I-40 crosstown construction in limbo?

[OKCisOK4me]

I don't want to sound like a know-it-all, but things are progressing nicely on the Crosstown. I took a tour of the construction last April and there is a substantial amount of work being done beyond the eye of the average motorist. The STB ruling this summer was the last hurdle. If anything, the project is slightly ahead of schedule and the 2012 date is still plausible.

Here is a link to a website that has semi-regular updates:

40 Forward: Oklahoma's I-40 Crosstown Expressway

Another useful page is within ODOT's website:

Award Notices - Calendar Year 2009

Every month you can see the projects that are awarded to the contracters & they have very detailed information. They go by county and so obviously you want to look for OKLAHOMA.

This project is moving right along...

It seems to me that Railroad work always takes an extraordinarily long time.

I have been in contact with John Bowman, Project Development Engineer, from ODOT and he provided me with a map back on January 26th, 2009 showing me their current projects--basically the grading of everything from the east end of the project to Shields and the west end of the project to halfway between Western & Walker.

As far as the western most end of the project--and I might have stated this in my other thread about I-40 contract work--the two bridges you see on the west end of the project that go over Agnew are the Eastbound bridges (one is the main thoroughfare, the smaller one is to connect into the future boulevard. I can only imagine that they won't be able to build the Westbound main thoroughfare until they move the current Eastbound traffic elsewhere because it will jut right into where the highway currently is. In regards to the UPRR mainline. It basically hugs the new I-40 until just west of Pennsylvania where it then slightly curves up back into the mainline. The new overpass bridges that will tie into the future boulevard are just south and east of where the current I-40 goes over the UPRR line. Unfortunately they cannot disrupt rail traffic so I have a feeling that Pennsylvania will be closed until they can divert traffic to the new I-40 and bulldoze the old connection to then create that new leg of the UP line.