US 69 Muskogee Bypass

[Scott5114]

I would imagine anyone living in Purcell and commuting to OKC would be commuting to downtown at the farthest. Purcell to, say, Tinker is an okay drive. If you wanted to live in a Purcell-like environment and work on the north side of town, you're probably going to be looking at places like Piedmont, Guthrie, or Okarche instead.

If there's a wreck on 35, it's not really a big deal unless it's right at the bridge over the Canadian. North of there, you can hit the OKC-area grid and bypass anything you want.

[triplemultiplex]

OK 165 should be extended west to meet this bypass at a 4th interchange as part of this proposal.

[Plutonic Panda]

I wouldn't count on that. It'll be surprising if OkDOT could find this any time soon. I am worried that current major projects in the metros might come to a complete stop next year. The state will be facing, yet again, another half a billion budget hole. The legislators have fucked the state for a awhile.

[Scott5114]

Next year is the gubernatorial election. I'd hope that the election would revolve around whoever can come up with the better way of solving the budget issue once and for all. Hopefully it doesn't devolve into endless distractions about religion.

[Plutonic Panda]

If progress is actually made next year, I will be surprised.

[Henry]

I didn't know US 69 in OK was the deadliest (according to the article).  Sad that OK isn't in a better financial condition.  I-45 going into OK can't happen soon enough.

It's just a matter of time...

[froggie]

OK 165 should be extended west to meet this bypass at a 4th interchange as part of this proposal.

Or just make that "Interchange #1" and make that southern bypassed part of 69 a local road connection to Oktaha Rd into Summit.

[bugo]

The E-W leg of OK 165 is not a freeway. It has traffic lights. Also, OK 165 ends at US 64. It's not getting extended.

[sparker]

The E-W leg of OK 165 is not a freeway. It has traffic lights. Also, OK 165 ends at US 64. It's not getting extended.

Now I'm getting a bit confused, considering the relinquishments ODOT plans for the Muskogee area.  Since us 64 comes up from the south and uses Peak Blvd. (the continuation of OK 165) to get over to current US 69 -- and ODOT relinquishment plans, once the planned western bypass is in place, include the US 64/69 multiplex north of there to Okmulgee Avenue, which is US 62/64 west of there and Business 62/64 east of there -- and the business portion is also to be relinquished -- just where are they planning to reroute US 64?  It seems to be quite a bit out of the way -- not to mention counterintuitive -- to put US 64 back on its business route and then subsume Business 62 north of downtown all the way to US 62 itself, and multiplex 64 with 62 west of there, including the "jog" down current US 69.  The only other alternative utilizing existing ODOT-maintained facilities would be equally circuitous -- east on 165 and up multiplexed with 351 up to US 62.  The lack of an interchange at West 33rd Street and the new planned bypass seems to throw a monkey wrench into this whole process.  If anyone knows how ODOT is planning to deal with this issue, please post this info!   

[Plutonic Panda]

I stopped watching after the guy said this project would kill Muskogee. Sorry, but even if that were true, then fuck Muskogee. Regional needs supersede the ones of that of a town less than 50k people which is basically a suburb of Tulsa(even included in the MSA). For Muskogee's sake, if they think there whole industry is reliant on an at grade highway that could collapse if it's moved a mile still in the city limits, then the town should aspire to be something better.

But the fact is, Muskogee isn't going to die because of this. New infrastructure will create new growth if the demand is there. Even if it isn't, it will allow for the opportunity to happen when the time is right. Either way, this gives the city a chance to make this highway more pedestrian friendly which gives it new opportunities to reshape the community.

[US71]

I stopped watching after the guy said this project would kill Muskogee. Sorry, but even if that were true, then fuck Muskogee. Regional needs supersede the ones of that of a town less than 50k people which is basically a suburb of Tulsa(even included in the MSA). For Muskogee's sake, if they think there whole industry is reliant on an at grade highway that could collapse if it's moved a mile still in the city limits, then the town should aspire to be something better.

But the fact is, Muskogee isn't going to die because of this. New infrastructure will create new growth if the demand is there. Even if it isn't, it will allow for the opportunity to happen when the time is right. Either way, this gives the city a chance to make this highway more pedestrian friendly which gives it new opportunities to reshape the community.

It won't kill the town, just many of the businesses along the current highway.  The big name hotels will move to the bypass, the independents will rot. Big corporate-owned restaurants will set up shop along the bypass, but the local diners will suffer.

This is happening now north of Shreveport, LA. Businesses are popping up along I-49 and a lot of mom & pop operations along 71 are dying.

[Plutonic Panda]

Did Shreveport do anything to the existing road to upgrade it and beautify it? Such as add bike lanes, new landscaping, place-making aesthetic features? Also, is Shreveport growing or is it in decline? I don't know much about the city.

The Tulsa metro is certainly growing and not too far in Arkansas, the Bentonville metro is going nuts from what I've heard. It seems to me that there are steps the city can take to make this an attractive street and entice businesses and visitors. There is a big hospital, lots of homes, etc. I see potential in this area. Business 64(Okmulgee AVE?) goes directly into downtown. Pass a bond package that builds new bike lanes along this corridor that ties into newely built bike lanes along US-64 business route to downtown including other features I listed above. Have city planning come up with new zoning for to create a more urban environment in certain areas. Build new parks or plazas and create special place making.

OkDOT doesn't even have this for construction in their 8yr plan. They have time to come up with a plan. But they just seem to be saying no at this point.

[sparker]

The ODOT plans to decommission large chunks of present US 69 through Muskogee are short-sighted -- saving what in the larger picture are miniscule amounts of money but abandoning the current alignment as a through route.  Their best bet would be to maintain US 69 on that stretch of highway, and designate the bypass as precisely that: BYPASS US 69 (unless an I-45 extension gets traction).  Also, as compensation for local businesses, offer free advertising on the normal "big blue signs" at the ends of the bypass where the old road diverges -- in other words, let travelers whose schedule indicates a stop in Muskogee have the full knowledge of all the amenities (hotels, restaurants, etc.) on the existing road, leaving the freeway bypass to those who wouldn't be stopping there anyway because of schedules, time of day, and so forth.  That's the thing about road-related businesses -- unless they're near a recreational destination or contain a major attractant (such as a state capital and its various public functions), even the best and most inviting of them can't and won't thrive if they're not in the right place at the right time.  Muskogee's about 230 miles north of DFW;  if one supposes 400-500 miles per day as about average for daily travel (short for "road warriors", but likely average for the typical non-pro driver), someone driving north from Houston (about 470 miles) or Austin (435 miles) or southwest from St. Louis (just about 400) would be in Muskogee at about the right time for overnighting consideration.  And seeing that it's the largest city along the route between Joplin and north Texas, the chances are pretty good that someone planning a regional trip on that route will pencil in a Muskogee overnight stop -- but less so regarding KC, at about 280 miles or DFW's 230 -- unless they're on a slower schedule because of family or age.  The bottom line is that Muskogee's status as a city that is likely to have a greater variety of accommodations and amenities than most other places along the corridor means that regardless of whether there's a bypass or not, the hotels and restaurants along current US 69 will likely retain much of their current business level.  Muskogee isn't a "destination" city unless visiting the area's plentiful waterways and lakes is part of the itinerary; if it is, those folks not camping out will find their way to "hotel row" anyway.  If ODOT and the city make it easy to access the current commercial corridor -- and take it upon themselves to publicize that access -- there's no reason to suppose that building a bypass will be catastrophic for those businesses.  The opposition seems to have adopted a "Breezewood" attitude -- although the circumstances are quite dissimilar; they seem to reason that without a "captive audience" rolling slowly past their businesses, those businesses will rot & die.  But if a traveler is using a booking service -- including those provided by the hotel chains themselves -- or any number of travel-related apps, they'll end up in Muskogee anyway if that's the appropriate place for an overnight stop -- and on that particular corridor, it's where the greatest concentration of desirable accommodations are located (save the small cluster around the US 69/I-40 junction).  If stopping in Muskogee is called for, travelers will find their way to these accommodations -- even from a bypass a mile or two distant.  Just keep it easy for them to do so.       

[US71]

Fayetteville, AR built a bypass in the early 1970's. Almost every "independent" (aka mom & pop) motel closed after the big names started popping up along the bypass. The city's reaction? Oh look, more tax revenue!  Many restaurants closed, as well, again replaced with big names.

40 years later, the city route has made somewhat of a comeback with fast food and convenience stores on every corner. 

Change my be inevitable (except from a vending machine),  but consider the consequences and work with those who may be affected.

[sparker]

Interesting correlation with Fayetteville -- which does have more of a "destination" aspect to it because of U of A.  It's probably true that any bypass route -- for any city -- will have some deleterious effect upon road-dependent businesses lacking the capital/cash flow to (a) either prominently advertise their presence to prompt customers to leave the bypass and seek them out, or (b) move their facilities to a location along the bypass.  I hate to appear cold-hearted here, but there's a level of Darwinist reality permeating these situations -- smaller/independent road-related businesses do find themselves at a disadvantage in comparison with chains whose parent companies or franchisers can pump in cash to shore up the ability to bring in customers. 

But having said that, working with the businesses along the current route would be the appropriate path for ODOT to take once a bypass has been given the green light.  Possibly modifying the bypass plans for more than one central interchange might help -- along with subsidies provided to the independent lodging operators to move themselves to the bypass (along with mollifying the zoning folks in Muskogee in order to support such development at the interchanges).  And as I mentioned in my previous post, maintaining -- and signing -- the current route would likely be enough for the chains, with their prominence within online booking services, to at least maintain their level of business.  If ODOT thinks that building a bypass without some serious concessions to or consideration of the situation along the present route is a viable plan, then they need to go back and do some more studies with locally-supplied data. 

I have little doubt that in the long run a Muskogee bypass will be built; whether it benefits or detracts from the city itself is squarely in ODOT's court;  but doing a bypass "on the cheap" absent local consideration is a precarious path down which to travel.   

[Scott5114]

I would imagine in the long term, a freeway bypass would benefit the city. An all-freeway US-69 might entice more people to choose that route instead of I-35/I-44, US-75, or any of the other competing routes that parallel it. That brings money to Muskogee that would otherwise be somewhere else.

[Bobby5280]

Yeah, that channel 2 news report was a bit misleading for a lot of detail not included in the report. They made it sound like US-69 goes through the heart of downtown Muskogee. It does not.

Downtown Muskogee (2 miles East of US-69) is already effectively bypassed by the Muskogee Turnpike. Then there's Sally Brown Road, a 4-lane divided highway with some frontage roads on the South side of the town. Shawnee Street is another 4-lane divided street with some frontage roads on the North side. It's the 2nd busiest commercial area in Muskogee after the downtown district (home to Arrowhead Mall and an bunch of other stuff). It's also worth mentioning most of Muskogee's population lives East of the downtown area, miles away from the US-69 corridor.

There is a decent amount of business near the intersection of US-62 & US-69 (Olkmulgee Ave & 32nd St). But that stuff is really on the West edge of town. It's not the main downtown district.

The report did have a couple "pro" comments for the bypass, one from a guy complaining about all the stop lights along US-69 and another talking about a church member killed in a car accident on the highway.

Safety has to be the chief motivation for building this Interstate quality bypass. It's dangerous to have such a high volume of semi trucks going through 9 intersections controlled by traffic signals and nearly 30 non-signaled at-grade intersections with left turning traffic going across the main lanes.

Then there's the issue of maintenance. Those heavy trucks are pounding what is effectively a local surface street in Muskogee. One would think the local taxpayers there would prefer all those trucks to be using a highway better designed to handle such traffic rather than pulverizing a local street.

If the US-69 western bypass it built it might provide some additional opportunity to upgrade Shawnee Street and Sally Brown Road, tying both into the new bypass and the Muskogee Turnpike. It would actually be do-able to upgrade Shawnee Street into an urban freeway since it has frontage roads along much of it already and ample property set backs on much of the rest. Most of the new hotels along US-69 are near the intersection of Shawnee Street.

[Scott5114]

On a more pragmatic level: if Oklahoma City didn't have the clout to get OKC Boulevard built to its specifications, why does Muskogee think they're doing anything but tilting at windmills?

[Plutonic Panda]

I thought there was a proposal to create a new rail Authority in Oklahoma a couple years ago.

[Bobby5280]

Considering the current state government budget situation in Oklahoma (absolutely horrible) and the constant habit of any passenger rail projects in the US to explode costs into the billions of dollars any notion of Oklahoma having a new rail authority is an utter fantasy.

Meanwhile I don't think Oklahoma has the population, much less population density in urban areas, needed to even make passenger rail systems profitable. We're too spread out to get ridership numbers up to levels that don't require huge amounts of government subsidies. We're also too used to just being able to drive to/from work and other places relatively quickly. Driving around in OKC isn't nearly the chore as it is driving in Houston. Here in Lawton it takes me less than 10 minutes to drive about 6 miles to/from work. I'm certain people in Muskogee measure their local driving trips in minutes. Building a passenger rail line there instead of a US-69 freeway bypass makes about as much sense as solving the problem of a broken water heater by building a tree house in the back yard.

If I tried taking our local bus system it would involve walking a few blocks to the nearest bus stops to my house & work and waiting there in the weather for the bus to arrive. Today the weather is very unpleasantly cold, cloudy and breezy. Summer weather is warm enough in the mornings to make you start sweating in your clothes if you're outdoors for more than a few minutes; the afternoons are routinely blazing hot. Let's not forget about all the damned storms either. Once on the bus it would take a much longer time to get to my destination than driving my own vehicle due to all the different stops along the way. The time involved would have me tempted to just walk or ride a bike and be exposed to the weather the entire time, not to mention be at risk of being mowed down by motorists driving with their heads up their butts.

Any passenger rail system built in OKC or Tulsa would never be able to cover the metro areas effectively enough to get passengers not to use other modes of transportation. Lots of passengers would have to commute using a combination of bus and rail (similar to the bus-ferry-subway combo I endured in NYC). Then there's the park and ride scenario where people drive their cars to a big parking lot next to a rail station and then take the train to their destination. That transit model only works if it's too expensive or impractical to park at that final destination. Parking isn't much of an issue here in Oklahoma. But you're going to pay a decent fare to ride that train and probably pay a significant fee to park next to the station too. That's all the more reason to keep driving the rest of the way rather than parking and riding.

[bugo]

Building a passenger rail line there instead of a US-69 freeway bypass makes about as much sense as solving the problem of a broken water heater by building a tree house in the back yard.

+1

Some anti-car zealots (there are some in this thread) think that mass transit is a one-size-fits-all panacea that will lead to a utopian future of rainbows and unicorns. I hate to break it to them, but they're wrong. Very wrong. To set up an effective light rail system in Tulsa, for instance, there would be train tracks crisscrossing the city along all of the section line roads. Even then, the rail would be too far away for some. Places like Oklahoma are simply too sprawled out for mass transit to work. The time to do something about the sprawl was back in the 1930s or before. That ship sailed long ago. The automobile is the only practical way to get around certain places.

[Scott5114]

I wouldn't go as far as you guys–OKC is developing enough density in the core (the area roughly bounded by I-40, I-44, and I-235) that in some areas mass transit is starting to look workable. This is the area the streetcar system being built is going to serve. But that's a small percentage of the city.

If we're going to have mass transit, it should start small and serve the areas where it will work as opposed to trying to shoehorn it in where it won't. Tie that small downtown OKC network to Campus Corner and whatever's going on up in Tulsa with interurban lines and you have a good start that can be expanded when it becomes necessary.

Note that in the case of OKC, the city is taking the lead with its EMBARK system rather than ODOT having any involvement in it.

[bugo]

Interurban lines going where? Sand Springs? BA? Sapulpa? Those areas are just as sprawled out as Tulsa itself is.

[bugo]

Who is going to pay for all these trains/buses? Do you realize that there would have to be hundreds of buses running 24/7 in a place like Tulsa for it to be usable?

[NE2]

Tax the rich.