that press release has little to do with traffic opening east bound on the new I 40 sooner or later ..

They put a couple of signs up on the new standards. The north side sign says 'Amarillo', with a couple of lane arrows pointing down. That's a definite for both directions sharing the east bound lane.

How many lanes is the new eastbound stretch from I-44 to Penn? 3 in each direction with no shoulder?

I thought it was 3 lanes each way with a hov lane making it a total of 4 each way.

How many lanes is the new eastbound stretch from I-44 to Penn? 3 in each direction with no shoulder?

It will be 5 each direction when complete. But for the construction of the west bound bridge over Agnew, they are going to have the west bound traffic share the east bound lane for about a mile or so, so 3 lanes in each direction I guess.

forwardI40 is a good site that shows all of the lanes, etc.

I guess I mean for the temporary alignment while they build the westbound bridge.

I'm guessing for the temporary lanes, but if it's 5 lanes normally, it'd be hard enough to put a divider down the middle and 3 lanes on each side.

I just know that by the signage they added this week, you can tell that the new east bound lanes will share both directions of traffic for a while.

Judging from the.looks of the pipe signage, I'm gonna guess 3 East lames and 2 west lanes.

I saw the 2 west bound lane arrows to Amarillo also. I wonder if they are going to divert the I-44 north bound exit further east of the merge connection to the old I-40 ???

There are detailed traffic control plans for the western project that goes up for bid this month. Every single sign, barrel, concrete barrier, and painted line is listed. May bridge will have 3 westbound and 4 eastbound(the lane coming from I-44 ends at this point). Agnew will have 3 westbound and 3 eastbound.

http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht103.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht104.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht105.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht106.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht107.pdf

That says it all........thanks jn1780

There are detailed traffic control plans for the western project that goes up for bid this month. Every single sign, barrel, concrete barrier, and painted line is listed. May bridge will have 3 westbound and 4 eastbound(the lane coming from I-44 ends at this point). Agnew will have 3 westbound and 3 eastbound.

http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht103.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht104.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht105.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht106.pdf
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/contracts/a2011/plans1111/280_1711_OKCY-XTWN(046)_1742858/a%20sht107.pdf

That's just for the temporary alignment, yea or nay?

That's just for the temporary alignment, yea or nay?

Correct

A very interesting interview by Steve. He is speaking with Keith Angier who is vice president of MacArthur Associated Consultants. That company is the project manager for the I40 relocation project. It sounds like a 4 lane boulevard is a real possibility now instead of 6 lanes.

http://newsok.com/okc-central-downtown-boulevard-design-under-way/multimedia/video/1277728545001

A very interesting interview by Steve. He is speaking with Keith Angier who is vice president of MacArthur Associated Consultants. That company is the project manager for the I40 relocation project. It sounds like a 4 lane boulevard is a real possibility now instead of 6 lanes.

http://newsok.com/okc-central-downtown-boulevard-design-under-way/multimedia/video/1277728545001

Hopefully they drop it down to four lanes in the controlled access portion too, not only does a 3 to 1 merge almost ask for traffic to consistently back ups heading west but with six lanes several sections vehicles will have no place to pull over to if breaking down. Having it be four lanes not only should leave enough room to so at any point but some areas could have space on both sides.

I would love to see a four lane divided boulevard (extensively landscaped) on the western end of the stretch.

Sounds like this new boulevard will be open sometime in 2014......we could only hope.

snowman - you're assuming the blvd will even have anyone on it. It's just another surface road really. It can't follow the crosstown's old path exactlly without a lot of work being done at the surface level to remove structures, roads, intersections, etc that currently exist. You don't need a lot of the things that currently tie up traffice (like the under the bridge lights controlling 6 directions of traffic). And what's to visit on that blvd anyway? It's mostly crap for the next what, 30 years? If you're going downtown, you'll still take I-40 and take a downtown exit otherwise you're going to sit through miles of lights on the blvd. So i don't really think traffic is going to be an issue.

snowman - you're assuming the blvd will even have anyone on it. It's just another surface road really. It can't follow the crosstown's old path exactlly without a lot of work being done at the surface level to remove structures, roads, intersections, etc that currently exist. You don't need a lot of the things that currently tie up traffice (like the under the bridge lights controlling 6 directions of traffic). And what's to visit on that blvd anyway? It's mostly crap for the next what, 30 years? If you're going downtown, you'll still take I-40 and take a downtown exit otherwise you're going to sit through miles of lights on the blvd. So i don't really think traffic is going to be an issue.

While the plans may change for the middle, it is unlikely they will change any of the concrete west of Western. The previous version had only had five major crossings with lights: Walker, Hudson, Robinson, Shields/Gaylord and Oklahoma. Given the layout of the exits, unless their are a lot more lights added their are several ways eastbound and westbound that make more sense trough the boulevard than the new exits.

Doesnt the alternate streetcar route go South onto where the new Blvd. will be,or am I wrong?It seems like the new Blvd. would be a perfect place to put a stretch of the streetcar to spur on development for the new Blvd!

Isnt the Blue line stretch where the now I-40 is the alternate route for the core streetcar route?It seems like this would be a better option than the Reno option and it would spur on development for the new Blvd!http://www.okctalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=770&d=1297291351

Doesnt the alternate streetcar route go South onto where the new Blvd. will be,or am I wrong?It seems like the new Blvd. would be a perfect place to put a stretch of the streetcar to spur on development for the new Blvd!

I believe so, their were a few advantages to it, it has been a while since I heard them so the thread on the street car is a better source for the details than my memory. Of course like the boulevard things may change from the current plans.

A very interesting interview by Steve. He is speaking with Keith Angier who is vice president of MacArthur Associated Consultants. That company is the project manager for the I40 relocation project. It sounds like a 4 lane boulevard is a real possibility now instead of 6 lanes.

http://newsok.com/okc-central-downtown-boulevard-design-under-way/multimedia/video/1277728545001

Great interview, Steve. Please try to do as many of these on-video interviews as you possibly can. I--and I'm sure others--got a lot more out that interview than I got out of many articles in the paper (of course, that's clearly due to the limitation of space with articles).

Thanks King. We're experimenting a bit here...

Isnt the Blue line stretch where the now I-40 is the alternate route for the core streetcar route?It seems like this would be a better option than the Reno option and it would spur on development for the new Blvd!http://www.okctalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=770&d=1297291351

it all depends on cost .. the "blue line" as it is called here will no doubt go into bricktown and cost will be a major factor the sheridon and reno bridges may be expensive to get under the new boulevard will have a new bridge but it also takes quite a bid more track to go to the BLVD so we will see

it all depends on cost .. the "blue line" as it is called here will no doubt go into bricktown and cost will be a major factor the sheridon and reno bridges may be expensive to get under the new boulevard will have a new bridge but it also takes quite a bid more track to go to the BLVD so we will see


It looks like both the blue and red lines are on the boulevard, the blue line is going westbound and the red line is going eastbound. It might be worth going back and looking at the hub proposal as I think it had a different arrangement in bricktown than this, but that may be a future line.

snowman that is just a future possibilities master plan .. (not official) ...

currently the working street car route (i say working only because we don't know of utility issues, bridge issues ect) is most of that blue line

up robinson from reno to 11th, left on 11th to dewey, north on dewey to 13th, right on 13th to broadway, right on broadway to sheridan, left on sheridan to EKG.

the brick town end of the Phase 1A line is TBD based on bridge cost ect

I needed to kill a couple of hours this morning when my power went out, so went down and took some photos of the construction with an ipod. It looks like the only area without both sides of the highway paved is between Walker and Robinson, a quarter mile stretch. But I'm still holding out hope for a Jan-Feb limited opening.

https://profiles.google.com/105517437038255001658/photos/5676792972547977137

Thanks so much for the pics!!!

I needed to kill a couple of hours this morning when my power went out, so went down and took some photos of the construction with an ipod. It looks like the only area without both sides of the highway paved is between Walker and Robinson, a quarter mile stretch. But I'm still holding out hope for a Jan-Feb limited opening.

https://profiles.google.com/105517437038255001658/photos/5676792972547977137

Thanks for the pics! Unless we get a lot of snow or rain in December it should easily be ready for a January opening. Eastbound looks pretty close to completion to me and that quarter mile stretch of westbound should take no time at all. There is about 1-2 weeks of work that needs to be done after eastbound is switched over just to set up a temporary configuration for the westbound crossover.

Here are some pics from today. From the Western Ave Bridge it is pretty cool looking, almost like a scene out of an apocalyptic movie or something.


From Penn Ave Bridge Looking West:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i401.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i402.jpg



From Penn Ave Bridge Looking East:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i403.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i404.jpg



From Western Ave Bridge Looking West:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i405.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i406.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i407.jpg



From Western Ave Bridge Looking East:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i408.jpg



From Walker Ave Bridge Looking West:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i409.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i4010.jpg




From Walker Ave Bridge Looking East:

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i4011.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i4012.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i4013.jpg

Nice pics. You should have seen how quickly the construction scene revved to life Saturday as soon as I pulled out my camera. Maybe they thought I was recording video because they were really zooming. I got the feeling if someone was taking pics more often and there was more accountability this project would have been done many years ago.

ODOT updated the photos on the crosstown project site with new photos for the first time in like seven months, about 70 new ones and it a set of them show most of it shot from the air. Though dated 11/17, they are probably more like 10/01 since it still shows the Lincoln bridge (which has been open for a week or two) as neither finish or connected to surface road.

http://www.40forward.com/gallery/default.asp

Is that the sky dance bridge in the last pic? Looks like some sort of steel truss or something

Yes King

When did the I-40 relocation begin?It seems like it has been MANY years and I cant believe it's about to be completed.Now we have the flyover construction to deal with on I-44/I-235,Ohhhh joy!

Is that the sky dance bridge in the last pic? Looks like some sort of steel truss or something

Yep, it would appear so. Hopefully they go thru with that cool looking design as planned, but right now it looks like a normal pedestrian bridge.

Yep, it would appear so. Hopefully they go thru with that cool looking design as planned, but right now it looks like a normal pedestrian bridge.

Its basically a truss structure with a sculpture built on top. So it won't look like the renderings until after they build the sculpture.

When did the I-40 relocation begin?It seems like it has been MANY years and I cant believe it's about to be completed.Now we have the flyover construction to deal with on I-44/I-235,Ohhhh joy!

not until 2017

Here are some pics from today. From the Western Ave Bridge it is pretty cool looking, almost like a scene out of an apocalyptic movie or something.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/hansnet/I40%20Crosstown%20OKC%20%20112011/i404.jpg



There are already billboards going up along the road.

There are already billboards going up along the road.

I thought Billboards are not allowed along the relocated / new I-40?

I thought Billboards are not allowed along the relocated / new I-40?

the billboards were built before the ban was put in place ..

Wow, the new freeway looks awesome.

Now if only ODOT would build a Texas-style five-level stack at I-40 and I-44...

When the switch is made, it's going to be very surreal to see the new perspectives... Like a whole other city.

I like the way the western part of the roadway is very close to the river so you'll be able to see the activity on it and the two paths.

Now if only ODOT would build a Texas-style five-level stack at I-40 and I-44...

Those are nearly worthless in ice / snow.

I have read where they have installed a geothermal heat pump heating system on a hand full of northern bridges. I know this is expensive but is this anything we would ever consider doing?

Those picks looks absolutly beautiful, I cant wait til it opens, when exactly is it going to be complete? and can somebody tell me why the construction over the Morgan Rd bridge feels like its been going on for 5 years?

Those picks looks absolutly beautiful, I cant wait til it opens, when exactly is it going to be complete? and can somebody tell me why the construction over the Morgan Rd bridge feels like its been going on for 5 years?

Morgan Rd supposed to be done in June I think.

the billboards were built before the ban was put in place ..

Don't be too sure about that....

Those are nearly worthless in ice / snow.

I have read where they have installed a geothermal heat pump heating system on a hand full of northern bridges. I know this is expensive but is this anything we would ever consider doing?

The heat pump or the system; it looks like they set up the kilpatrick & lakeshore parkway may be that eventually use the texas style layers, but I doubt any of the interchanges in the city have the space to be converted.


Now if only ODOT would build a Texas-style five-level stack at I-40 and I-44...

It would be ridiculously expensive to alter the layout for something that only is a minor slowdown for a mile in any direction of it, plus it is not even the biggest problem on i44 withing 4 miles in either direction. It is not happening till i40 west and i44 south are at least 4 lanes each.

Don't be too sure about that....

then why are they UP and not being removed??

Don't be too sure about that....
Exactly my thoughts.


then why are they UP and not being removed??
It seems that people are starting to think that the Okc building codes and ordinances meaning nothing.

It seems that people are starting to think that the Okc building codes and ordinances meaning nothing.
Yeah good point, that ban has been in effect for 7 years.

Don't be too sure about that....

Steve, that billboard has been there forever and a day. I know cause I used to drive through the area before there was one inch of bulldozer work done over there. That's why, at the time, I too thought it an odd place for a billboard!

Steve, that billboard has been there forever and a day. I know cause I used to drive through the area before there was one inch of bulldozer work done over there. That's why, at the time, I too thought it an odd place for a billboard!

Maybe they built it way back in the 90's when the interstate was suppose to be built. They were really optimistic. lol

From KFOR's Facebook page:

"New crosstown eastbound lanes to open for traffic Dec. 20. Just FYI..."

From KFOR's Facebook page:

"New crosstown eastbound lanes to open for traffic Dec. 20. Just FYI..."

Over in the I-40 pedestrian bridge thread, someone said yesterday that the council had set a deadline for Dec 20 for the bridge and sculpture to be complete. The council meeting was today.

I know for a fact that at least 2 new billboards were installed near the western bridge in the last 3 years.

Maybe they were built in the hopes that it takes the city as long to have them removed as it took to build this thing (+/- 15 years) lol

Here are pics of the Skydance bridge sections under construction,the poster was not wanting to post the pics in our forum so I am just going to post this whole page from SSC!http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=223555&page=29

dmoor82: your link in both threads takes me to the middle of a thread where the Devon Tower was being announced & MAPS3 was supposed to include a MLS stadium???