I-35 in Southern Oklahoma

[swake]

From the September 2022 ODOT Commission members packet:

Multiple Counties — Districts III and VIl (CI-2379)

The Department has selected EST. Inc. to provide preliminary engineering for I-35: from Ladd Road to Mile Marker 7. Services to include preliminary engineering studies.

CI-2379 EST, Inc.
Total Not to Exceed Amount $2,000,000.00

I would hope this is the beginning of planning to 6-lane I-35 completely from OKC to the Red River.

Holy shit, that's a distance of 94 miles. Just what sort of engineering are they expecting to get for $21,000 a mile?

An engineering plan with a very healthy management fee.

[I-35]

From the September 2022 ODOT Commission members packet:

Multiple Counties — Districts III and VIl (CI-2379)

The Department has selected EST. Inc. to provide preliminary engineering for I-35: from Ladd Road to Mile Marker 7. Services to include preliminary engineering studies.

CI-2379 EST, Inc.
Total Not to Exceed Amount $2,000,000.00

I would hope this is the beginning of planning to 6-lane I-35 completely from OKC to the Red River.

Holy shit, that's a distance of 94 miles. Just what sort of engineering are they expecting to get for $21,000 a mile?

There is a 1 to 3-mile portion through the Arbuckles that is already 3x3 (technically the third lane is a truck lane), I don't know that this area would go to 4x4.  So, maybe $21,700 per mile?   

[bwana39]

You realize that much of not all of this increased demand north of Ardmore would go away if they finished US-75 as freeway to I-44 (Tulsa)? or US-69 to I-44 (Big Cabin)

My take is from a regional transportation and political perspective, Tulsa fits better. From a national traffic flow perspective it would be Big Cabin.

[Scott5114]

You realize that much of not all of this increased demand north of Ardmore would go away if they finished US-75 as freeway to I-44 (Tulsa)? or US-69 to I-44 (Big Cabin)

My take is from a regional transportation and political perspective, Tulsa fits better. From a national traffic flow perspective it would be Big Cabin.

You do realize that a fair bit of OKC-DFW traffic is originating in Oklahoma City, right?

Housing is difficult enough to find in Thackerville and Ardmore that there are a non-zero number of Winstar employees who live in Oklahoma City and commute. The pay is actually worth it if you're a blackjack dealer.

[bwana39]

You do realize that a fair bit of OKC-DFW traffic is originating in Oklahoma City, right?

Housing is difficult enough to find in Thackerville and Ardmore that there are a non-zero number of Winstar employees who live in Oklahoma City and commute. The pay is actually worth it if you're a blackjack dealer.

Yes, and if you reduce the traffic that originates in Chicago going to DFW or from Houston to Tulsa on I-35 it frees up capacity for that regional traffic you mention.

Of course you discount how many people who work at WinStar or the various Choctaw properties that live in Gainesville, Sherman, or even DFW. As far as that goes, I feel that probably as many live in / around Ardmore who commute to DFW daily.

You gotta let go of the despising Texas so much.

[Plutonic Panda]

You do realize that a fair bit of OKC-DFW traffic is originating in Oklahoma City, right?

Housing is difficult enough to find in Thackerville and Ardmore that there are a non-zero number of Winstar employees who live in Oklahoma City and commute. The pay is actually worth it if you're a blackjack dealer.

Yes, and if you reduce the traffic that originates in Chicago going to DFW or from Houston to Tulsa on I-35 it frees up capacity for that regional traffic you mention.

Of course you discount how many people who work at WinStar or the various Choctaw properties that live in Gainesville, Sherman, or even DFW. As far as that goes, I feel that probably as many live in / around Ardmore who commute to DFW daily.

You gotta let go of the despising Texas so much.

How exactly did you get that he despises Texas from that post?

[bwana39]

How exactly did you get that he despises Texas from that post?

Didn't get it from THAT quote. I got it from YEARS of experience...

[Scott5114]

Of course you discount how many people who work at WinStar or the various Choctaw properties that live in Gainesville, Sherman, or even DFW.

I'm paying full price on those. It's just that I worked with a lot of former WinStar employees who tried in vain to find housing in Gainesville and Sherman (as well as Ardmore/Marietta/Durant/Thackerville etc.). For some reason the housing market was really thin in that whole region in the 2010s. Many of them got sick of the commute from OKC and accepted a pay cut to transfer to an OKC-area property (which is how I met them). Most of them didn't consider living in the DFW area viable because the Chickasaws are really strict on attendance/tardiness and they didn't think it was feasible to comply with that while dealing with Dallas traffic. There were a few that I heard would just go ahead and do it anyway, get fired, cool their heels until WinStar got desperate enough to rehire them, and repeat the cycle...

As you can imagine this really hurt WinStar's employee retention rates and they eventually built employee housing on the property itself. I wasn't around to hear whether that actually solved the issue or not. I wouldn't want to live somewhere owned by my employer (you mean I can get fired for a stupid reason and get evicted too?), but I guess for the money that WinStar dealers made it could be worth it to some people. I would think if housing was that hard to find in that area someone would have bought out a farm somewhere near Thackerville and done a big housing development but as far as I know that never happened.

I also knew a woman who lived in Washington OK and was a nurse in Ardmore and did that commute every day. That's more of an oddball commute pattern (and I have no idea how she came out ahead on that) but people do that kind of thing.

And of course if there is any product or service that cannot be had in Oklahoma City the first choice for many people is to drive to Dallas for it. Plenty of people go down to Dallas for events like concerts, or to shop at stores like Ikea which OKC doesn't have. And there are many destinations which don't have direct flights from the OKC airport, so in some cases it's more economical or convenient to drive to DFW and just take a direct flight from there rather than mess around with transfers or layovers.

The Heartland Flyer was never all that popular, but now that it's shutting down, whoever was using that will now also be on I-35.

All that to say that there is enough OKC-DFW traffic that any improvement to US 75 done with an eye to removing long-haul traffic from I-35 would probably not be enough to relieve the need for I-35 expansion.

[bwana39]

All that to say that there is enough OKC-DFW traffic that any improvement to US 75 done with an eye to removing long-haul traffic from I-35 would probably not be enough to relieve the need for I-35 expansion.

You are probably right. I-35 from DFW to San Antonio is being widened just in time to be gridlocked again.  And then again, US-75 is not that much less busy as it is.

[Road Hog]

US 75 through Grayson County is a shitshow right now. They started widening it through Sherman about the time that covid hit and they're still working on long stretches of it.

And now they are starting to widen it to 3x3 from the Collin County line to the south end of Sherman where the new 3x3 starts. That includes the last remaining old 1960s routing that still remains, between Shepherd Lane and FM 1417.

From the county line to Shepherd should be easy because the outside lane was pre-earthworked when the road was rebuilt in the Aughts.

[Great Lakes Roads]

From the July 9th ODOT letting: I-35 rebuild and widening to six lanes from exit 104 to MM 100.5

[Scott5114]

I get that they're just doing it to keep the project small enough they can actually pay for it, but that's such a weird place to cut the widening off at. Exit 101 was my exit growing up. Ain't a lot of people getting on or off there, even these days.

[I-35]

I get that they're just doing it to keep the project small enough they can actually pay for it, but that's such a weird place to cut the widening off at. Exit 101 was my exit growing up. Ain't a lot of people getting on or off there, even these days.

Missed chance to describe yourself as a young ladd 

[rte66man]

I don't know for a fact, but it looks to me like ODOT is timing out the widening from Goldsby to Purcell to sync up with the connection to the South turnpike at Johnson Road. That way by 2031 35 will be 6 lanes to the north Purcell exit