http://newsok.com/a-better-view-of-the-boulevard-design-scored-highest-by-odot/article/4747474
Having driven the old/new I40 from Western west to Agnew, It will serves as an excellent way to leave downtown after a Thunder game. However I'm coming around to the arguments Lackmeyer presents. They do need to have bike paths and sidewalks.
Bike paths and sidewalks, absolutely. But that editorial was written by someone who obviously knows nothing about highway engineering. They call it a freeway; it's far from that. It's closer to an expressway than anything else. The author fails to realize that the reason why many of the minor streets are disconnected from the boulevard is for safety concerns.
Look at the map for the middle-western part of the proposed boulevard. Lee is the main way to get to Film Row and there is no crossover there. But the real bone of contention for most of the boulevard vs freeway crown is the overpass and relocation of Classen. They wanted a very large roundabout there that would have included Western, the boulevard, and Classen. I would not want to go thru there during either morning or evening rush hour. People don't realize that roundabouts don't work for high volume traffic. Look at what greater London has done with trunk routes such as the A40. 30 years ago there was a roundabout every 1/2 mile. Now they are all full interchanges with the A40 either diving under or passing over the roundabout.
Don't bother reading this entire article - it's mostly environweenie nonsense. The article does say that the former I-40 that is being transformed into a boulevard will be maintained by the city after it is completed. Either this guy is wrong or whoever it was that said the highway was going to be a business loop for I-40.
http://newsok.com/a-better-view-of-the-boulevard-design-scored-highest-by-odot/article/4747474
It would be more advantageous to Oklahoma City taxpayers if the new crosstown boulevard was a business loop for I-40 rather than something that is maintained only by OKC. That street will have a lot of traffic due to its direct connections with I-40.
The high amount of surface street level traffic is exactly why some street intersections must be skipped and a major change like the re-routing of Classen is necessary. I think some of the "environweenies" are blowing their complaints out of proportion with reality. Someone might have to make a turn a block earlier or later to reach his destination. Big deal. He might actually get there faster due to more efficient traffic flow. If every intersection had an at grade crossing and set of traffic lights it would be an invitation to grid-lock.
These guys always throw out the term "properly timed traffic lights" as if that's something that can just magically fall into place with a major surface corridor that's cutting diagonally through parts of an existing street grid with different volumes of traffic. Timing traffic lights is easier said than done, especially in a situation like this.
It's necessary for a major corridor to skip some intersections. Neighborhood traffic needs to enter/leave the major surface corridor through bigger arterial streets. This approach is very common in other large cities. I see no problem with the boulevard skipping Harvey and partially cutting off Lee & Shartel.
What ODOT is planning for Classen is pretty drastic, but it still makes sense. It would be a traffic light clusterf**k if that street, Reno and the new crosstown were all meeting in the same place. And, yes, sticking a roundabout in there would be a disaster. A roundabout works okay in lower traffic environments or in a confined area like a shopping center property, but not something like this. Americans aren't used to driving through roundabout intersections. OKC PD would have its hands full with hundreds upon hundreds of accidents if a roundabout were placed there. I would avoid that intersection entirely and continue taking I-40 to Shields to get into Bricktown.
Here's another thing for these "environweenies" to consider: reducing the number of traffic light intersections along the new crosstown boulevard might actually make it more bike & pedestrian friendly. Traffic light intersections aren't the easiest thing for bicyclists & pedestrians to negotiate, especially these days with the attention of so many drivers buried into their phones rather than what's in front of them on the road. Some of the "unusable green space" this writer is complaining about could be used to build bike & pedestrian bridges across the boulevard.
His dig about unusable space along I-235 is an apples to oranges comparison. I-235 has some old fashioned, space-wasting partial cloverleafs and other features that make entering and leaving that freeway a pain. That's not what's being proposed on the crosstown boulevard. A lot of that area along I-235 North of Harrison Ave. isn't being further developed just because of the neighborhood's condition. That area is only going to improve through slow growth.