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OKC Roads and Freeways Wishlist

Started by Plutonic Panda, November 17, 2017, 05:36:18 AM

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Bobby5280

Quote from: froggieI would also disagree with Bobby regarding blaming this on "New Urbanism".  One of the precepts of that is adequate and affordable housing...which in urban areas usually comes about from having more apartments.  But as I noted above, such developments are often opposed by neighborhoods.

I never blamed the New Urbanism movement for the exploding prices of housing and other living costs in major cities. All I said was major cities where models of New Urbanism have been built out will see the movement backfire and implode if extremes of income inequality are allowed to run their course with no intervention. A city made up of only rich people will be one whose functions eventually grind to a halt.

Making poor and middle income people spend giant amounts of time and money commuting into a mega-douche city just to work low level jobs runs absolutely contrary to the virtues of New Urbanism. The movement is supposed to cut out all that commuting crap, right? Once low and middle income people are financially pushed out of a big city, what's to stop them from finding the jobs they did in the big city someplace else?

Elite cities like New York and San Francisco aren't the only places where people can find work as a plumber, electrician, bartender, stock clerk, cook, bus driver, etc. Every part of our nation needs people doing that kind of work and many other blue collar trades and service industry work. But anyone doing those jobs might find it very difficult or financially impossible to make a living doing that work in an elite city.

Right now there is a speculative feeding frenzy on flipping real estate in cities like New York and San Francisco. This feeding frenzy is spreading to other major American cities. Money pouring into these transformations of gentrification is coming from all over the globe. It's like a new speculative housing bubble. Hardly anyone sees a problem with this, especially since it is pushing all those not-white people out of the area. But what are they going to do when living costs get so high that they suddenly wind up with a giant labor shortage in service industry jobs and blue collar trade jobs? What are they going to do when all those "little people" pull up stakes and move elsewhere? The "elite" city will end up being something that just sucks and that high priced real estate bubble will explode very painfully.


Plutonic Panda

Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 20, 2017, 04:45:03 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on November 20, 2017, 05:58:50 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 25, 2012, 12:41:58 AM
Posters who frequent the Transit board are advised to remember that the vast majority of the members of this board are primarily interested in roads, highways, and private automobiles. Transit fans are not to admonish users for their choice of mode of transport (and similarly roadgeeks are reminded not to admonish the transit fans). While road projects and transit projects often are forced to compete for the same transportation dollars, it is hoped that we can avoid road-oriented threads in other sections of the board being derailed with posts along the lines of

QuoteThis interchange project is so expensive they should have spend that money on buying sixteen thousand buses instead :( :( :( :(  :banghead: :coffee: :meh:

Let us reflect on this before posts and/or posters have to start being excised. Remember, this is AARoads and not AARoadsAreAwful or AARoadsNeedToStopExisting.

I don't think being interested in multimodal roads and transportation systems is mutually exclusive with being a roadgeek. In fact, I'd imagine there are a lot of us here who don't simply want more roads or bigger roads, but better ones.
Skyscraperpage, Skyscrapercity, Skyrise Cities, City-Data forum, etc. are all places where you go and find posters who will always bitch about the bs induced demand theory, why new urbanism is better than suburbia, why freeways should be demolished, blah blah blah go there and spew that crap.

It's nice to actually have an online forum where you can make suggestions about widening roads and not have 10 posters start crying and whining. Sometimes bigger roads are better than smaller ones.

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: Bobby5280 on November 20, 2017, 08:38:45 PM
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Quote from: Plutonic PandaAnother way at looking at hardships people put themselves through is to pay for the expensive housing prices that seem to always plague urban areas while suburbia is much cheaper.

This is turning into a serious problem in large urban centers. Price inflation on housing and other living costs has become ridiculous, predatory and even turned into a weapon of class warfare. It's like a kind of class cleansing (a play on ethnic cleansing) is taking place. Major cities can't function without their blue collar workers and low level service industry workers. Who the hell is going to spend hours (and a fortune) commuting into an elite city just to flip burgers, pour coffee, work store counters, tend bar, etc? The whole vision of New Urbanism with people living, working and having fun all within a close distance would freaking implode if there is no room at all for people who bring in a modest pay check.
I find it quite ironic how Portland, a city that tries to boost itself as a model of sustainability, has some of the worst traffic, worst homeless problems, and has extremely expensive housing while cities like Dallas, seemingly have better traffic, are much more affordable, all the whole having great freeways to move about. From my experience, Dallas has better flowing traffic than Portland does.

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: froggie on November 21, 2017, 10:57:37 AM

Lastly, is it really that much cheaper to live in the suburbs when whatever housing cost savings you may get is eaten up by higher (sometimes MUCH higher) transportation costs?  Nevermind longer commute times which are not always easy to quantify in a monetary standard.

Sort of like the 4.5 billion dollar expansion in NYC of the 2nd Ave. subway line FOR 2 MILES!? Or maybe the 100 billion dollar bullet train in California? I'd take the Big Dig over any of those. Commute times varies greatly. I've gotten from Frisco to downtown Dallas on freeways quicker than I have from Santa Monica to DTLA. Even going from Hollywood to union station takes about 35 minutes sometimes and I've made that trip quicker on the 101 on occasion if it isn't backed up minus having to look for parking. Both of those things could be solved by adding more parking and widening the 101.

TXtoNJ

Quote from: Plutonic Panda on November 22, 2017, 12:59:26 AM
Quote from: TXtoNJ on November 20, 2017, 04:45:03 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on November 20, 2017, 05:58:50 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 25, 2012, 12:41:58 AM
Posters who frequent the Transit board are advised to remember that the vast majority of the members of this board are primarily interested in roads, highways, and private automobiles. Transit fans are not to admonish users for their choice of mode of transport (and similarly roadgeeks are reminded not to admonish the transit fans). While road projects and transit projects often are forced to compete for the same transportation dollars, it is hoped that we can avoid road-oriented threads in other sections of the board being derailed with posts along the lines of

QuoteThis interchange project is so expensive they should have spend that money on buying sixteen thousand buses instead :( :( :( :(  :banghead: :coffee: :meh:

Let us reflect on this before posts and/or posters have to start being excised. Remember, this is AARoads and not AARoadsAreAwful or AARoadsNeedToStopExisting.

I don't think being interested in multimodal roads and transportation systems is mutually exclusive with being a roadgeek. In fact, I'd imagine there are a lot of us here who don't simply want more roads or bigger roads, but better ones.
Skyscraperpage, Skyscrapercity, Skyrise Cities, City-Data forum, etc. are all places where you go and find posters who will always bitch about the bs induced demand theory, why new urbanism is better than suburbia, why freeways should be demolished, blah blah blah go there and spew that crap.

It's nice to actually have an online forum where you can make suggestions about widening roads and not have 10 posters start crying and whining. Sometimes bigger roads are better than smaller ones.

Nothing wrong with a road widening, where it makes perfect sense in the context. You're making a straw man argument.

Too often, we see highway expansion suggestions where it makes no contextual sense outside of some desire for Platonic perfection, highway department myopia, or to benefit outsiders at the heavy expense of locals. OKC Boulevard is a perfect example. Should those concerns not be raised?

bugo

Part of US 69 in McAlester is a 4 lane divided arterial-like expressway with frontage roads.

bugo

All this moonbattery about buses and bicycles and subways is nonsense. A city like Oklahoma City is just too sprawled out and sparsely populated for mass transit to be a reasonable alternative to cars, and who wants to ride a bicycle for 15 miles just to go to and from work?

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: bugo on January 21, 2018, 10:32:49 PM
All this moonbattery about buses and bicycles and subways is nonsense. A city like Oklahoma City is just too sprawled out and sparsely populated for mass transit to be a reasonable alternative to cars, and who wants to ride a bicycle for 15 miles just to go to and from work?
Well, I'm not sure why anyone started that discussion anyways. The title and suggested topic of the thread IS OKC ROADS and FREEWAYS Wishlist.

I guess next time I'll need to be more specific.

In_Correct

While I like Public Transportation, I think Bike Lanes are silly.

And here is some thing to add to The Wish List:   

It is not Oklahoma City, but in Mustang.

The John Kilpatrick Turnpike to be extended. South of Interstate 40, it can be realigned to Sara Road. This must be done quickly before somebody builds something else there. Also, Sara Road is very narrow and it must be upgraded which requires Eminent Domain. South of State Highway 152, it is also known as State Highway 4. An upgraded facility Exists here. By finishing Sara Road, it will provide a better connection to John Kilpatrick Turnpike.

Drive Safely. :sombrero: Ride Safely. And Build More Roads, Rails, And Bridges. :coffee: ... Boulevards Wear Faster Than Interstates.

Bobby5280

The ship has sailed on the idea of extending the Kilpatrick Turnpike directly down S Sara Road, all thanks to the idiots who allowed the Mustang Creek housing division to be built directly in the path of where the road could have been extended. And now that housing development is being expanded to the South. Then there's the Brookstone Lakes housing development and the Canyon Ridge school built farther South, tightly encroaching S Sara Road.

There is a plan to extend the Kilpatrick past its terminus at I-40. But it's going to be a very curvy, stupid looking route that dodges around 3 schools, a church, various neighborhood developments -all to ultimately end at freaking Airport Road near S Council. It isn't going South to connect into OK-4 and the H.E. Bailey Turnpike extension.

It might still be possible to connect this Southern extension of the Kilpatrick and the H.E. Bailey Turnpike extension, but it would require another fairly curvy road veering East about half a mile or more to dodge all the development at the intersection of S Sara Rd and SW 74th St in Mustang. Unfortunately ODOT and OTA do not seem to be very forward looking at all. So I'm sure they'll allow all those areas to get covered up with development before the thought even occurs to them that ROW acquisition on an important corridor might be a good idea. OTOH, with the state's leadership being what it is and its budget being such a mess I wouldn't be surprised to see Oklahoma start posting net losses in population rather than any modest gains.



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