposed extension to Airport Road is a joke. But what else can they do? Planners were asleep at the wheel while the corridor directly South through Mustang got gobbled up by developers.

When they actually want to build something like a new road their concepts turn out to be a giant, head-scratching WTF. Like those proposed turnpikes from Duncan to Davis and Snyder to Clinton back in the 1990's. I have a few different ideas for new roads in the state, a couple of which would be great, beneficial additions to the overall Interstate highway system. But I don't know what kind of logic these guys were using to come up with those turnpike proposals. It all seemed like good ole boy network deal making crap rather than doing something that actually made any sense.

Whether at the state or federal level, politics invariably intrudes on transportation planning efforts.  But only part of that manifests itself as active opposition to projects; by and large it's a simple matter of priority reductionism.  Regarding OK -- as long as the attention of those who have been in charge of state matters for the last generation is focused on other items within a specific agenda, transportation -- which for the most part doesn't receive a lot of social-policy activity outside urban circles or environmentally fragile areas -- doesn't pose the opportunity for ideologues to further that agenda, especially in a state like Oklahoma that features limited urbanization.  It's a typical Plains "red" state in that much of the political power still stems from rural areas and small towns (including speed traps!!!).  That doesn't bode well for large-scale statewide projects -- such as an upgrade of US 69 would be.  Transportation progress in this venue just won't occur until such time as due political (and fiscal) attention is paid to it -- period; and with the present bunch in charge, that probably won't come soon.     

bugo

I've done 69/75 several times late at night coming home from concerts in Dallas. I nearly got run over by two trucks south of Atoka heading back one rainy night. It needs to be improved. If you were the one to die in a collision, would you feel differently about it?

rte66man

Bringing this topic back from the political abyss.....

ODOT has announced a public meeting regarding the proposed improvements to US69/75 in Calera:

https://www.ok.gov/triton/modules/newsroom/newsroom_article.php?id=277&article_id=33238

Quote
Public invited to discuss future US-69 project in Calera

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is hosting a public meeting Thursday, June 15 in Calera to present information and gather public input on a proposed project to improve US-69 from Chickasaw Rd. near Calera to the US-70 Bypass near Durant in Bryan County.   

This project will help improve safety and efficiency for the significant freight traffic on the US-69/75 corridor by improving rail crossings and upgrading it to a controlled-access highway using on- and off-ramps and one way  frontage roads. The existing highway segment has numerous access points, including three signalized intersections and a rail crossing, which create traffic congestion and safety concerns.

A brief presentation will be made on the proposed improvements with ODOT officials available to answer questions following. All project materials will be available online following the meeting at www.odot.org/publicmeetings.

US-69 public meeting

Thursday, June 15
6 p.m.
Calera Public Schools Gymnasium
111 North 4th St.
Calera

Major funding for this project will come from a $62 million FASTLANE grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation in June 2016. Construction is tentatively set to begin in FFY 2019.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

hotdogPi

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 13, 2017, 02:31:43 PM
Freeways are a necessary evil for any major city. Major cities that haven't built any freeways are almost always in poor, third world countries.

For both London and Paris, there are many freeways leading there, but they all end before reaching the center. (London seems to have interchanges on its A roads even where there are no motorways, but Paris seems not to have grade separation near the city center.)
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

Bobby5280

In the case of Paris, the Boulevard Périphérique loop wraps around the historic (and very densely packed) center of the city. The loop comes within 3 miles of the city's center, which is pretty close. There is a whole lot of Paris and metro Paris outside of that loop. English Motorways are spaced farther from London's city center, but there is a lot of controlled interchanges near the city center. It also should be stressed that super highways have only been added to old cities like Madrid in recent times. The super highways end where they do not out of some anti-freeway ideology. They just can't be built any farther into the city without causing massive disruptions and destroying a lot of historic architecture.

english si

#18
Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 13, 2017, 03:27:01 PMIn the case of Paris, the Boulevard Périphérique loop wraps around the historic (and very densely packed) center of the city. The loop comes within 3 miles of the city's center, which is pretty close. There is a whole lot of Paris and metro Paris outside of that loop.
The only bits of the Parisian city limits outside the BP are woods that are deliberately free of urban development - it (or rather the older transport corridor it follows) is the definition of it. The BP does fit within a 4 mile radius circle and there is a lot of the urban area outside.
QuoteEnglish Motorways are spaced farther from London's city center, but there is a lot of controlled interchanges near the city center.
I think there's a total of 4 on (3) or within (1) the Inner Ring Road that have some form of grade-separation. Within 3 miles of the city centre there's 5. A 4 mile radius adds another and a 5 mile radius gives a total of 11. Of which there is one 2-in-a-row, and one 3-in-a-row. 6 miles adds another 11 to turn the 3-in-a-row to a 4 and the 2 in a row into a 7, as well as giving another 2-in-a-row, but the other 9 don't link up to others.

The 7-in-a-row gets to the (freeway-esque) North Circular at it's north end, before hitting a roundabout, and has just one set of lights at it's south end between there and the wider world. The 4-in-a-row has several traffic-light controlled junctions. The 2-in-a-row is the start of something (though doesn't connect to other freeways without hitting a roundabout).
QuoteThe super highways end where they do not out of some anti-freeway ideology. They just can't be built any farther into the city without causing massive disruptions and destroying a lot of historic architecture.
Both Paris and London had freeway revolts, Paris just happened to get more done and be willing to employ tunnelling and such like in later years to build a network.

London on it's north bank and Paris on both its banks managed to get high capacity roads built along their major rivers in the 60s and are rather regretting it (London has taken a lot of the road space to make a cycle route, Paris is planning on changing it), because they are in prime tourist spots and pass a lot of history nearby - here's how the London one used to end before they gave it a diet, and here's the other end also from 2008 (as earliest GMSV - the changes didn't come until ~2015) - note the World Heritage Sites!

Madrid is a city that makes US cities famous for freeways everywhere look like they half-assed their network, so it might be true there that it was only history that stopped it.

US 89

Honestly, Detroit could rip up all its freeways and still be fine.

The problem is that not all cities are like Detroit. Many have crappy arterial systems. In cities like these, freeways are necessary for good traffic flow.

MikeTheActuary

Quote from: bugo on June 13, 2017, 03:57:28 AMIf you were the one to die in a collision, would you feel differently about it?

I'm sure that if you were in a fatal accident, upgrading the highway would be the last thing to cross your mind.  :)

Scott5114

It will be interesting to see what happens in Oklahoma politically over the next two or three years. Keep an eye on Kansas to the north–there's been a major backlash against Brownback's policies, which has lead to Republicans finally switching course and raising taxes. Whether Oklahoma echoes this backlash depends on the timing of the straw that breaks the camel's back. Governor Fallin is term-limited in 2018, so it remains to be seen if there's an abrupt Brownback-style repudiation of her financial policies or if there's a softer transition when a new governor takes up residence on 23rd Street.

Longtime OKC mayor Mick Cornett has announced a run for Governor–assuming he both gets the nomination (which is plausible) and doesn't break with his mayoral positions and makes a hard-right tack, we should see the election produce a more moderate state government no matter which party takes the Governor's Mansion. Cornett frequently found himself working at cross purposes from Fallin (e.g. when Oklahoma City passed an ordinance to raise the minimum wage in the city limits and Fallin quickly signed a bill blocking any city from doing so).

Of course, if Cornett both loses the nomination and is unsuccessful in dragging the primary toward the center, or he entirely discards the principles he followed as mayor in order to gain the nomination, all bets are off. I am immensely hopeful that his involvement in the race, together with the developments in Kansas, will result in moderating the state government in the medium term.

QuotePryor Creek
This is how it's listed on some maps, and is its official name, but it is never called that and is never signed as such. It's just Pryor. (Likewise, the county seat of Washita County is never called New Cordell, just Cordell, since old Cordell is a ghost town at best.)
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

rte66man

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 14, 2017, 04:11:36 AM
It will be interesting to see what happens in Oklahoma politically over the next two or three years.

Longtime OKC mayor Mick Cornett has announced a run for Governor–assuming he both gets the nomination (which is plausible) and doesn't break with his mayoral positions and makes a hard-right tack, we should see the election produce a more moderate state government no matter which party takes the Governor's Mansion.

I suspect Mayor Mick will have a dogfight on his hands with current Lt Gov Todd Lamb already in the race.  We sometimes forget that Mick is not well-known outside of the OKC metro area.  The current political atmosphere means that it has become nearly impossible to be a centrist and win a statewide election.  Besides, as Fallin has demonstrated, the Governor has little say (other than the veto) over what the Legislature does budget-wise.  Usually, her proposed budgets were DOA the minute they were printed.  As a native Oklahoman, I am very pessimistic about the 2018 elections.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

bugo

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 13, 2017, 02:31:43 PM
New terrain bypasses would be necessary for Tushka, Atoka, Stringtown, Kiowa, Savanna, Wagoner, Chouteau, Pryor Creek, Adair and even Big Cabin itself (where the highway would need a new freeway to freeway interchange with I-44). Muskogee would need a new Western bypass for US-69. Freeway quality bypasses don't always need frontage roads flanking them. Frontage roads are most often necessary when an existing highway going through an already developed area is upgraded into a freeway. It would be too disruptive to convert US-69 into a freeway along its existing route through those towns.

It should hook into the US 69 freeway south of Muskogee and head basically due north and a little to the east and hook into I-44 near the Rogers-Mayes county line. That would save some miles of new construction and wouldn't increase the distance from Muskogee to Miami by very much.

Bobby5280

The far right wing that dominates the Republican party with an iron fist ridicules Moderate, Centrist Republicans every bit as harshly as they ridicule any Democrat. The term "cuck" (applied to any Republican who compromises toward the middle ground even in the slightest) sounds much more offensive and pejorative than insulting labels for liberals like "libtard" and "snowflake." The sheer level of bile and hatred the far right has for anyone in the center has forced many Republicans to adopt far right ideologies out of fear.

Of course I have little if any sympathy for a Republican who fears being called a cuckservative. Such politicians are more interested in preserving their re-election hopes rather than standing up for what they believe.

Just for the sake of equal time, the left-wing of the Democratic party has its own problems with forcing its members farther to the left. They're just as out of touch with so much of the nation's voters as those in the "alt-right." If the Democratic party doesn't start trying to appeal to the interests of voters in "flyover country," they're not going to have any sort of great victory in 2018. It will be more of the same, with more state legislatures becoming ever more dominated by the Republican Party.

I think the Democrats have very little hope in Oklahoma's 2018 elections. Just look at the comments section on any politically oriented news story online or in a Facebook discussion group. The Republican Party has turned Oklahoma into a shit show over the past several years, but the vast majority of this state's voters think Oklahoma's misfortunes are all the fault of Obama, Democrats and Black people on welfare. They don't place any blame whatsoever for Oklahoma's busted budget on the Republicans. And they're going to keep voting Republican and voting for more of the same in 2018. Idiots.



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