SH-74 widening/Lake Hefner Parkway extension

[Scott5114]

A project is beginning today to widen SH-74 between the current northern end of the Lake Hefner Parkway freeway at the Kilpatrick Turnpike and N.W. 164th Street. SH-74 will be realigned onto a new, four-lane divided road just west of Portland Avenue (current SH-74). The project includes an interchange at N.W. 150th Street.




http://www.ok.gov/odot/SH-74_expansion_project.html

[Bobby5280]

The extension is interesting, but unfortunately the end of the extension looks like it's already boxed in by commercial and residential development encroaching too damned tight on the corridor. Any extension farther Northward, perhaps looping over Edmond's North side to I-35 would be impossible without buying and demolishing property. A great deal of the growth taking place in metro OKC has been happening in Edmond.

At best, this extension of OK-74 is just going to leap-frog a couple of stop lights. IMHO, ODOT would spend that kind of money a lot better on identifying and preserving important traffic corridors. ODOT should have been doing what Texas has been doing for many years: building divided streets with big medians so those streets could serve as frontage roads for future freeways or turnpikes. But no, ODOT can't manage something logical like that. In the end we have all sorts of obvious high speed traffic corridors that are blocked or eliminated completely by uncontrolled commercial and residential real estate development.

The Kilpatrick Turnpike and H.E. Bailey Turnpike Extension both should have become a complete outer loop (or half outer loop technically) for Oklahoma City. If ODOT had any sense of long term planning like TX DOT has had (at least in the past) that loop might have been complete by now. Instead, the H.E Bailey Turnpike extension stops short of Norman by several miles because ODOT couldn't secure that part of the corridor. And then they totally slept for the past decade while development in Mustang swallowed the potential ROW for OK-4 to connect up with the Kilpatrick.

ODOT not only has to think about corridors that will have to serve traffic growth in Oklahoma City, but they have to be thinking about other corridors to/from Oklahoma City to other places. I know a OKC to Woodward turnpike was on the drawing boards years ago. I think an OKC to Denver highway would fill in a very important missing piece in the Interstate highway system. But what good is that concept going to be if development all along the North side of metro OKC swallows up any potential corridor? It would be just like how I-22 will have to dead end in Mississippi rather than actually make it into Memphis.

[NE2]

I know a OKC to Woodward turnpike was on the drawing boards years ago. I think an OKC to Denver highway would fill in a very important missing piece in the Interstate highway system. But what good is that concept going to be if development all along the North side of metro OKC swallows up any potential corridor? It would be just like how I-22 will have to dead end in Mississippi rather than actually make it into Memphis.

What's wrong with splitting from I-40 at Geary?

Also: any Denver-OKC Interstate should be an extension of I-270. For obvious reasons.

[Bobby5280]

That would be one really long 3 digit Interstate. I kind of like "I-46" since it would be another "x6" route to add to I-76 in the Denver area. It's kind of like I-44 meeting up with I-64 in St Louis. It's too bad I-24 didn't make it to St. Louis even though that's really the logical destination for that diagonal route.

Between Byers and Limon I-70 is aiming diagonally toward Oklahoma City. My thinking is a new Interstate would just keep following that diagonal, one that's already going via US-287 down to Kit Carson. Unfortunately that diagonal stops right there. There's nothing but North-South and East-West highways in the grid farther East. Sublette, KS and Woodward, OK would be the dots on the path to be connected. Hell, even it was just a "Super 2" with at grade intersections the road would still attract a LOT of long distance traffic for all the obvious mileage savings.

Anyway, that wishful thinking is going to be even more impossible to realize with ODOT doing nothing logical in terms of long term planning to protect obvious transportation corridors. An extension of OK-74 makes sense, but only if the extension goes somewhere rather than merely hopping over two intersections before getting stopped dead by a bunch of a commercial and residential development.

A bunch of the area in Edmond between OK-74 and I-35 is filling in very fast with development. It could spread all the way up into Guthrie. And then that would make it very costly or just downright impossible for ODOT to build any relief loop or spur off I-35 on Edmond's North side and bring it around OKC's Western outskirts. ODOT needs to take steps to protect the OK-3 corridor for future expansion. If they can't plan for that then the OK-3 corridor is going to get choked with traffic and totally boxed in just like US-60 is on Phoenix' NW side. There's no way a future I-11 route will make into downtown Phoenix. It's going to get routed around one of the loops far on the outskirts.

[skluth]

That would be one really long 3 digit Interstate. I kind of like "I-46" since it would be another "x6" route to add to I-76 in the Denver area. It's kind of like I-44 meeting up with I-64 in St Louis.

As someone who lives in St Louis, I wish I-44 & I-64 had been planned as one highway. I'd split the difference and make it I-54, but that would duplicate US 54 in Missouri and Illinois so we could make it I-56 (not as cool as 66). This would also allow the Outer Belt south of STL from Caseyville to Sunset Hills as either I-56 or be renumbered as something cool like I-456.

There is really no point to I-64 running from Wentzville to the Poplar Street Bridge. The locals insist on calling it 40 regardless, though it's good it's been upgraded to full freeway.

[rte66man]

That would be one really long 3 digit Interstate. I kind of like "I-46" since it would be another "x6" route to add to I-76 in the Denver area. It's kind of like I-44 meeting up with I-64 in St Louis.

As someone who lives in St Louis, I wish I-44 & I-64 had been planned as one highway. I'd split the difference and make it I-54, but that would duplicate US 54 in Missouri and Illinois so we could make it I-56 (not as cool as 66). This would also allow the Outer Belt south of STL from Caseyville to Sunset Hills as either I-56 or be renumbered as something cool like I-456.

There is really no point to I-64 running from Wentzville to the Poplar Street Bridge. The locals insist on calling it 40 regardless, though it's good it's been upgraded to full freeway.

And bringing this thread back on topic......

I was surprised to see the interchange at 150th be almost completely to the west of Portland. ODOT already has the ROW south of 150th and west of the Bruce Gray Center.  Would have been a great place for OKC's 2nd SPUI given the amount of traffic today combined with the explosive growth just to the west and north.

[yakra]

Also: any Denver-OKC Interstate should be an extension of I-270. For obvious reasons.

You are a fiend, sir!

[algorerhythms]

Also: any Denver-OKC Interstate should be an extension of I-270. For obvious reasons.

You are a fiend, sir!

Any Denver-OKC Interstate must necessarily go through Gaithersburg, Maryland. It's basic geometry.

[NE2]

Nope. Not the joke.

[Plutonic Panda]

This project is now finished: https://www.ok.gov/odot/SH-74_expansion_project.html

Speed limit is set at 55MPH which seems low. 65 would be more appropriate and if it were I'd have it at 70, but perhaps they are waiting to raise it to 65 after the rest of the 4 lane project is finished.

Question, why does ODOT and I've even see Caltrans do this, why do they use asphalt on some projects and concrete on others? For example, new crosstown, beautiful concrete. New I-35 project in Norman, all asphalt. They even did the new boulevard in OKC asphalt and some of the SERVICE roads to the new concrete I-40 in asphalt. It makes no sense and looks tacky. I like concrete better than asphalt because it lasts a lot longer when done right, but it looks better, imo. For desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, I don't mind asphalt as much.

I can understand some projects they use asphalt that will be more temporary like the new off ramps connecting to the future I-44/235 interchange, but then they do it on the new Crosstown BLVD., I-35 in Norman, and now the SH-74 expansion.

[Scott5114]

Question, why does ODOT and I've even see Caltrans do this, why do they use asphalt on some projects and concrete on others? For example, new crosstown, beautiful concrete. New I-35 project in Norman, all asphalt. They even did the new boulevard in OKC asphalt and some of the SERVICE roads to the new concrete I-40 in asphalt. It makes no sense and looks tacky. I like concrete better than asphalt because it lasts a lot longer when done right, but it looks better, imo. For desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, I don't mind asphalt as much.

I'm afraid I'm not entirely qualified to answer the question with more than guesswork, but it's my understanding that whether one or the other is used can be a complex question. Cost is always a factor–asphalt is cheaper but requires more frequent maintenance, while concrete is more expensive but lasts longer. I believe there are some soil types that are more suited for one or the other as well.

On the other hand, longtime ODOT director and current Secretary of Transportation Gary Ridley was executive director of the Oklahoma Asphalt Paving Association for four years. Make of that whatever you will.

It can always be worse. ODOT just chip-sealed the southbound lanes of US-62/US-277 between Newcastle and SH-9. Four-lane divided highway, and it's paved with gravel glued to the roadbed with tar. It's cheap!

[Bobby5280]

Nice to see this 2 mile extension of Hefner Parkway get finished fairly quick. I wonder if ODOT has any plans on extending the freeway farther North, either along the OK-74 corridor or veering off to the Northeast and East to connect with I-35. ROW will only get far more difficult to acquire for any such extension as the years pass.

I'm a little surprised they didn't try to at least get the freeway extension built as far North as Edmond Road (NW 178th Street). Development in Edmond is either pretty dense or actively being built-up clear up to Covell Road. That's another 3 miles North of where this new freeway extension ends.

[Plutonic Panda]

I agree. It would be nice to see them at least acquire the proper ROW needed for such an expansion.

[Scott5114]

I went up there and took some pictures.


Originally, this interchange marked the north end of Lake Hefner Parkway, where SH-74 transitioned onto two-lane Portland Avenue toward Crescent. The two sign panels on the left are new. Of note is this section of SH-74 is still being signed as Portland Avenue instead of as Lake Hefner Parkway. Also, for some reason, the "o" in "Portland" is smaller than everything else on that sign. The "1" on the left most sign has contracted a deadly, highly contagious virus, so "EXIT" and "MILE" are giving it a wide berth.


The virus has spread to the ½ on this sign. EXIT and MILE remain in quarantine. Incidentally, even though Clearview has been banned, the contract for these signs went out before the ban was in place, so they were allowed to be fabricated in Clearview.


Typical view of the new freeway segment just north of the bridge over N.W. 150th Street.


Signal at N.W. 164th Street, where the freeway transitions to a surface highway. OKC appears to be using reflective-bordered backplates much like Norman now.


Can you tell what that sign says? Because I barely could when I was right there looking at it. Someone appears to have taken Series C or something like that and squished it to Series A width, or possibly beyond. Either way, someone at the OKC streets department needs to lay off the horizontal scale tool.


Southbound reassurance shield just south of N.W. 178th Street.


Freshly repaved segment of two-lane SH-74 (Portland Avenue) between N.W. 178th and N.W. 164th. One wonders why they bothered, considering that this will probably get torn up to extend the freeway further at some point.


The highway widens out to 4 lanes approaching N.W. 164th Street. First signage for N.W. 150th appears before we even get there. This is fairly common in Oklahoma whenever interchanges and at-grades are mixed together—signage for the interchanges is still posted 1 mile from the interchange, even if there are at-grades before it.


The signal at N.W. 164th Street, looking south at the beginning of Lake Hefner Parkway. One of the backplates is missing part of its reflective piping. Also, the sign on the mastarm appears to be Series C (or maybe even D) scaled to B width. This is something at OKC has been doing a lot lately, and I wish they would stop. Maybe someone from Norman can drive up and teach them how to make signs.


Brand-new reassurance shield just south of N.W. 164th. That border is heavy enough to kill a man. Also, for some reason the banner isn't in small caps (despite that having been required for the last twelve years). This is the usual type of SH-74 shield rather than the freeway variant (which has the numbers overlapping the state outline less).


THAT IS THE WRONG ARROW. YOU DON'T USE THE TYPE D (flat-sided) ARROW ON FREEWAY SIGNAGE, YOU USE THE TYPE A (tapered). ARRRRRRGH. Also, for some reason, you can see in the background that the gore point sign says "MPH 45" instead of "45 MPH".

[okroads]

Thanks for the pics Scott. I'm hoping to swing up that way when I'm in OKC this weekend.

[J N Winkler]

The virus has spread to the ½ on this sign. EXIT and MILE remain in quarantine. Incidentally, even though Clearview has been banned, the contract for these signs went out before the ban was in place, so they were allowed to be fabricated in Clearview.

Clearview approval was withdrawn less than six months ago, so give Oklahoma DOT a little more time.  I am sure we will soon see construction plans sets with submission dates well past the effective date of the FHWA notice that still use Clearview for the signs.

It's also a little hard to tell at this distance, but I think "EXIT," the fraction digits, and "MILE" are smaller than they should be given the size of the primary destination legend.

[TXtoNJ]

Good to know that shitty Okie signage never changes.

[Scott5114]

On the way up to the project area, I did see a few new one-off signs that used Series E(M). (They were near the I-240 interchange for Plaza Mayor Blvd, neé Crossroads Boulevard, and near downtown, for the Boathouse District.) So OkDOT has apparently made the switch back to E(M), but Clearview hasn't been quite been purged from the project queue just yet. We will probably see a few new Clearview signs when the I-35 project in Norman wraps up, but those should be among the last ones.

The new E(M) signs did look pretty good as OkDOT signs go.

[Bobby5280]

Hacks who shouldn't be allowed to design or fabricate signs will do stupid things with layout regardless of the typeface specified. FHWA Series Gothic has no magic properties in it to prevent misuse.

Of note is this section of SH-74 is still being signed as Portland Avenue instead of as Lake Hefner Parkway. Also, for some reason, the "o" in "Portland" is smaller than everything else on that sign. The "1" on the left most sign has contracted a deadly, highly contagious virus, so "EXIT" and "MILE" are giving it a wide berth.

I wonder if the sign fabricators have a giant box filled with individual peel-and-stick vinyl letters for them to apply to signs one letter at a time. They would have to be following an approach like that in order for their layouts to have words containing letters of different sizes and weights. Some of these signs also feature letters that are leaning left or right rather than standing properly upright. It makes for a subtle yet wacky ransom note style feel. There's a couple big green sign doozies here in Lawton that are pretty shameful.

Normally when a commercial sign shop cuts vinyl lettering they run entire lines of copy or multiple lines of it out of a vinyl plotter. Then the cut vinyl is "weeded," the negative areas of vinyl are peeled off the roll carrier material. There can be a lot of material waste in that, but letter sizing, spacing, etc. is going to be exactly as it was set in the computer. The cut vinyl is covered with release tape and then applied to the final sign surface.

OTA's sign shop obviously isn't following this procedure. I can just picture some convicts on work release pulling odd sized vinyl letters out of a box, trying to read spacing tables and using a tape measure to manually place these letters one character at a time onto the sign panel.

I did a face-palm when I saw the new signs along I-44 near the Red River. A few of them have the giant capital letter and tiny lowercase letters treatment, the result of designers and/or fabricators misunderstanding the rule that lowercase letter height must be at least 75% of capital letter height. It's a basic requirement in a mandated typeface's design. But these guys think that means they have to select all the lowercase letters and scale them down to 75% of their normal size. Idiots.

Can you tell what that sign says? Because I barely could when I was right there looking at it. Someone appears to have taken Series C or something like that and squished it to Series A width, or possibly beyond. Either way, someone at the OKC streets department needs to lay off the horizontal scale tool.

That's the classic problem of someone insisting on using a sign panel only so large (and cheap) yet demanding way too much copy to fit in it. Quite a few commercial sign companies do that eye pollution nonsense all the time, so it only seems fitting the deplorable practice would find its way into traffic sign projects.

Freshly repaved segment of two-lane SH-74 (Portland Avenue) between N.W. 178th and N.W. 164th. One wonders why they bothered, considering that this will probably get torn up to extend the freeway further at some point.

Unless ODOT and the City of Edmond make the same gigantically stupid and short-sighted planning mistakes along this corridor just like they did in Mustang, allowing S. Sara Road to get all boxed in with development and making a proper Kilpatrick Turnpike extension South toward Norman almost impossible to build.

[rte66man]

Freshly repaved segment of two-lane SH-74 (Portland Avenue) between N.W. 178th and N.W. 164th. One wonders why they bothered, considering that this will probably get torn up to extend the freeway further at some point.

Unless ODOT and the City of Edmond make the same gigantically stupid and short-sighted planning mistakes along this corridor just like they did in Mustang, allowing S. Sara Road to get all boxed in with development and making a proper Kilpatrick Turnpike extension South toward Norman almost impossible to build.

It was resurfaced because the existing asphalt wouldn't have lasted through the summer. 

re RoW, ODOT already has the RoW to ensure a freeway could be built if needed.

[J N Winkler]

I drove over the new grade separation at NW 150th Street yesterday.  I was on a day trip to Oklahoma City to see the Prix de West invitational exhibition (closes in six days), and I chose SH 74 as my way out of town to bypass a construction-related lane closure on I-35 between SH 33 (Guthrie) and SH 51 (Stillwater) (17 miles total, including the 13 miles between Exit 157 and Exit 170 that I think is the longest gap between exits on the untolled Oklahoma freeway network).

In this part of Oklahoma City (at least), there are 14 blocks to a mile north-south.  Here is the state of play regarding intersection development:

*  NW 164th St.:  Traffic signal, reduction of freeway to two-lane section (as shown above)

*  NW 178th St.:  Traffic signal

*  NW 192nd St. (Danforth Rd.):  Traffic signal

*  NW 206th St. (Covell Rd.):  Four-way stop, expansion to four-lane undivided section

*  NW 220th St. (Coffee Creek Rd.):  Traffic signal

*  NW 234th St. (Sorghum Mill Rd.):  Traffic signal

*  NW 248th St. (Waterloo Rd.) (probably overlaps Logan County line):  Traffic signal, reduction to two-lane rural section, start of 65 limit

That is a total of seven miles I had to travel to bridge a gap between two sections of free running.  It was worth it because the I-35 lane closure (which I had encountered on a previous transit of OKC metro while returning from a Talimena Drive tour) is causing massive tailbacks at its south end, but my God, it seemed to take forever.

The strip shopping center at NW 178th St. and the gas station at NW 192nd St. appear to be the only significant existing impediments to continued development of the freeway.

[Bobby5280]

There's a few more possible obstacles in the way of a freeway upgrade of OK-74. The Deer Creek water treatment plant, a self storage company with a few shops in front of it are at the intersection of OK-74 and Covell Road. Right now a freeway with frontage roads might be able to squeeze between them, but it would become impossible if more stuff gets built on that corner closer to the existing OK-74 road.

I still think ODOT needs to do what it can to acquire the ROW before it gets clogged up with development. The shops and Sonic at 178th St. and gas station at 192nd St. could be dodged on the East side of the OK-74 main lanes. That relatively clear land won't stay clear forever.

So OkDOT has apparently made the switch back to E(M), but Clearview hasn't been quite been purged from the project queue just yet. We will probably see a few new Clearview signs when the I-35 project in Norman wraps up, but those should be among the last ones.

The new E(M) signs did look pretty good as OkDOT signs go.

It probably won't take long for ODOT to replace the graphics on those new Clearview-based signs along I-35. Lately they've been using some fairly bad reflective vinyl. It's just "engineer's grade" white reflective vinyl. It doesn't last very long before cracking and peeling loose. The 12" tall aluminum extrusion bars they use for sign panels contributes to the problem. The wind and weather puts a lot of stress on vinyl at those joins. The high intensity reflective green vinyl on the background seems to do well, but not the cheaper vinyl laid on top of it.

I think some of the new Series E modified based signs look a little strange. The lettering looks a little too bold, like it has been made thicker in the computer.