Is KC really going to remove i-70 downtown?

[sparker]

One compound word: "trip-chaining".  Regardless of residential venue (urban/other); it's hardly doable unless a car or other individualized vehicle is readily available.  There's a lot of people out there who would rather avoid driving -- but they find it necessary to do so in order to optimize their time regarding work vs. "downtime" -- doing shopping (both necessities and optional purchases), errands, social activities, etc.  With work taking up seemingly more of our time in this day & age, it's become more and more necessary to multi-task to conserve time; trip-chaining while commuting is a natural and logical extension of that necessity. 

Some may cite online purchases as an alternative (let the FedEx guy do the heavy lifting!) -- but there are still large numbers of us who don't view everything as fungible -- a lot of items (particularly "big-ticket" merchandise) are best selected and purchased after actually viewed -- and occasionally handled or sampled -- by the potential purchaser.  I've gotten into long and often unresolved arguments with certain mobility-phobic advocates (invariably NYC-based -- Eric Joffe, I'm looking at you!) who have stated that they've adapted their purchasing habits to include a high level of "blind" transactions in which merchandise is acquired on "spec" alone (somewhat mitigated by the presence of generous return policies on the part of some vendors).  But even that stretches the rules of economics -- eventually the customer pays for the shipping (and return) activities, either directly or through increases in basic pricing to accommodate the potential dissatisfied customer -- which increases the costs to all customers, urban-based or not.         

For dense development to be a success, there needs to be an efficient transportation network to get those who live in the dense area in and around town.

Hang around any college urban-planning program (or don't, if you're argument-averse!) and you'll find the inverse of the above statement to serve as the raison d'etre of their efforts & belief structure -- i.e., if you want to deploy an efficient transportation network, you need a high level of dense development in place.  In Seattle and other tightly boundarized cities, it's a no-brainer; there's simply no room to squeeze in significant additional numbers of cars, much less more freeway lanes or facilities.  But still most residents own at least one vehicle, to use as needed to accommodate a "normal" life that includes a modicum of commercial activity; whether or not that vehicle is used for commuter purposes depends upon too many variables to list here -- mostly having to do with distance & specific residence location.  But unless one (or two or three) has squeezed their self into such a small living space that material possessions of any bulk just won't fit, a vehicle -- or access to one -- is almost a requirement.
   

[silverback1065]

is there a single city where the transit actually makes a profit?  also, it would be nice to have better designed suburbs, more "griddy" less squiggly dead end subdivision streets.  I live in the Indy area, and the lack of boundaries makes the city essentially have no incentive to be dense, it's larger than NYC (by land only), yet less than a million people live in Indy proper.  It would be great to have another choice besides a car to get around.  So many streets here have no sidewalks, bike lanes, only lanes for cars.  And IndyGo (bus system here) is garbage.

[vdeane]

Honestly, I don't understand the attraction of living in super-dense areas.  It's unfortunate that our economy is centering around such spaces more and more.  I need my privacy.  I don't want to be right on top of other people 24/7 - I'd go stir crazy (such is also why I can't deal with an open-concept office).  I don't want to have to live my life according to the bus schedule.  I can't deal with the uncertainty of whether the bus will arrive on time.  For these reasons, driving is the clear choice for me.

Yet, I can't stand congestion either.  I can't deal with a long commute; I already spend enough time at work, placing free time at a premium (I never learned how people manage to cram everything they do into 24 hours; every day feels too short), so I don't want to take any more of it away than I have to.  I also don't do on-street parking (partly because I suck at parallel parking, partly because I feel less secure doing so, but mostly because I hate the uncertainty of where I'd get to park and because I don't want to do the snow removal dance).  This pushes me out to the suburbs (apartments with parking/driving situations that I like DO exist even in urban areas, but they are way too expensive for anyone who isn't rich), but that causes issues with commute length and congestion.  I just can't win, and with current development/planning trends, the situation will just keep getting worse.

[kphoger]

People are not being coerced into driving. Do any of you have to have your arms twisted into driving your cars?

^ This x 1000.

No, no no. People are coerced into driving when local city planners refuse to accept the idea that more than two modes of transportation exist (walking and driving). No one is ever forced to do anything (nice strawman, ghostbuster), but when they have to actually leave their fucking homes, they need options. Most American cities already have a very good road system (infrastructure quality not-withstanding). If we can focus our efforts on incentivising drivers to switch their modes of transport from driving to literally anything else, we can help keep congestion from growing any more, without having to invest billions into our roads.

Or we can let the market decide and if people want to give up their cars and live in an urban area they can do so.

So far they are deciding they want the suburban lifestyle which requires wide roads and freeways.

The market can only decide to a certain point.  When ridership is low but not nonexistent, the public transit network either disappears or becomes functionally worthless.  At that point, the people who still need or prefer to use public transit no longer realistically have that as an option.  And so you could think of transit as a public service that must at least be maintained to a minimum, in order to ensure there actually is something left to be decided.

An example of this is the western suburbs of Chicago, where I used to live without a car.  I took evening classes at a community college in Glen Ellyn.  There was a bus line to the college, but it only ran every so often and didn't run at all at night (no buses in that part of the county ran late).  So, while I could get to college by bus, I had to figure out other ways of getting home again.  For me, that often involved asking around in class at the beginning of each quarter for a regular ride home; just as often, it involved standing outside the campus doors with a hitchhiking sign.  That "system" isn't for everybody, and it should not be considered sufficient.  I met several people during my time in the area who said they would like to take evening classes to further their education, but the lack of evening bus routes made it an impossibility.  "Letting the market decide" would lead you to believe there is no demand for evening ridership on that bus line, but such is not the case; in reality, there isn't enough demand for RTA to keep the line operating into the evening hours.  Diverting more funds to public transit in the area and improving the network would make riders magically appear–latent demand you didn't know was there.  The only way to justify the current system is to say that people who cannot afford their own car don't deserve to have their mobility subsidized to the same extent as people who can afford their own car.

I made do in the area at the time, using a combination of modes of transportation:  commuter rail, bus, bicycle, roller blades, walking, hitchhiking.  But, in that environment, people are very much coerced into driving a car.  When you cannot get from A to B without a car, or it's maddeningly difficult to do so, then you are coerced to get a car to drive.

[silverback1065]

Honestly, I don't understand the attraction of living in super-dense areas.  It's unfortunate that our economy is centering around such spaces more and more.  I need my privacy.  I don't want to be right on top of other people 24/7 - I'd go stir crazy (such is also why I can't deal with an open-concept office).  I don't want to have to live my life according to the bus schedule.  I can't deal with the uncertainty of whether the bus will arrive on time.  For these reasons, driving is the clear choice for me.

Yet, I can't stand congestion either.  I can't deal with a long commute; I already spend enough time at work, placing free time at a premium (I never learned how people manage to cram everything they do into 24 hours; every day feels too short), so I don't want to take any more of it away than I have to.  I also don't do on-street parking (partly because I suck at parallel parking, partly because I feel less secure doing so, but mostly because I hate the uncertainty of where I'd get to park and because I don't want to do the snow removal dance).  This pushes me out to the suburbs (apartments with parking/driving situations that I like DO exist even in urban areas, but they are way too expensive for anyone who isn't rich), but that causes issues with commute length and congestion.  I just can't win, and with current development/planning trends, the situation will just keep getting worse.

there's nothing wrong with your preferences, some people do want less dense, and sometimes rural life.  i just argue for better built suburbs in general. 

[Plutonic Panda]

Greatly worded, Bobby. I agree 110%.

[vdeane]

Honestly, I don't understand the attraction of living in super-dense areas.  It's unfortunate that our economy is centering around such spaces more and more.  I need my privacy.  I don't want to be right on top of other people 24/7 - I'd go stir crazy (such is also why I can't deal with an open-concept office).  I don't want to have to live my life according to the bus schedule.  I can't deal with the uncertainty of whether the bus will arrive on time.  For these reasons, driving is the clear choice for me.

Yet, I can't stand congestion either.  I can't deal with a long commute; I already spend enough time at work, placing free time at a premium (I never learned how people manage to cram everything they do into 24 hours; every day feels too short), so I don't want to take any more of it away than I have to.  I also don't do on-street parking (partly because I suck at parallel parking, partly because I feel less secure doing so, but mostly because I hate the uncertainty of where I'd get to park and because I don't want to do the snow removal dance).  This pushes me out to the suburbs (apartments with parking/driving situations that I like DO exist even in urban areas, but they are way too expensive for anyone who isn't rich), but that causes issues with commute length and congestion.  I just can't win, and with current development/planning trends, the situation will just keep getting worse.

there's nothing wrong with your preferences, some people do want less dense, and sometimes rural life.  i just argue for better built suburbs in general. 

True.  I prefer older suburbs to the sprawling mix of HOAs with a bunch of curvy cul de sacs for that reason.

[jakeroot]

One thing that transit advocates fail to take into account when discussing transit in the Great Plains states is the climate. In Oklahoma City, you can have highs in the 20s in the winter and highs up to 110 in the summer, with humidity much higher than hotter cities like Phoenix or Las Vegas. Biking into a 30-mph headwind is no cakewalk either. Not to mention the threat of severe weather. Anyone who has a choice in the matter is not going to choose to bike or walk (or probably even ride the bus) in such conditions.

And then there's the threat of severe weather. I wouldn't want to get caught out waiting for the bus on a Moderate risk day.

According to the 2014 American Community Survey Analysis of bicycle commuting in American cities, the top 27 cities for cycling don't seem to have a lot in common. It's really a who's who of best cycling infrastructure ("if you build it, they will come"). Standout cities in terms of climate and/or arduous infrastructure include;

3: Boulder, CO (similar if not heavier swings in temp than OKC, but less humid (though also stormy));
7: Portland, OR (rainy and hilly, though moderate in terms of temp (though summers can hit 100F often), also often windy);
9: Fort Collins, CO (read: Boulder);
11: Missoula, MT (very cold winters, hot thundery weather in summer);
12: Bloomington, IN (hot and humid, thundery spring and summer, mildly snowy);
13: Madison, WI (hot and humid, thundery spring and summer, very cold and snowy winters);
14: Flagstaff, AZ (very cold snowy winters)
15: Ann Arbor, MI (cold snowy winters, hot and humid summers)
17: Minneapolis, MN (read: Madison)
18: Iowa City, IA (cold winters, probably hot and humid, thundery summers)
19: Gainesville, FL (great winters, but hot, humid, stormy summers)
20: San Francisco, CA (great weather but super hilly)
21: Bellingham, WA (mild-ish weather year round but very rainy and hilly in parts)
23: Washington, DC (cold often snowy winters, hot humid thundery summers)
24: Seattle, WA (mild-ish weather year round but very rainy and very hilly)
25: College Station, TX (read: Gainesville)
26: Tempe, AZ (great winters but fucking hot as shit in summer, regardless of humidity)

Note that of the top 27, six are in the Midwest region. Obviously that's not a ton, and the West Coast still leads the way. And certainly climate plays a large role. But to suggest that climate in and of itself is a reason to forget about cycling is premature, especially if the city in discussion lacks proper cycling infrastructure (only so many cyclists are comfortable riding in the street with other cars).

[sparker]

.......the top 27 cities for cycling don't seem to have a lot in common. It's really a who's who of best cycling infrastructure ("if you build it, they will come"). Standout cities in terms of climate and/or arduous infrastructure include;

Noticed that only 17 of the 27 cities on the list are included here.  As a former Oregon denizen (PDX metro), in the time I lived there I was given to understand that Eugene was considered one of the top cycling cities.  (Disclosure: I don't bicycle due to a couple of inner-ear issues; I tend to fall over sideways when attempting to balance on something!)  U of O graduates were particularly adamant about Eugene being one of the best locations for not only cycling but other outdoor physical activities: relatively low altitude, much less rain than Portland, very clean air -- which is why it was dubbed "Track City USA" -- which also provides relatively ideal cycling conditions.  I'm wondering if it was one of the omissions from the original list.   

As an aside...........I was wondering if this thread will ever return to KC!

[jakeroot]

.......the top 27 cities for cycling don't seem to have a lot in common. It's really a who's who of best cycling infrastructure ("if you build it, they will come"). Standout cities in terms of climate and/or arduous infrastructure include;

Noticed that only 17 of the 27 cities on the list are included here.  As a former Oregon denizen (PDX metro), in the time I lived there I was given to understand that Eugene was considered one of the top cycling cities.  (Disclosure: I don't bicycle due to a couple of inner-ear issues; I tend to fall over sideways when attempting to balance on something!)  U of O graduates were particularly adamant about Eugene being one of the best locations for not only cycling but other outdoor physical activities: relatively low altitude, much less rain than Portland, very clean air -- which is why it was dubbed "Track City USA" -- which also provides relatively ideal cycling conditions.  I'm wondering if it was one of the omissions from the original list.

Allow me to retort:

.......the top 27 cities for cycling don't seem to have a lot in common. It's really a who's who of best cycling infrastructure ("if you build it, they will come"). Standout cities in terms of climate and/or arduous infrastructure include;

Eugene is on the list. And while it's rainy like Portland, it's usually mild temps year-round and pretty flat. Not really that challenging.

I excluded other cities because they were obvious, like Davis, Palo Alto, and Mountain View.

[sparker]

Eugene is on the list. And while it's rainy like Portland, it's usually mild temps year-round and not very flat. Not really that challenging.

I excluded other cities because they were obvious, like Davis, Palo Alto, and Mountain View.

Sorry -- I was using 2nd-hand information supplied by not unbiased acquaintances; as a non-cyclist, that's about the extent of my info; I was just reiterating what I had heard.  But then Eugene is indeed on the full list; you answered my question.  I guessed that since the southern portion of that city is indeed a bit hilly, that would furnish at least a sampling of the "arduous" aspect of the post criteria.  Interesting that the excluded cities are all near or adjacent to major universities, which these days host vast hordes of bicycle traffic.  Perhaps one of the more trying aspects of bicycling in that environment is the avoidance of -- literally -- running into one another!  More than once I've driven down El Camino Real in Palo Alto and witnessed a few dozen cyclists converging on one or another intersection (more often than not Embarcadero) and cross ECR in one pack like NASCAR drivers on a restart!  Always wondered what would occur once they collectively came to the single-lane RR underpass a block east (shared with auto traffic)! 

[Bobby5280]

Some of the top bicycle friendly cities are in either blazing hot or bone chilling cold climates. But I'm going to call bullshit on the implied idea that lots of people are going to be out riding bicycles in terrible weather conditions if bike paths are there.

I have family in Denver and Colorado Springs and have visited both cities many times. When the weather is warm or at least pleasant (and not windy as hell) yeah, you'll see some bike riders on the bike paths in those cities. When it's snowy, icy and/or barely above zero people aren't going to be commuting via pedal power unless they have absolutely no other choice.

The weather can get pretty freaking hot here in Lawton during the summer. On the occasions I've rode my trail bike to work I've had to ride at a slow enough pace to keep from breaking into a sweat and soaking wet spots on the arm pit and back areas of my shirt before getting to work. Thankfully I wouldn't have to worry about that so much on the way home. But I would be sweating good in 100°+ heat.

Agreed 100% with Scott5114 on the wind thing. Pedaling into a head wind, especially the kind of wind we routinely get in Oklahoma, is not any fun at all. And, yeah, if you don't pay attention to the weather report and severe storms roll in at quitting time you're going to be trying to bum rides from friends to get home and possibly leaving your bike at the office.

[jakeroot]

Need to make a correction. When I said "not very flat", I meant the opposite: "pretty flat".

[Bobby5280]

In lousy weather I'm not going to be riding my trail bike anywhere. I'm not going to walking to and waiting at a bus stop either. I'm going to be in my truck, out of the bad weather, getting from point A to point B faster.

[Plutonic Panda]

Same here. I won't be riding my bike the majority of the year in OKC because of the weather.

[jakeroot]

In lousy weather I'm not going to be riding my trail bike anywhere. I'm not going to walking to and waiting at a bus stop either. I'm going to be in my truck, out of the bad weather, getting from point A to point B faster.

Same here. I won't be riding my bike the majority of the year in OKC because of the weather.

Okay? You guys don't have to. But there are plenty of people who are willing to do everything you're not. Living in a city is not always about what's most comfortable. If you like comfort, I'd suggest rural Wyoming. Plenty of room for one-car-per-person out there.

[Scott5114]

In lousy weather I'm not going to be riding my trail bike anywhere. I'm not going to walking to and waiting at a bus stop either. I'm going to be in my truck, out of the bad weather, getting from point A to point B faster.

Same here. I won't be riding my bike the majority of the year in OKC because of the weather.

Okay? You guys don't have to. But there are plenty of people who are willing to do everything you're not. Living in a city is not always about what's most comfortable. If you like comfort, I'd suggest rural Wyoming. Plenty of room for one-car-per-person out there.

The Oklahoma City that exists in your head is evidently not the one that was actually built in Oklahoma.

Honestly, before we get bike lanes/trails, I'd like to have sidewalks.

[jakeroot]

In lousy weather I'm not going to be riding my trail bike anywhere. I'm not going to walking to and waiting at a bus stop either. I'm going to be in my truck, out of the bad weather, getting from point A to point B faster.

Same here. I won't be riding my bike the majority of the year in OKC because of the weather.

Okay? You guys don't have to. But there are plenty of people who are willing to do everything you're not. Living in a city is not always about what's most comfortable. If you like comfort, I'd suggest rural Wyoming. Plenty of room for one-car-per-person out there.

The Oklahoma City that exists in your head is evidently not the one that was actually built in Oklahoma.

Honestly, before we get bike lanes/trails, I'd like to have sidewalks.

I've been once, but I spent most of my time within the city center and Bricktown areas. Seemed nice enough.

I'd recommend perhaps investing a few bucks into pedestrian infrastructure before the ADA gets lawsuit-happy with y'all.

[Scott5114]

The CBD/Bricktown is quite nice and is arguably the most urbanized area of Oklahoma. Most of Oklahoma City is not like that, however, and it is these parts of the city that the majority of Oklahoma City's population lives in.

I spend most of my time in Norman, not Oklahoma City, so I can only speak to my experience here with any reliability. Norman's sidewalks, where they exist, are for the most part well-maintained and follow ADA rules. However, as far as I can tell, Norman only requires a sidewalk to be built when property is developed. If you are walking down a street with undeveloped lots mixed with developed property, the sidewalk will end at the property line of the vacant lot and resume once you reach the next developed lot. There are some streets where the sidewalk starts and stops several times in the space of a block.

Norman has a few bike lanes, but they are all on minor collectors and as far as I can tell not used by anyone. I am in the process of purchasing a house alongside such a bike lane, so I'll keep an eye on it and let you know if my observations are different.  You do see the odd cyclist here and there on the arterials, but they are the type with the spandex suits and fancy helmets that would cycle into the gates of Hell if there was a bike lane there. I have never seen anyone in Oklahoma cycling in business-type clothing that would imply they were using a cycle for transit.

My best friend walks to work, but he does so because of a lack of a working car and he has a professed preference for the cold, so the only weather that really bothers him is the heat in June to September. He also owns the business he works at, so he can move his schedule around to avoid bad weather. Most of our social group think he's a little crazy for walking eleven miles round-trip each day.

[intelati49]

Here's the thing. It fine and well if it's a good well constructed road. But I-70/35 isn't. If my memory is correct, the road is close to falling apart in some places. Something has to give, and three lanes of traffic isn't going to cut it. (99k 670, 70k I70NB, 58k 35sb, 80k 70WB)

Most of the arguments are as if there isn't access to the CBD. Thankfully, the newer section (670) actually has okay surface level access north and south. Up north and west (35/70) (Again if I remember correctly) are lacking *good* access. (Aka some, but not great) so if you do reconstruct the road there's going to be some give there.

Hopefully, there's a middle ground and in twenty years from the next reconstruction we can ignore capacity (Assuming self  driving cars take over) issues everyone can fight over nothing.

[Duke87]

With regards to bicycling, one also must not overlook the social inertia aspect. We have a very strong car culture. We don't really have a bike culture.

Growing up, every time we needed to go anywhere, it involved everyone getting in the car. I had a bike as a child, sure, but I only ever rode it around our quiet little neighborhood where there were very few cars or occasionally in the park. It was a toy, not a means of transportation.

To this day, at 29 years old, I have never ridden a bicycle on a city street. I have no concept of what it's like beyond encountering other people doing it. Indeed, I don't own a bicycle and I'm a few months away from it being a decade since the last time I rode one anywhere.

But I own a car, and use it frequently without thinking much of it. Sometimes for trips I could accomplish by bicycle - if I had one and were comfortable using it. Except I don't and I'm not. The idea of biking on city streets seems rather intimidating and I've yet to find an impetus to confront this. Or to spend several hundred bucks on a bike, which I would need to do before I could. Or figure out where to store said bike when not in use, since the place where I live has plenty of car parking but no officially sanctioned bike parking.


Now let's imagine that when growing up I had actually used my bike to go places as opposed to as just a toy. Let's imagine that it seemed perfectly normal and natural to me to hop on my bike to go to the store, because it's something that I'd been doing since childhood and something that seemingly everyone does. Let's imagine that every apartment building had a nice well-maintained bike room; that just about every store, restaurant, business of any sort had a bike rack out front. And at the same time let's imagine that officially sanctioned parking for cars basically didn't exist, that owning one while living in an apartment came with the pain in the ass of figuring out where you could put it without the owner of the nearest building having it towed away because they think it's unsightly, and that once you had that figured out using it to go anywhere provided similar challenges at most destinations since good luck finding a store with car parking spaces out front.

Mode choice is usually not made with all options being given fair consideration. People default to what's normal for them, and the degree to which a particular mode is accommodated follows, in aggregate, what society thinks is normal. If we treated bikes like we treat cars, or vice versa, people's decisions would be very different.

I know, objectively, that there is a lot of unrealized potential out there for bicycles. When you factor traffic/time spent looking for parking into car use, bikes are often statistically the fastest means of accomplishing a particular trip within a city. But we're socially conditioned to not consider them, resulting in us making the inefficient choice (in terms of both time and money) to drive for the sake of sticking with what we're used to.

[silverback1065]

With regards to bicycling, one also must not overlook the social inertia aspect. We have a very strong car culture. We don't really have a bike culture.

Growing up, every time we needed to go anywhere, it involved everyone getting in the car. I had a bike as a child, sure, but I only ever rode it around our quiet little neighborhood where there were very few cars or occasionally in the park. It was a toy, not a means of transportation.

To this day, at 29 years old, I have never ridden a bicycle on a city street. I have no concept of what it's like beyond encountering other people doing it. Indeed, I don't own a bicycle and I'm a few months away from it being a decade since the last time I rode one anywhere.

But I own a car, and use it frequently without thinking much of it. Sometimes for trips I could accomplish by bicycle - if I had one and were comfortable using it. Except I don't and I'm not. The idea of biking on city streets seems rather intimidating and I've yet to find an impetus to confront this. Or to spend several hundred bucks on a bike, which I would need to do before I could. Or figure out where to store said bike when not in use, since the place where I live has plenty of car parking but no officially sanctioned bike parking.


Now let's imagine that when growing up I had actually used my bike to go places as opposed to as just a toy. Let's imagine that it seemed perfectly normal and natural to me to hop on my bike to go to the store, because it's something that I'd been doing since childhood and something that seemingly everyone does. Let's imagine that every apartment building had a nice well-maintained bike room; that just about every store, restaurant, business of any sort had a bike rack out front. And at the same time let's imagine that officially sanctioned parking for cars basically didn't exist, that owning one while living in an apartment came with the pain in the ass of figuring out where you could put it without the owner of the nearest building having it towed away because they think it's unsightly, and that once you had that figured out using it to go anywhere provided similar challenges at most destinations since good luck finding a store with car parking spaces out front.

Mode choice is usually not made with all options being given fair consideration. People default to what's normal for them, and the degree to which a particular mode is accommodated follows, in aggregate, what society thinks is normal. If we treated bikes like we treat cars, or vice versa, people's decisions would be very different.

I know, objectively, that there is a lot of unrealized potential out there for bicycles. When you factor traffic/time spent looking for parking into car use, bikes are often statistically the fastest means of accomplishing a particular trip within a city. But we're socially conditioned to not consider them, resulting in us making the inefficient choice (in terms of both time and money) to drive for the sake of sticking with what we're used to.

This, I feel, is most people's attitude toward biking, recreation.  I love to ride my bike, but not for transportation.  Also, riding in a street is very intimidating, because the roadway isn't designed for mixed traffic in many areas. 

[silverback1065]

just how bad of shape is the loop in?

[mvak36]

just how bad of shape is the loop in?

I'm not a civil engineer, but I don't think it's that bad. The road seems ok but idk about the overpasses/etc., The problem with the loop (on that section) is the short merging distance on the on/off ramps. The only way I could see this removal happening is if they can somehow widen that south loop. Otherwise they're creating a big bottleneck where they're funneling all the 35 and 70 traffic through one stretch.

[silverback1065]

just how bad of shape is the loop in?

I'm not a civil engineer, but I don't think it's that bad. The road seems ok but idk about the overpasses/etc., The problem with the loop (on that section) is the short merging distance on the on/off ramps. The only way I could see this removal happening is if they can somehow widen that south loop. Otherwise they're creating a big bottleneck where they're funneling all the 35 and 70 traffic through one stretch.

i bet the bridges are what is really the problem.  also, why put an exit at main/delaware?  looks like it would cause major weaving issues.  is the west leg going to be removed?