US 69 Muskogee Bypass

[Ned Weasel]

There should not even be feasibility studies done on towns that prevents improvements.

There should not even be feasibility studies

There should not even be feasibility studies

What?

The real world ain't a game of Cities: Skylines with the unlimited money mode turned on.

[rte66man]

In Oklahoma, Interstate quality upgrades of US-69/75 are a sure thing from the Red River up to the US-70 bypass on the South side of Durant. The freeway upgrade in Calera is planned under construction. That will leave some minor upgrades to do in Colbert and some frontage roads to build. The existing freeway in Durant can be upgraded without taking any new ROW.

FTFY
ODOT already has ROW acquisition for 69 from the end of the Calera work down to the OK91 interchange in the 8 Year plan.  Some sort of rebuild of the OK91 interchange is also on the schedule.

In the nearer term ODOT just has to do what upgrades it can on US-69. In McAlester the freeway upgrade on the George Nigh Expressway is very do-able. They can extend that down across the Indian Nation Turnpike interchange and to the main entrance of the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. Military installations do like having freeway access.

All of US69 in McAlester past Savanna is either scheduled for ROW acquisition or construction in the next 8 years. That will almost make 69 from McAlester to Summit (just south of Muskogee) interstate standard. There are some merges and other things that aren't quite there but all but a stretch between Buck of Gaines Creek Road and Hereford Road will be free of at-grade intersections.

[Bobby5280]

These towns are indeed hemorrhaging population, but the pandemic could present a golden opportunity to get folks to move to places like this. A lot of jobs are now remote, and if you have a job where you never have to go into an office, you can theoretically live anywhere with a good broadband connection. These small towns could market themselves as an alternative to living in a big city for those who work at home.

Small towns and rural areas are caught in a severe, negative feedback loop in growth due to a bunch of complicated factors. The local tax base in such towns is often miniscule. Small town populations skew very old, very white and very conservative in politics. They don't want to pay taxes for anything. So the streets and other elements of infrastructure (water, sewage, trash pick-up) suffer, the local school districts are starved for resources and the town may rely on the county for police service and volunteers for fire fighting.

Young working age, TAXPAYING, child-bearing age adults would prefer to not live in such places. Job opportunities are typically very limited. There is not much social life in small towns. They have to drive to bigger cities to eat out, find things to do, be entertained, etc. Any families with school age kids who can afford to move to bigger towns or cities often do so because the public schools are going to be better staffed and equipped. If the parents want to send their kids to a different kind of school (private, charter, religious, etc) they're usually only going to have those options in larger towns and cities.

Broadband Internet service is a newer problem affecting small towns and rural areas. Very often the quality of residential Internet service in small towns ranges from outdated to just terrible. In order to work from home effectively these days you need the ability to do video teleconferencing and send big data files. It would be a struggle to do that with a 3 megabit DSL connection and a non-starter with a DSL connection running only 300-400 kilobits per second. Gigabit speed residential Internet service is growing more common in large cities and even most mid-size and small cities are seeing big gains in bandwidth.

Some tech experts talk about 5G as if it's going to be a great alternative for small towns. The problem is 5G towers have limited broadcast range and cost a good bit to deploy. Plus all those towers have to connect to a high speed backbone. The telecom outfits aren't going to run those fiber lines just anywhere. Those lines cost a lot of money. And then there's the cost of the service. Small towns don't exactly have lots of people with deep pockets living there.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exposed another vulnerability in small towns: health care. Local clinics in small towns aren't equipped to handle something like an outbreak of a deadly, novel virus. They can barely handle the more routine things, like someone having a stroke or heart attack. This factor is going to do more to push elderly people into cities along with the young people willingly moving to them.

All of those factors do not bode well for towns like Atoka and Stringtown. As the population in those towns continues to age out they will have less and less ability to block efforts from ODOT and other legislators from doing major improvements to the US-69/75 corridor through there. If I was a resident in Atoka or Stringtown and wanted either place to have a better looking future I'd be begging for I-45 to come through there. That would allow more service businesses to sprout up there, followed by distribution businesses and on and on.

All of US69 in McAlester past Savanna is either scheduled for ROW acquisition or construction in the next 8 years. That will almost make 69 from McAlester to Summit (just south of Muskogee) interstate standard. There are some merges and other things that aren't quite there but all but a stretch between Buck of Gaines Creek Road and Hereford Road will be free of at-grade intersections.

That's good news the section of US-69 down to OK-91 and Colbert is in the 8 year plan. Once the Calera project is done that will increase the pressure to complete that next segment.

[US71]

FWIW, Muskogee is trying to bill themselves as a Jefferson Highway community. The original route is signed through town.  It may not add up to a larger population, but it does bring in tourist traffic.

[The Ghostbuster]

Maybe putting up "Future Interstate 45 corridor" signs along US 69 & 75 from Dallas, Texas to Muskogee, Oklahoma (or somewhere) will jump-start funding and construction to upgrade the entire corridor, even though I know it won't. This has been another edition of "Roadgeek Dreams Meet Reality" segment. Have a good night!

[US71]

Maybe putting up "Future Interstate 45 corridor" signs along US 69 & 75 from Dallas, Texas to Muskogee, Oklahoma (or somewhere) will jump-start funding and construction to upgrade the entire corridor, even though I know it won't. This has been another edition of "Roadgeek Dreams Meet Reality" segment. Have a good night!

Maybe we need another ARRA to repave roads that don't really need it.

[Bobby5280]

FWIW, Muskogee is trying to bill themselves as a Jefferson Highway community. The original route is signed through town.  It may not add up to a larger population, but it does bring in tourist traffic.

That local tourism effort should not come at the expense of improving the efficiency of flow and safety of a major commercial traffic corridor. There are more miles of historic Route 66 in Oklahoma than any other state. Numerous towns along the way have popular tourist attractions. These businesses do well despite the fact I-44 and I-40 run parallel to the route. I don't see any reason why various stops along the old Jefferson Highway route can't do well under similar circumstances.

[sparker]

FWIW, Muskogee is trying to bill themselves as a Jefferson Highway community. The original route is signed through town.  It may not add up to a larger population, but it does bring in tourist traffic.

There have been Lincoln Highway signs erected in CA (primarily in and around Auburn) for some time now; it's questionable whether there's been any (pre-COVID, of course) increase in tourism attributable to that signage.

Maybe putting up "Future Interstate 45 corridor" signs along US 69 & 75 from Dallas, Texas to Muskogee, Oklahoma (or somewhere) will jump-start funding and construction to upgrade the entire corridor, even though I know it won't. This has been another edition of "Roadgeek Dreams Meet Reality" segment. Have a good night!

Maybe we can get the guy who put up the fake I-5 trailblazer sign on the CA 110 BGS in downtown L.A. a few years back to cobble up some "Future I-45 Corridor" signs and surreptitiously plant them along US 69(75).  Hell, if the grotesque "Craig County" sign can persist, maybe ODOT won't even notice them for years!

[Rothman]

Maybe putting up "Future Interstate 45 corridor" signs along US 69 & 75 from Dallas, Texas to Muskogee, Oklahoma (or somewhere) will jump-start funding and construction to upgrade the entire corridor, even though I know it won't. This has been another edition of "Roadgeek Dreams Meet Reality" segment. Have a good night!

Maybe we need another ARRA to repave roads that don't really need it.

What evidence is there that ARRA was used on roads that didn't need it?  At least in NY, that was far from the case.

[US71]

Maybe putting up "Future Interstate 45 corridor" signs along US 69 & 75 from Dallas, Texas to Muskogee, Oklahoma (or somewhere) will jump-start funding and construction to upgrade the entire corridor, even though I know it won't. This has been another edition of "Roadgeek Dreams Meet Reality" segment. Have a good night!

Maybe we need another ARRA to repave roads that don't really need it.

What evidence is there that ARRA was used on roads that didn't need it?  At least in NY, that was far from the case.

Personal observation.

[US71]

Maybe we can get the guy who put up the fake I-5 trailblazer sign on the CA 110 BGS in downtown L.A. a few years back to cobble up some "Future I-45 Corridor" signs and surreptitiously plant them along US 69(75).  Hell, if the grotesque "Craig County" sign can persist, maybe ODOT won't even notice them for years!

Maybe Jake can make us a bulk deal