Proposed US 412 Upgrade

[dvferyance]

^^^ lol I'm surprised(pleasantly I'll add) this is even happening in Oklahoma to be honest. Oklahoma could use several new interstates, IMO.

I would like to see I-45 extended into Oklahoma.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ lol I'm surprised(pleasantly I'll add) this is even happening in Oklahoma to be honest. Oklahoma could use several new interstates, IMO.

I would like to see I-45 extended into Oklahoma.

This seems like an obvious one too. Coburn should have went big.

[skluth]

Here is the locale of the power line easement south of Siloam Springs. I am not saying the bypass would follow it religiously, but it does provide a clear path through several residential developments south of town.



If it is used, I would assume a gradual curve to reach it by purchasing private property.

That's a good concept to bypass Siloam Springs. There's enough undeveloped land west of US 59 and east of AR 16 that finding a ROW in either direction from that corridor would be relatively simple.

[yakra]

A southern 4-lane bypass of Light in western Greene County AR opened in November 2020.
Google shows the old route as 412 Business (though this doesn't necessarily mean much), with no changes to AR228.
OSM, OTOH shows old 412 as a plain county road with no known name or number, with 228 truncated to the bypass.
All of this is too new to have made it into the Greene county map or ARDOT's Road Inventory shapefiles.

Has anyone checked this out in the field?

• The bypassed and obliterated portions of Highway 412, Section 8 will be removed from the State Highway System.
  
• The section of Highway 228, Section 5 between existing Highway 412 and the newly constructed roadway to become Highway 412 will be removed from the State Highway System.
  

[edwaleni]

https://www.jonesborosun.com/times_dispatch/news/light-bypass-opens-as-412-construction-continues/article_be71aeb4-a1d0-58a4-ad88-fe6dcec87155.html

December 2, 2020.

Construction on the expansion of Highway 412 between Walnut Ridge and Highway 141 in Greene County continues, but those who drive the route noticed a major change last week when the Arkansas Department of Transportation opened the bypass around Light.

"We opened the Light bypass last Monday,"  Brad Smithee, district engineer with ARDOT, said. "This will really be the only section that will move to the five lane layout until we begin final paving."

[bwana39]

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2022/feb/07/arkansas-oklahoma-to-partner-on-us-412-interstate/?fbclid=IwAR3FM0W4Vcgv0cbc0vD2b2DojTE85gpjUkwjWa5xF7n1vk8c90VTEE7fJuE

Forget the US-412 Interstate upgrade. The real meat in this piece is ARDOT is Opening a regional office in NWA.

It tells you they are serious about improving traffic access in NWA which may pass metro Little Rock in population in just a decade or two.

[skluth]

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2022/feb/07/arkansas-oklahoma-to-partner-on-us-412-interstate/?fbclid=IwAR3FM0W4Vcgv0cbc0vD2b2DojTE85gpjUkwjWa5xF7n1vk8c90VTEE7fJuE

Forget the US-412 Interstate upgrade. The real meat in this piece is ARDOT is Opening a regional office in NWA.

It tells you they are serious about improving traffic access in NWA which may pass metro Little Rock in population in just a decade or two.

I thought the most interesting part was "the quarter-cent sales tax dedicated to highways." Right now there's this thread happening about alternatives to the gas tax for highway funding. I think we'll see more of this as EV numbers increase.

[Bobby5280]

If electric vehicle purchases and use increase a great deal it could lead to the traditional gasoline tax being replaced (or supplemented) by a hell of a lot of RFID toll tag readers on everything from limited access highways down to ordinary 2 lane highways and even city streets.

I still think EVs are going to be a niche product for a long time. It's not practical to drive one of those things on a long road trip. I might be able to drive from Lawton to OKC, around the city a bit and back to Lawton on a single charge. But driving from Lawton to DFW is out. Gotta re-charge while down there and re-charging takes a lot more time than filling a gasoline tank. It would be a real pain in the ass for me to drive from Oklahoma to see relatives in Colorado. It's roughly 600 miles each way, with the halfway point being out in some fairly remote areas. Aside from the range limits EVs are still pretty expensive, especially considering the features in the vehicle you get for the money.

[triplemultiplex]

When I first read "Light bypass", I thought it had something to do with gravitational lensing.

[MikieTimT]

Submitted a request to correct this in Google Maps for the entire route.  It's only at certain zoom levels that this seems to be incorrect.

The error has been present at pretty much any level in Google Earth where US-412 shields are actually visible. Zoomed out far they're replaced by other shields that overlap US-412 on the same route.

Got an email this morning that Google accepted my change request for US-412B to US-412.  Looks like it's showing correctly again now.

[yakra]

...and now we have vanilla US412 right thru the center of Light, with no designation on the bypass.

[MikieTimT]

Push to make NWA a center of transportation and logistics innovation, making this upgrade all the more worthwhile.

Arkansas launches plan to become the Silicon Valley of transportation

[Bobby5280]

Flying cars? That'll be the day.


Motorists are dangerous enough as it is being stuck on the ground driving on roads. I'm skeptical we'll be seeing mass production flying car factories getting built any time soon.

[MikieTimT]

Flying cars? That'll be the day.


Motorists are dangerous enough as it is being stuck on the ground driving on roads. I'm skeptical we'll be seeing mass production flying car factories getting built any time soon.

Drones can already be somewhat autonomous in flying as it is, and flying cars likely will just be scaled up drones.  I can see it happening just as soon as, if not sooner than, autonomous driving cars.

They've actually got both autonomous delivery vehicles and autonomous grocery delivery drones operating in NWA already on a small scale.

[Plutonic Panda]

I had read there are rumors Sen. Inhofe is retiring very soon. In the past the legislature is specifically issued bonds for ODOT to use. I wonder if Inhofe will do anything to expedite this before his retirement. . .

[rte66man]

I had read there are rumors Sen. Inhofe is retiring very soon. In the past the legislature is specifically issued bonds for ODOT to use. I wonder if Inhofe will do anything to expedite this before his retirement. . .

Not a rumor. He announced he will finish out this session of Congress and retire in December.
https://www.news9.com/story/6217ebdf3ab0b60729551579/reports:-us-sen-jim-inhofe-to-resign-seat-next-week

[Bobby5280]

Drones can already be somewhat autonomous in flying as it is, and flying cars likely will just be scaled up drones.  I can see it happening just as soon as, if not sooner than, autonomous driving cars.

A flying car big enough to hold one or more people along with some cargo (or stuff bought while shopping) is far more complicated a matter than a drone only big enough to deliver a package from Amazon.

Again, I repeat the extremely important factor of safety. "Flying cars" aren't going to be any kind of automatic plug-and-play vehicle. Training and licensing for those vehicles will likely be very different from that of standard motor vehicle licenses. Anyone using those vehicles may need something more akin to a pilot's license. Insurance will be far different and likely more costly. Maintenance and safety inspection standards will have to be far higher than that of traditional motor vehicles.

Even with all the rules and regulations one would expect to be in place human nature remains a wild card. Regardless if a flying car is automated the "pilot" will have to constantly pay attention in case he needs to manually take control. Semi-autonomous electric vehicles make up a very small percentage of vehicles currently on the road. Yet there are lots of stories of people crashing their Teslas while doing stupid things behind the wheel.

I had read there are rumors Sen. Inhofe is retiring very soon. In the past the legislature is specifically issued bonds for ODOT to use. I wonder if Inhofe will do anything to expedite this before his retirement. . .

It looks like any efforts to upgrade US-412 into a named Interstate highway between I-35 and I-49 are not related at all to the OTA's Access Oklahoma 15-year plan. Inhofe has some clout with making deals related to highway projects. It's possible he may focus on the US-412 project. However, he is getting pretty old and his wife has had health issues, pulling him away from some of his duties.

[Plutonic Panda]

What I'm thinking is Inhofe seems to be championing this road upgrade and maybe he'd want to get it done before he leaves. Sort of like a last farewell.

[Scott5114]

I was just on the Cimarron a couple of days ago. There's still some of the classic raised median around Exit 22. This will have to be fixed before it can become an Interstate.


Most of the rest of it has been paved over and a cable barrier installed in the median. I don't know if this setup meets standards or not.

[Bobby5280]

I think I made the point about the narrow grassy median needing attention earlier in the thread. But the issue is worth repeating. As for the cheap looking cable barrier (to replace the narrow grassy strip), it seemed to be "good enough" for I-44 South of Lawton down to the US-70 Randlett exit.

[Scott5114]

I think I made the point about the narrow grassy median needing attention earlier in the thread. But the issue is worth repeating. As for the cheap looking cable barrier (to replace the narrow grassy strip), it seemed to be "good enough" for I-44 South of Lawton down to the US-70 Randlett exit.

There is a procedural difference between replacing a very substandard median with a substandard one on an already-designated Interstate, versus having a substandard median on a proposed newly-designated Interstate.

[Bobby5280]

If I recall correctly, the main difference was cost. A concrete Jersey barrier was double the cost of a cable barrier. Then there is the added safety argument that cable barriers will slow or stop an out of control vehicle whereas a concrete Jersey barrier will just make a vehicle bounce off and still be out of control.

I'm not a fan of the cable barriers for replacing the grassy strip. Even if one can argue the cable barrier is safer it still looks cheap. When a vehicle crashes into one the barrier has to be repaired immediately. Over time and with enough vehicle contacts all that dollar savings over concrete barriers could be depleted.

[rte66man]

I was just on the Cimarron a couple of days ago. There's still some of the classic raised median around Exit 22. This will have to be fixed before it can become an Interstate.


Most of the rest of it has been paved over and a cable barrier installed in the median. I don't know if this setup meets standards or not.

I was just on the Cimarron a couple of days ago. There's still some of the classic raised median around Exit 22. This will have to be fixed before it can become an Interstate.


Most of the rest of it has been paved over and a cable barrier installed in the median. I don't know if this setup meets standards or not.

According to the 5 Year CIP, the remaining raised medians will be replaced as follows:
2022 - Cimarron Spur (to Stillwater)

I believe the remaining mainline medians are already budgeted.

[edwaleni]

I covered it elsewhere but after looking at some research on cable barriers by TxDOT and some others, you would be surprised how well these work.

Unlike Jersey barriers where the kinetic energy simply forces the mass back into the highway, these cable barriers distribute that energy farther down the cables and keep the crashing vehicle in place like a spider web.

The one issue I can find in reviewing the data is that the cables in many cases obstructs the driver side door and first responders have to cut it. This is dangerous as the cable is essentially distributing that energy where cutting it can cause a whiplash. (sort of like an arrestor cable on an aircraft carrier failing)

[Plutonic Panda]

I'd rather hit a Jersey barrier than one of these. Granted they're also better than running into oncoming traffic.