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Driving Forward OK

Started by Scott5114, October 29, 2015, 09:49:28 PM

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rte66man

Quote from: J N Winkler on March 21, 2016, 12:31:37 AM
Quote from: rte66man on March 20, 2016, 11:18:25 PMAlthough I realize that 35 north from I-40 to I-44 is in desperate need of modernization (built in the early 60's with inadequate capacity), the stretch of I44 west from Lincoln to Dead Man's Curve at OK66/74 is the biggest piece of crap in the entire state.  Built in the mid-70's, they should have know better than to design what they did.  I might melt my keyboard if I start listing all the problems.

I drove this length of I-44 as part of an OKC day trip in late 2014.  I found it fairly painless, but it was at night and well after the rush hour.  Besides the 90° change in bearing at the western end, it has a lot of fairly sharp curves and far too many access points.  Some of these leave or join on the left, and some fail to form part of complete interchanges offering full two-way connectivity.  (I count 24 in 3 miles; an ordinary freeway with simple diamond exits at mile spacing would have just 16.)

I don't think, though, that the late 1970's was a good time to expect freeways to be designed with superior operating characteristics in urban areas.

I have to drive it from Dead Man's Curve to Lincoln Blvd every morning and the reverse every evening.  As you mentioned, the large number of left entrances and exits means slow traffic gets in both the far left and far right, meaning even the middle get clogged due to the inordinate number of lane changes.  The bends between those 2 points are due it it following 1950's era US66's old alignment. 

However, the absolute WORST part is westbound approaching May Ave.  Between 4 and 7 PM, you can almost guarantee traffic will come to a complete halt. Traffic wanting to continue west on 44 are forced into the 2 left lanes, which narrow to one lane just past Dead Man's Curve, where they merge with OK74.  Traffic wanting to either continue west on OK66 (39th St Expy) or go north on OK74 (about half of all traffic at that point) have ONE lane to exit.  Traffic will often back up past the May Av exit.  This is compounded by the "late arrivers" who merge at the last moment.  :pan:

On top of that, if you want to exit right to OK74 northbound, you have to cross the entrance ramp from May Av westbound to OK66.  Although there is a Yield sign on the ramp, I can truthfully say I have NEVER seen anyone yield to traffic wanting to go north on 74. :banghead:

J N, while I agree in general with you about 70's design standards, even I knew back then that this interchange would never work. Not too many places in the US where a 2-digit interstate highway narrows to one lane in EACH direction as does 44 at this interchange.  Yes Scott, I realize this used to be I-240, but that's still no excuse for piss-poor design.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra


Scott5114

uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

SEMIweather

Question from a novice...if OTA wanted to someday extend the Kilpatrick down to Norman, would it make sense to build a theoretical extension just NE of the Canadian River, or no? I feel that areas directly NE of the river are less prone to development, which would give OTA more time to raise the funds necessary for such an extension. But at the same time, I will concede that there may be significant downsides to building a highway right next to the river, the most obvious of which would be terrain issues and the fact that nearly every road in the southern suburbs dead-ends right at the river. Just wondering how you guys would feel about the logistics of a route such as the following: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hLfbJt02iblV-CVZXXr3EL2H4ys

I will say, even if the river route isn't feasible, the upcoming extension seems to favor SH-76 over SH-4 if OTA someday wants to connect the Kilpatrick to SH-9.

Bobby5280

The main problem is such a route would be situated in a flood prone area, requiring the roadway to be elevated on bridges for much of that length. That might be cost prohibitive.

I still believe OK-4 coming up from I-44 into Mustang and the H.E. Bailey Turnpike extension heading into OK-9 going East toward Norman really ought to be the focal points on finishing the Kilpatrick Turnpike. I think it would be the most beneficial solution. The problem is development is encroaching more and more of this corridor as the years pass.

The area around Riverwind Casino is already a big problem. In order to connect the H.E. Bailey Turnpike extension into I-35 the freeway would have to be elevated over OK-9 as it passed the casino. The tribe might not like that very much and no one would like the cost of it. Another alternative would be making the turnpike split from OK-9 a mile or so West of the casino, curve North over a new river crossing and connect into the OK-9/I-35 interchange on the North side of the river. The downside is that interchange, which is going through one re-model, would have to be modified yet again.

The area around the OK-4/OK-37 intersection South of Mustang is getting built up. A South extension of the Kilpatrick would probably have to bypass that intersection to avoid the growing number of properties alingning it.

Another big problem is trying to connect OK-4 with the Kilpatrick extension that does get built. How far East and out of the way would the route have to jog? The Sara Road corridor has already been overtaken with development. One could build a connection about a half mile East of Sara Road to avoid Walmart, Lowes, etc. A couple businesses and some homes to the North would have to be taken. But hardly any new superhighway can get built these days without some properties being bought and demolished.

These problems would not have been problems if ODOT and the OTA had any real planning sense. The ROW for the South half of the Kilpatrick should have been bought and reserved over 20 years ago. But ODOT and OTA couldn't bother doing anything like that. Such planning would be too much like Texas style. And we know how much Oklahoma hates Texas. :-P

Bobby5280

It would not have cost ODOT and/or the OTA a ton of money to just get the ROW reserved back when they should have done so: when the Kilpatrick Turnpike was in its planning stages about 30 years ago. They didn't have to fully build out a turnpike then. They didn't even have to build a Texas style divided street with a huge median. It could have taken as little as some zoning decisions, like mandating minimum set-backs for development along OK-4, OK-9 and S. Sara Road when hardly anything was built alongside it. They couldn't even manage something as simple as that. That's piss poor planning.

Oklahoma's style of transportation planning is reacting to something after it has turned into a problem rather than thinking 10, 20 or 30 years into the future and planning for that.

As for all the millennials taking buses or using Ãœber, that might be going on in some dense inner cities and college towns, but it's really not very widespread anywhere else. We have lots of millennials in Lawton. Most of them either have cars or are bumming rides off other people who own cars. But we do have our first real bike trail (along Fort Sill Blvd. from Elmer Thomas Park up to Rogers Lane and onto Post). I saw a guy in a motorized wheelchair using it yesterday.

TXtoNJ

Will someone explain the OK-9 development difficulties? On Google Maps, I see a consistent 330 ft corridor from the end of the HE Bailey Spur to I-35. That's more than enough space to construct a turnpike facility.

Bobby5280

QuoteGotta build it out before people can use it.

That doesn't have to happen immediately. Texas has quite a few freeway-wide corridors that are simply divided streets or highways with at grade intersections. A bunch of US-287 between Fort Worth and Amarillo is built like this. Some of these freeway-ready corridors only have a single two-lane roadway with the rest of the ROW to the left or right of the existing road. Oklahoma could have done that with OK-4, OK-9 and Sara Road quite easily and without a huge amount of expense. They just didn't bother to think ahead. That's piss poor planning or just a complete lack of planning.

Quote from: TXtoNJWill someone explain the OK-9 development difficulties? On Google Maps, I see a consistent 330 ft corridor from the end of the HE Bailey Spur to I-35. That's more than enough space to construct a turnpike facility.

OK-9 between the end of the H.E. Bailey Turnpike Norman Spur to I-35 is more tricky than that. Some parts of the corridor are wide enough to upgrade without any displacement of existing properties. But it would be a tight squeeze. SE 44th Street works like one half of a set of frontage roads. That kept some homes and other properties set back at a practical distance. Unfortunately there is no access road on the South side. That allowed some properties to get too close to the OK-9 main lanes, especially at Whipporwill Drive.

Between 24th Ave. and I-35 the OK-9 main lanes are flanked by a bunch of service businesses and Riverwind Casino. The ROW might be wide enough to support a turnpike, but it would have to be elevated going in front of Riverwind. There's too many driveways and drainage ditches through there. I don't know what the opposition would be like to such a proposal. However, if I was someone in charge of running the casino I would gladly welcome the superhighway upgrade. It would put more traffic (and customers) through that area.

Bobby5280

QuoteI wasn't talking about the motorist infrastructure in this case.  That's already plenty built out considering, despite population growth, traffic is peaking or has already peaked for most places in the state.

Where are you getting this statistic you keep repeating? Unless the Oklahoma's population is in a state of decline (people moving elsewhere, dying off, etc.) the state's traffic levels have not peaked. Oklahomans have not been trading in their cars for bicycles & bus passes en masse.

High gasoline prices made a lot of drivers conserve their trips the past few years. But with the collapse of oil prices and gasoline prices there's just as much traffic on the roads now than any other time in the last 20 or so years. That's certainly the case here in Lawton. I wish there were fewer cars on our streets, especially the slow obstructionist ones going 20mph below the posted speed limit.

Bike paths and bus systems are primarily the responsibility of individual towns and cities to handle. Such systems are not a replacement for regional highway systems. And they shouldn't be eliminating the planning of such highway systems either. The need for things like a proper outer loop around Oklahoma City is never going to go away. People might be pedaling around the OKC core, but they're not going to be doing that on the city's outskirts.

It's pretty difficult to get bike path networks built out in small cities like Lawton. People here have been working over 20 years on such a network. After all that time we have just a couple segments of real bike paths. The city put up bike path signs along 6th Street, Ferris Avenue and a couple other streets. Hardly anyone travels on those streets using a bicycle. Some of that has to do with Red State Car Culture. More of it has to do with safety. It's downright dangerous to pedal a bicycle in the lane of a city street. The law may be on the bicyclist's side, but the law does nothing to remove the danger. Too many people have their heads up their butts when they're behind the wheel of a car. They gotta check Facebook or their text messages rather than notice the bicyclists in front of them.

Chris

'From 2000 to 2014, annual VMT in Oklahoma increased by 10 percent, from 43.4 billion miles traveled annually to 47.7 billion miles traveled annually'

From OKLAHOMA TRANSPORTATION BY THE NUMBERS (tripnet & sourced to FHWA)

Scott5114

Another issue with any extension of the SH-9 expressway on the Cleveland County side would be that Norman just passed a referendum to build a park along the river west of I-35. Using that area for a freeway instead would probably rankle a lot of the people that voted for it. That being said, the new interchange at 108A would be a lot more conducive to a western expansion than the old one was.

At this point the easiest way to do it would probably be to swing south into Goldsby at about Santa Fe/NW 24th Street, bypass the casino and businesses by roughly following Lamar Avenue, and tie into I-35 where it curves to the southeast.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

rte66man

Quote from: Scott5114 on May 19, 2016, 07:09:54 PM
Another issue with any extension of the SH-9 expressway on the Cleveland County side would be that Norman just passed a referendum to build a park along the river west of I-35. Using that area for a freeway instead would probably rankle a lot of the people that voted for it. That being said, the new interchange at 108A would be a lot more conducive to a western expansion than the old one was.

At this point the easiest way to do it would probably be to swing south into Goldsby at about Santa Fe/NW 24th Street, bypass the casino and businesses by roughly following Lamar Avenue, and tie into I-35 where it curves to the southeast.

I like that idea because of the total rebuild needed at the OK74/I35 interchange at Goldsby.  Kill 2 birds with one stone.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

Scott5114

Quote from: rte66man on May 20, 2016, 01:03:16 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on May 19, 2016, 07:09:54 PM
Another issue with any extension of the SH-9 expressway on the Cleveland County side would be that Norman just passed a referendum to build a park along the river west of I-35. Using that area for a freeway instead would probably rankle a lot of the people that voted for it. That being said, the new interchange at 108A would be a lot more conducive to a western expansion than the old one was.

At this point the easiest way to do it would probably be to swing south into Goldsby at about Santa Fe/NW 24th Street, bypass the casino and businesses by roughly following Lamar Avenue, and tie into I-35 where it curves to the southeast.

I like that idea because of the total rebuild needed at the OK74/I35 interchange at Goldsby.  Kill 2 birds with one stone.

The area I have in mind would still be a mile north of SH-74. That interchange is a little awkward but I think it's still fine for the traffic levels it has. With the ROW they have though, it wouldn't be too hard to convert it to a true parclo, with ramps in the NW and SE quadrants.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

rte66man

It's the complete lack of a northbound merge lane that gets to me.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

Scott5114

As someone who grew up in Goldsby, we always just used the shoulder as a de facto merge lane if necessary at both exits 104 and 101.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Scott5114

Because Newcastle is a place that some of us from Norman have reason to go to. SH-9 is also a vital link connecting Norman to the southwest part of the state, e.g. Chickasha and Lawton.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Scott5114

The western expansion I referred to was a possible western extension of the SH-9 alignment on the Cleveland County side.

Norman doesn't have much room to expand to the west.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Plutonic Panda



J N Winkler

I don't have a strong objection in principle to cross-pledging, though it does crack the door a bit wider for white-elephant projects.  I could have done without all of the propaganda for toll finance in that press release, though.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

Plutonic Panda

As far as mass transit goes I just want OKC to get a light rail line to Will Rodgers and the south side. I'm not happy about the street car as I do NOT support rail transit with at grade crossing let alone being mixed in with vehicle traffic. I would have preferred a subway but OKC isn't dense enough for that yet. So imo, the best solution would be BRT and you could electrify the buses to make it a bus trolley and that would have given us more miles than a measly 5 miles of track.

Scott5114

Where the hell is Wakefield?
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Plutonic Panda

Okay maybe but that isn't a fair comparison because those cities were developed long before automobile. Though OKC was technically founded before the auto really took off and became ingrained in our culture, the city didn't really take off either right after it was founded.

I would love to see subway lines in OKC as a thought, but being realistic, the only city aroind OKC that needs to be concerned with building subway is Dallas and Houston. Maybe Austin but I'd prefer overhead rail in Austin.

Bobby5280

QuoteMan, imagine New York or London having that mentality when it was Oklahoma City's size...

Imagine the days well over a century ago when building a single subway line didn't cost tens of billions of dollars. There's no way in hell Oklahoma City (or the entire state for that matter) could afford to build any underground communter rail lines. The extreme costs make such a thing just as stupid a fantasy as building a subway under the Atlantic from New York to London.

QuoteI would love to see subway lines in OKC as a thought, but being realistic, the only city aroind OKC that needs to be concerned with building subway is Dallas and Houston. Maybe Austin but I'd prefer overhead rail in Austin.

Subways as well as tunneling of any kind is literally going to price itself out of existence. The 2 mile, 4 lane Alaska Way Viaduct replacement tunnel in Seattle is costing well over $4 billion to build. That's a lot more than what the gigantic expansions of Katy Freeway in Houston and LBJ Freeway in Dallas cost. In New York City the 8.5 mile 2nd Avenue Subway project currently has a total cost over $17 billion; the first 2 mile phase that just opened cost $4.45 billion. The MTA has been working on-again off-again since the early 1970's to get this thing built. If not for NYC's financial crisis in 1975 the subway line probably would have been completed back then for far less money. These days any mass transit infrastructure project is a freaking orgy of extreme costs and greed. Of course, that nonsense has spread itself into road construction too.

People joke about China building slip-shod roads and bridges. Well, at least they're building something. They just opened the world's highest bridge, a huge suspension bridge that cost "only" $150 million. The same project in this country would easily cost billions.

Scott5114

There's also the fact that the water table in OKC is so high that it's not feasible for most buildings to even have basements. An underground subway would have to mitigate this, which would be incredibly expensive.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: Bobby5280 on January 12, 2017, 11:14:08 AM


Imagine the days well over a century ago when building a single subway line didn't cost tens of billions of dollars. There's no way in hell Oklahoma City (or the entire state for that matter) could afford to build any underground communter rail lines. The extreme costs make such a thing just as stupid a fantasy as building a subway under the Atlantic from New York to London.

QuoteI would love to see subway lines in OKC as a thought, but being realistic, the only city aroind OKC that needs to be concerned with building subway is Dallas and Houston. Maybe Austin but I'd prefer overhead rail in Austin.

Subways as well as tunneling of any kind is literally going to price itself out of existence. The 2 mile, 4 lane Alaska Way Viaduct replacement tunnel in Seattle is costing well over $4 billion to build. That's a lot more than what the gigantic expansions of Katy Freeway in Houston and LBJ Freeway in Dallas cost. In New York City the 8.5 mile 2nd Avenue Subway project currently has a total cost over $17 billion; the first 2 mile phase that just opened cost $4.45 billion. The MTA has been working on-again off-again since the early 1970's to get this thing built. If not for NYC's financial crisis in 1975 the subway line probably would have been completed back then for far less money. These days any mass transit infrastructure project is a freaking orgy of extreme costs and greed. Of course, that nonsense has spread itself into road construction too.

People joke about China building slip-shod roads and bridges. Well, at least they're building something. They just opened the world's highest bridge, a huge suspension bridge that cost "only" $150 million. The same project in this country would easily cost billions.

Well, for one thing, Dallas is actually considering a subway line. While expensive, they are great because they are no disruption to traffic and are incredibly efficient as most tunnels are. Dallas is also considering overhead rail similar to Chicago.

While they are expansive, this country also has really high standards. I also think a fair portion of the money goes to environmental engineering as well. I do agree the costs are especially prohibitive but Dallas is a massive city that can take it on. If it wants to propel its downtown into the 21st century,  it needs to have some sort of a rail network downtown other than a streetcar.



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