Kilpatrick Turnpike to be widened

[OKCisOK4me]

At the time that Lake Hefner Parkway and the Kilpatrick interchange was built the turnpike ended just west of the parkway. There was no money in the budget nor the expressed need at the time by the OTA to put a full interchange in there because the extension west of the parkway was one of those "way in the future" things that happened much quicker than expected when the parkway to I-35 leg of the Kilpatrick was designed and built.

My father was the design firm project manager for the parkway and interchange projects. OTA dictates what the project parameters are, many times it isn't the engineers (either design or OTA) that make those decisions, most of the time it is the bureaucrats, finance people and politicians. Pretty much engineers can only make recommendations and reports for future, major projects like that.

My stepdad was project forman for Sewell Brothers which did various portions of the turnpike between I-35 and Hefner Parkway. It was so cool, as a kid, to get to be on a bulldozer with him on a Saturday, clearing land. Good times!

[Bill Robertson]

From May to the west they've been painting the center divider and running street sweepers. From May to the east there is still a lot of work to be done. I wonder if they might open from May to the west or will they let is sit, finished, and open it all together?

[Bellaboo]

Came through here last night from 74 and going West, they were removing the concrete barriers. Looks like the West end is about ready to open.

[Bill Robertson]

Came through here last night from 74 and going West, they were removing the concrete barriers. Looks like the West end is about ready to open.

Yep. Taking down the concrete barriers, replacing them with orange cones and doing striping. Looks very close.

[bucktalk]

I just hope the lights work!! Seems like A LOT of highway lights don't work I worry how long these will burn before they no longer work. Am I wrong?

[Plutonic Panda]

"Motorists soon should see the end of a widening project on the John Kilpatrick Turnpike between MacArthur Boulevard and May Avenue in Oklahoma City, while motorists on the Creek Turnpike in Tulsa will have to wait until October for an end to driving through a work zone." -Read more: Segment of Kilpatrick to open soon | News OK

[Plutonic Panda]

"The ramp from eastbound John Kilpatrick Turnpike to southbound Broadway Extension will be closed for a few hours Tuesday night.

The ramp will be closed beginning at 9 p.m. Tuesday. The closure should last until just after midnight.

Crews will be re-striping the section of roadway in anticipation of changing traffic patterns at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway bridge."

Kilpatrick Turnpike ramp to close Tuesday night | News OK

[bchris02]

I just hope the lights work!! Seems like A LOT of highway lights don't work I worry how long these will burn before they no longer work. Am I wrong?

Dead street lights are more often due to copper theft, or at least that's how it was in Charlotte. I don't really get people complaining about highway lights being dead in OKC. Yes there are some problem areas but its much worse in other cities.

[warreng88]

John Kilpatrick Turnpike motorists can get back up to speed in Oklahoma City

By Michael McNutt Modified: August 20, 2013 at 9:09 pm • Published: August 21, 2013

Oklahoma City motorists can get back up to speed on the John Kilpatrick Turnpike — at least during daytime hours.

All six lanes of the turnpike are open to traffic, slightly more than a year after the widening project started to add one lane in each direction.

Nighttime lane closures will continue in two areas through September as crews complete construction. During nighttime work, speed limits will be reduced from 70 mph to 55 mph, Oklahoma Turnpike Authority spokesman Jack Damrill said Tuesday.

During daytime hours, speed limits will be 70 mph, although there may be times through September that the speed might be lowered to accommodate finishing touches of the project, he said.

“People may still see some sporadic daytime closures, but very sporadic,” Damrill said.

Crews continue to work on portions of the turnpike between Pennsylvania and May avenues, adding an auxiliary lane in each direction, Damrill said. Crews also have begun work on an auxiliary lane from the Broadway Extension to the Santa Fe mainline toll plaza.

The auxiliary lanes are intended to help motorists enter and exit those two areas, Damrill said.

All work should be completed by the end of September.

Lanes added

The expansion of the Kilpatrick Turnpike was part of a nearly $58 million project to add lanes in each direction from MacArthur Boulevard to Eastern Avenue. Other improvements included added lighting of the expanded corridor, various ramp improvements and new signs.

Work started on the project in May 2012.

Construction on the seven-mile-long project was to have been finished in May, but the project was extended because of changes to deal with heavy traffic areas and to replace poor sections of the roadway, Damrill said. A wetter-than-normal summer this year also accounted for some of the delay.

Traffic has dropped off by about 5 percent on the busiest sections of the Kilpatrick construction project since work started, Damrill said. The decline is attributed to the extra time it took to get through the work zone. Traffic end-to-end on the turnpike, from Interstate 35 to Interstate 40, is down about 1.4 percent during the same time period.

“We think, though, that once the speed got back up and the lanes opened that those who bypassed the turnpike will come back,” he said. “We want them to come back. They're going to see a much improved and hopefully easier and safer, faster drive than what we had before.”

John Kilpatrick Turnpike motorists can get back up to speed in Oklahoma City | News OK

[Plutonic Panda]

Excellent. Now they just need to finish the interchanges of 235 and Hefner Parkway making flyovers in all directions and this will truly be a great highway. I also wonder if there is ever a plan in the long term to take the service road(memorial) and continue it down to I-35.

[OKCisOK4me]

Excellent. Now they just need to finish the interchanges of 235 and Hefner Parkway making flyovers in all directions and this will truly be a great highway. I also wonder if there is ever a plan in the long term to take the service road(memorial) and continue it down to I-35.

As much as we want it, probably not going to see ODOT and OTA cooperate to build stack interchanges for the foreseeable feature. Furthermore, no reason to have service roads on either side of the turnpike when you have NE 122nd a half mile to the south and Memorial a half mile to the north.

[Plutonic Panda]

As much as we want it, probably not going to see ODOT and OTA cooperate to build stack interchanges for the foreseeable feature. Furthermore, no reason to have service roads on either side of the turnpike when you have NE 122nd a half mile to the south and Memorial a half mile to the north.

For the life of me, I just didn't even factor those two roads in and now I think about it, you're completely right. It would make no sense at all to have service.

That sucks about the stack interchanges. Why is that? Do they not like each other or something?

[OKCisOK4me]

For the life of me, I just didn't even factor those two roads in and now I think about it, you're completely right. It would make no sense at all to have service.

That sucks about the stack interchanges. Why is that? Do they not like each other or something?

Oh, I don't know, that's just my honest opinion. If it did happen at either location, I'd bet on it happening at 74/Kilpatrick before 235/Kilpatrick, only because there's a lot more opportunity for growth in the NW quadrant of OKC (despite how much many of us here want the focus to be solely on downtown/urban for residential development) than there is in that immediate area of south Edmond/north OKC and the latter handles traffic flow quite well. When the former starts getting back logged with traffic that's literally popping the buttons off the shirt then they will only react as opposed to prepare for the onslaught.

[Richard at Remax]

Problem is 122nd dead ends between Kelley and Eastern

[brianinok]

Oh, I don't know, that's just my honest opinion. If it did happen at either location, I'd bet on it happening at 74/Kilpatrick before 235/Kilpatrick, only because there's a lot more opportunity for growth in the NW quadrant of OKC (despite how much many of us here want the focus to be solely on downtown/urban for residential development) than there is in that immediate area of south Edmond/north OKC and the latter handles traffic flow quite well. When the former starts getting back logged with traffic that's literally popping the buttons off the shirt then they will only react as opposed to prepare for the onslaught.

Problem is, you cannot go from southbound Broadway to eastbound Kilpatrick. At Hefner Pkwy and Kilpatrick you can go any direction without any backtracking or going through too many long Edmond lights.

If you want to go to eastbound Kilpatrick and you live off of, say, Santa Fe, you either have to backtrack to Western, or go through past Santa Fe, Kelly, and Broadway all the way over to Boulevard/Eastern. Especially if you are a couple miles north of the Kilpatrick, by that time you might as well have just gone over to I-35 and saved the toll cost. Additionally, it would help alleviate traffic trouble in morning rush hour on southbound Broadway and I-44 by making it easier to get to I-35 to get downtown.

[MadMonk]

Their next priority really needs to be ramps from EB Kilpatrick to SB74 and NB74 to WB Kilpatrick. They "got it done" for the initial build, they can do the same for this common sense enhancement.

[OKCisOK4me]

Problem is 122nd dead ends between Kelley and Eastern

Pretty sure we've hashed that on here. It's only for one half mile. If there were more development in that part of the metro, I'm sure that street would be on OKCs long list of streets to be improved.

Problem is, you cannot go from southbound Broadway to eastbound Kilpatrick. At Hefner Pkwy and Kilpatrick you can go any direction without any backtracking or going through too many long Edmond lights.

If you want to go to eastbound Kilpatrick and you live off of, say, Santa Fe, you either have to backtrack to Western, or go through past Santa Fe, Kelly, and Broadway all the way over to Boulevard/Eastern. Especially if you are a couple miles north of the Kilpatrick, by that time you might as well have just gone over to I-35 and saved the toll cost. Additionally, it would help alleviate traffic trouble in morning rush hour on southbound Broadway and I-44 by making it easier to get to I-35 to get downtown.

Grew up in Edmond, so I understand your view.

Question... Why would you want to go a half mile to the SSW to loop around to go slightly back to the ENE before straightening out on an eastward trek to I-35 which only has one exit at Eastern between Broadway and the interstate? Seems a whole lot easier to me to go one mile east down Memorial and one mile south down Eastern to get to anywhere over in that area...which is primarily residential.

Second question... I-35 is soooooooooooo far out of the way of getting to downtown that I'm wondering why there is any reason to alleviate traffic? How many times have we heard and or discussed on here that traffic in OKC, even during peak rush hours, is nothing compared to major cities? Why would you or anyone else, from Santa Fe Avenue travel 8 miles out of their way to alleviate your definition of high volumes of traffic? Seems a bit ludicrous to spend extra money and time to not take the most direct route toward downtown.

Anyway, ODOT and OTA are concerned with high traffic volume numbers. ODOT did not rebuild the Crosstown until it was crumbling due to over handling its designed capacity by at least 5 times so I really wouldn't expect any changes at either of these locations until the numbers prove otherwise, which is probably still at least 15+ years away--just my humble opinion, of course.

[BobbyV]

As much as we want it, probably not going to see ODOT and OTA cooperate to build stack interchanges for the foreseeable feature. Furthermore, no reason to have service roads on either side of the turnpike when you have NE 122nd a half mile to the south and Memorial a half mile to the north.

Really? You want to force folks who chose not to pay the toll to have to go that far out of their way?

Not cool.

[OKCisOK4me]

Really? You want to force folks who chose not to pay the toll to have to go that far out of their way?

Not cool.

Where on earth are you seeing anything about that in my post. Either reinterpret what I wrote or please enlighten me.

[BobbyV]

Where on earth are you seeing anything about that in my post. Either reinterpret what I wrote or please enlighten me.

The part where you said you didn't see any reason to have the service roads on either side of the turnpike . . . you're referring to Memorial are you not?

To me that means you don't believe those roads should be there. Which, if they weren't there would mean folks would need to go further out of their way to head east or west if they couldn't use Memorial.

If that's not what you meant then . . . I'll blame my interpretation on the Nyqil I've been taking.

[OKCisOK4me]

The part where you said you didn't see any reason to have the service roads on either side of the turnpike . . . you're referring to Memorial are you not?

To me that means you don't believe those roads should be there. Which, if they weren't there would mean folks would need to go further out of their way to head east or west if they couldn't use Memorial.

If that's not what you meant then . . . I'll blame my interpretation on the Nyqil I've been taking.

No, PluPan was asking why there weren't service roads on either side of the Kilpatrick east of Broadway Extension and I stated that there was no reason to have service roads there considering you have Memorial a half mile to the north and 122nd (albeit a half mile non existent) a half mile to the south.

It's all good.

[bluedogok]

The adjacent neighborhoods did not want a commercial corridor (service roads) between Broadway and I-35, they were in there years before the turnpike was built.

[OKCisOK4me]

I only bring this up from the dead to ask what I consider a legit question. Have they "recycled" the safety cables they pulled from this widened section? I remember somewhere the OTA saying they could reuse them since they weren't very old. I ask because there is a 5 1/2 mile long section of the Kilpatrick between NW Expressway & MacArthur Blvd that sure could use safety cable barrier and quite frankly I'm surprised it's that naked.

[Jon27]

I only bring this up from the dead to ask what I consider a legit question. Have they "recycled" the safety cables they pulled from this widened section? I remember somewhere the OTA saying they could reuse them since they weren't very old. I ask because there is a 5 1/2 mile long section of the Kilpatrick between NW Expressway & MacArthur Blvd that sure could use safety cable barrier and quite frankly I'm surprised it's that naked.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they put them between I-40 and Memorial on Kilpatrick. They poured the concrete shoulders, and seems like the cables weren't put in until the one's up north were pulled out.

[Snowman]

I only bring this up from the dead to ask what I consider a legit question. Have they "recycled" the safety cables they pulled from this widened section? I remember somewhere the OTA saying they could reuse them since they weren't very old. I ask because there is a 5 1/2 mile long section of the Kilpatrick between NW Expressway & MacArthur Blvd that sure could use safety cable barrier and quite frankly I'm surprised it's that naked.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they put them between I-40 and Memorial on Kilpatrick. They poured the concrete shoulders, and seems like the cables weren't put in until the one's up north were pulled out.

It would not suprise me if the reason they would move it there instead of between NW Expressway & MacArthur Blvd, is they will probably be pushing for additional lanes and concrete barriers in the NW Expressway & MacArthur Blvd section in a few years