Not to defend the design, but there are stop lights and a 35 mph speed limit. Don't see 70 mph speeds even if so designed.

Depending on what happens at Oklahoma Ave, this could be the first stop light off of 3 interstates and the traffic light will be hidden behind a railroad overpass (with reaction time calculated for 35 mph). Also, intersections with stop lights have the highest fatality rate of any intersection design, so someone isn't stopping.

Gawd, seriously? OK screws it up once again in planning streets/sidewalks, just one of manymanymanymany such screwups.

Is there *anything* that can be done about this (or future fiascos, since y'all *know* there will be future fiascos)? Can folks meet with the engineers and tell them to their face that they're complete f-ing idiots when it comes to this kind of stuff? Can we write to the folks that did this or are in charge of the folks that did this or to our councilperson or do anything that would have an impact?

Is there *any* hope of getting anything changed (attitudes, etc.) so that they'll do things the proper way? Or are we just doomed to this kind of craptacular stuff until the current and next generation finally dies (and yes, I'll also be long gone by then) and some people with a clue get to be in charge?


If you have to rely on speed limit signs (and enforcement) to get people to drive a certain speed, your street is designed wrong. The built environment should give you visual cues as to what the safe speed should be. The problem is that generations of traffic engineers have been trained to over-engineer our streets for the safety of people in automobiles, with zero consideration given to other uses.


A blind intersection of two 6 lanes roads each designed for 70mph - what could possibly go wrong? My prediction - this intersection will quickly become the most deadly in the state.


Oh my. This is terrible.


Doesn't matter.

Either don't put it there, or make it safe. Half-assing it to save money at people's security (or even worse, lives) is just not worth it.


I agree that's pretty piss poor, but most folks walking south in that area not walking down Shields are they? Seems that more of the foot traffic is to the west.


^^^ Yup, I walked down this entire stretch just before the game (when I took these photos) and it was not comforting at all.


My goodness. Look at how narrow that sidewalk is next to that retaining wall. Does anyone - ANYONE - want to walk up that path with cars whizzing past at 45 mph only feet away? Probably with your back turned to them? Does anyone want to take that on with a stroller or wheelchair?

The only reason that sidewalk even exists in the first place is because it is the minimum ODOT could get away with by law. This, only yards from where tens of thousands of people congregate for events. SHAMEFUL.


So what are we going to do about it? The ODOT director's job is safe because the governor, Mary Fallin, will make sure it is. Fallin is not responsive to OKC - yet most of OKC votes for her and her ilk. Habitually. OKC could turn the governor's race for a democrat if people living in the city decided they've had enough of this.

ODOT will never change. Whether it's McCabe, Ridley, or someone new. ODOT isn't just incompetent. They are maliciously incompetent. OKC leaders thought it would be a good idea to let them build us a "surface-level" "boulevard." The leaders of OKC wanted this. We had a process called Friends for a Better Boulevard. We had town halls. Hundreds of people turned out. There was unanimity on this issue. Still OKC leaders were unmoved and wanted this. Mayor Mick defended this. Cafebeauf told me to shut up and keep my pithy remarks from Cleveland to myself. Boulder sooner loves this. Other posters on this forum defended this, even though there was truly unanimity on the streets among lay people.

Furthermore, this is not what we were promised. The mayor had a Core 2 Shore visioning process as MAPs for Kids was wrapping up, preempting the MAPS3 discussion, during which he laid out his vision for Core 2 Shore and the boulevard that would set it all in motion. It was that vision along with transit that carried MAPS3. An AA or EIS or mitigation plan is not a pact with the voters, but more of a pact with the federal govt, for which ODOT is simply a pass-through agency. ODOT has no actual money. Several states have these things called "coordinating agencies" (we have ACOG) that they actually franchise with power of the purse. Oklahoma could abolish a lot of ODOT's functions and decentralize its planning activities to the MPOs such as ACOG, empowering local govts, emboldening limited govt, and getting big govt out of the way.

We don't have to live this way. That's the bottom line. But yet we do because you all love it. You can't get enough of this craptacular embarrassment that is ODOT, or else you all would figure out a way to do something about this. Before ODOT's next project...

I get it, ODOT sucks, but are saying give more power to county commissioners to control some of this? The group of governing you yourself and many other (rightfully) say is the most corrupt of all? Because if you strip power from ODOT the first place it will go will be the county governments, not the cities.

ACOG is actually next in line to get federal transportation funding.

ACOG is actually next in line to get federal transportation funding.

Thanks, I will admit I'm very unfamiliar with ACOG in general.

Being on an ACOG citizens advisory committee, I must confess that I'm a fanboy of that agency. It's good people working there, really working hard to get it right. In my observation.

So for those who are unfamiliar with the governmental framework, ACOG is an MPO (metropolitan planning organization). It's a pretty weak MPO, mostly the fault of ODOT which doesn't have much use for an MPO beyond that FDOT requires it actually exists, but an MPO nonetheless.

https://www.planning.dot.gov/mpo.asp

Probably the model MPO is Twin Cities Metro Council. Metropolitan Council - / (http://www.metrocouncil.org/)

Which does a lot... Metropolitan Council - What We Do (http://www.metrocouncil.org/About-Us/Organization.aspx)
A) All highway/transit planning required for federal grants
B) Thrive MSP 2040 long-range planning process
C) Operate Metro Transit which provides 84 million rides per year
D) Develop and manage regional parks system
E) Manage waste water and conduct required studies of environmental quality
F) Plan for future growth in collaboration with regional municipalities
G) Build affordable housing, including managing the region's Section 8 voucher program
H) Manage grant-supported Livable Communities Program

I don't see any reason Oklahoma couldn't do this. We would literally be helping the rest of the state focus on its stuff by taking the urban burden off of the heavy shoulders at 23rd and Lincoln. We don't need to coexist angrily, accepting their malicious incompetence over and over, growing paranoid over state leadership, and angry at the misuse of resources. What's due to us can be ours, separate from what is due to the rest of the state, and by going in separate directions we can better manage and plan together. This is the only proven solution for states with a bad urban/rural divide. Oklahoma will remain in the dark ages until we empower our MPOs, ACOG and INCOG.

In general, OKC's governmental, quasi-governmental, and community-related capacity is shockingly unsophisticated. Once Couch retires it will be time to look at models from other cities and bring OKC's organizational framework into the 21st century. We basically have zero community development capacity, and our regional development capacity isn't much better. All of these missing things not just weaken our ability to get what we want out of the state, but it also prevents us from bringing additional resources to the table, and makes us dependent on the maliciously incompetent folks at ODOT.

Park Avenue between Robinson and Hudson.

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/p180012316.jpg

Harvey north of Robert S. Kerr:

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/p180020716.jpg

So when P180 is finally finished, are they going to wait to propose something else like this or are they going to just do street by street to P180 standards? I'd imagine as big as fiasco as this was(even though it was sorely needed and a great project), it'd be hard to get something like this passed again. Anyone else thinking the same thing?

So when P180 is finally finished, are they going to wait to propose something else like this or are they going to just do street by street to P180 standards? I'd imagine as big as fiasco as this was(even though it was sorely needed and a great project), it'd be hard to get something like this passed again. Anyone else thinking the same thing?

Well, there wasn't really any "passing" involved in this. It was generally funded w/ TIF, which is just a vote at the Economic Development Trust/City Council. One of the bigger "votes" that happened was w/ DowntownOKC and the Business Improvement District. They had to vote to raise assessments to pay for maintenance items, IIRC.

BTW, two years later and many of the crosswalks are not repainted.

In fact, all of the roadway striping -- including the center lines and other key markings -- are badly eroded.

BTW, two years later and many of the crosswalks are not repainted.

In fact, all of the roadway striping -- including the center lines and other key markings -- are badly eroded.

It's embarrassing that shoddy work like this goes untreated. They redid some of the markings, but they're eroding again.

It's embarrassing that shoddy work like this goes untreated. They redid some of the markings, but they're eroding again.

It is an issue of using the wrong type of paint for the surface material, rather than shoddy work in the actual painting. Agree that it is embarrassing and needs to fixed must faster than it has so far.

My understanding is that the crosswalks were the only thing to be repainted but really most the street markings are almost completely eroded.

There are places where you literally can't see the center lines and turn lanes, for example.

It is an issue of using the wrong type of paint for the surface material, rather than shoddy work in the actual painting. Agree that it is embarrassing and needs to fixed must faster than it has so far.

Interesting. I've noticed that paint on these streets appears to lay "higher" on the surface than paint on streets in Texas for example. What is different about the paint used here? And is there a difference in how it's applied?

When I spoke to Eric Wenger about this he said the City specified paint that had been used on asphalt but not concrete.

As the P180 streets are concrete, they later found it did not adhere properly.

Therefore, the City had to absorb the additional cost of repainting with material designed to better adhere to the new streets.

When I spoke to Eric Wenger about this he said the City specified paint that had been used on asphalt but not concrete.

As the P180 streets are concrete, they later found it did not adhere properly.

Therefore, the City had to absorb the additional cost of repainting with material designed to better adhere to the new streets.

Hope someone got their azz in trouble over this -

Hope someone got their azz in trouble over this -

Nope, just came straight out of the P180 budget, which is tax dollars.

It's not just the P180 striping that's bad, there are enormous stretches of highway *and* surface streets that need repainting, I'd say about 100 miles of streets that have almost no markings left, and that's just on the north side. And there are quite a few lights out on our highways (the 10th St entrance to northbound 235 doesn't have any lights on and hasn't for months (I've contacted the city about it, he said he'd get with OG&E, but still nothing)). Once again, can we do anything about this or are we just stuck with crappy-to-nonexistent paint and lights? Contact our councilperson or the city? Or do they even care (or do they just not have the money)?

That's exactly what has happened to the decorative interchanges along SW 44th as well. All of the markings and stripes on concrete have eroded off and the city has not attempted to fix the paint, whatsoever, since completing the streetscape project a couple or few years back. It's clearly just plain laziness/complacency on behalf of the city.

Interesting. I've noticed that paint on these streets appears to lay "higher" on the surface than paint on streets in Texas for example. What is different about the paint used here? And is there a difference in how it's applied?

Most of the time when the paint seems to be like that it probably is the style with reflective material mixed in. Which seems like could be a reason why it does not last as long as some of the older blends (even when it is the right style for the surface it is being applied to).

It's not just the P180 striping that's bad, there are enormous stretches of highway *and* surface streets that need repainting, I'd say about 100 miles of streets that have almost no markings left, and that's just on the north side. And there are quite a few lights out on our highways (the 10th St entrance to northbound 235 doesn't have any lights on and hasn't for months (I've contacted the city about it, he said he'd get with OG&E, but still nothing)). Once again, can we do anything about this or are we just stuck with crappy-to-nonexistent paint and lights? Contact our councilperson or the city? Or do they even care (or do they just not have the money)?

This is why self-driving cars will never work. There is a section on Shields with no markings at all.

Self driving cars won't work.......because of paint?

Self driving cars won't work.......because of paint?

If they are driving by following road markings/lanes/paint, yeah, absolutely, nothing for them to focus and track on. Not sure if that's how they're guided, though, I'd assume some GPS is involved, but it would seem important to have lanes/shoulders marked appropriately.

Self driving cars won't work.......because of paint?

Tesla uses the lines as one of the indicators for its driver-less cars. At 2:35 in this video it shows what the car sees and the lines are tracked by green. Watch the bottom right:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp3ik5f3-2c&feature=youtu.be&t=2m11s

Interesting. I've noticed that paint on these streets appears to lay "higher" on the surface than paint on streets in Texas for example. What is different about the paint used here? And is there a difference in how it's applied?

I don't know about Texas, but a lot of places don't actually use road paint any more. Instead they use something called "thermoplastic", which is essentially a rigid plastic tape that is adhered to the road surface. For some reason very few places in Oklahoma use it (Norman seems to have experimented with it but it's still paint through most of the city). Missouri uses a lot of thermoplastic. You can identify it if you're at a stop by its regular, textured surface (looks kinda like the sole of a shoe or something).

I'll have to go back over my notes because I spoke to Eric Wenger about this in detail and I think we were switching to thermoplastic for P180?

An example of where striping has help up well is the Lake Hefner Parkway and the new sections of I-40. Both are concrete surfaces with paint that does not seem to be coming off, or at least holds up way, way better than most every place else.

Just looked up the thermoplastic online. Looks like cool stuff.

You can buy rolls of it and use a hand torch and apply it yourself. Someone can buy a pre-formed roll large enough for a 2 lane crosswalk for about $250.

Just looked up the thermoplastic online. Looks like cool stuff.

You can buy rolls of it and use a hand torch and apply it yourself. Someone can buy a pre-formed roll large enough for a 2 lane crosswalk for about $250.

How hard is it to take up because that would be some good guerrilla urbanism material.

bewrXPdwhYE

What's going on at the intersection of McGee and Robinson?

What's going on at the intersection of McGee and Robinson?

From the weekly P180 downtown closings list:

Southbound Robinson closed between McGee and Kerr
Southbound Robinson closed for private utility work between McGee and Kerr.

I don't recall this being discussed and Pete feel free to move this to a new forum, but since it is P180 related I am going to propose the following for discussion.

I was reading the Daily today and they were going on about the costs of the new streetcar system. I noted that the ENTIRE SYSTEM: 4.9miles of steel rail, 6 Streetcars, and spares is expected to come in around $35M. I don't know what other costs are included or need to be funded separately, such as the overhead wire, stations, and I forget the cost of the mtc building (wasn't it less than $15M, for argument's sake let's assume this) = but say the total cost of the system and infrastructure is $50M or so.

What gets me is, we have $128M budgeted for the project, so that means some $75M or so is going to. ....? Construction?

Now my point in all of this is, could we have coordinated P180 WITH the streetcar to minimize budget and disruption? I understand the 'final' route wasn't decided until somewhat recently BUT everybody and their dog knows the routing through the CBD which iirc has not changed from the time this was conceived - and likely that is where the biggest costs to move utilities and to tear out P180 constructed streets will come; I'm talking Robinson Avenue with the Streetcar going South (this has always been the case, right), Sheridan Avenue'ish, could we have focused on definite Non-Streetcar streets (Harvey, Park, RS Kerr/2nd/3rd, Hudson, EK Gaylord) and reserved the Robinson, Broadway, Walker, Sheridan corridors through the CBD for future build to coordinate with Streetcar (and thereby lower the overall cost, disruption)?

Perhaps this only equates to a mile of P180, but it just seems ridiculous for us to have had those streets as a priority for P180 when we KNEW that the streetcar very likely would go through those corridors in some fashion in the CBD. If we had waiting for those CBD corridors, we could have coordinated dollars from P180 and Streetcar and perhaps had MORE $$ for more rail and more P180 to do the sidewalks correctly (or whatever else got chopped). If nothing else, could we not have just bought the rail for Robinson and the other FOR SURE downtown streets that we know would have streetcar at the same time as P180 was being done in those same areas, and coordinated the work to save $$ for both projects?

Its these types of things that makes me wonder how much OKC is really a prudent, fiscal conservative city because this could have been done better IMO. Any thoughts?

Streetcar budget:

Modern Streetcar / Transit $128,815,000

Transit Investigation/Standard $1,781,000.00
Transit Phase 1 A&E/ Design/Testing/Admin $10,676,000.00
Transit Phase 1 Land Acquisition and Site Prep $4,053,000.00
Transit Rail Procurement Rail Procurement $4,734,000.00
Transit Car Procurement Car Procurement $19,621,000.00
Transit Phase 1 Route Construction and FF&E $44,831,000.00
Transit Phase 1 Maintenance Construction and FF&E $4,875,000.00
Transit Phase 1 Other Transit Infrastructure Construction and FF&E $9,750,000.00
Transit Phase 1 Project Contingency $3,795,000.00
Transit Phase 2 A&E/ Design/Testing/Admin $5,312,000.00
Transit Phase 2 Construction and FF&E $18,224,000.00
Transit Phase 2 Project Contingency $1,163,000.00

the paper mentioned rail (4.9miles of steel) came well under projection, streetcar came over (but likely balance themselves) and they threw in more contingency $ due to the rail to the convention center (in my opinion, it should have come from the cc budget and not the maps 3 contingency. ...).

Without me getting into the overhead, we have route construction costs budgeted at nearly $73M with $6.4M contingency. While this includes some Equipment, it seems like a lot of $$ for construction, say at least $55M if I had to guess. Compare that with the P180 budget where the streetcar overlaps in the CBD - I think we could have had some gains there that could have given us more rail and perhaps more sidewalks (both of which were trimmed from the respective projects)

I asked Wenger at a public meeting about the timing with 180 and he said that the way the concrete street panels are done there will be less tear up to install the rails.

Park Avenue nearing completion:

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/p180030616.jpg


Atrocious crosswalks still all over downtown, including this one on Main Street:

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/p180030616b.jpg

This has been a trend of probably the last 10 years (maybe more or less, depending on how long you've been watching), that is, cheap paint that isn't aided by actually etching into the concrete as it used to be.

Paint fades over the course 2-3 years now around Tulsa that I've noticed whereas before the streets still had fairly visible markings. I've deducted through no type of independent research and only pure speculation that a cheaper paint is used and for the sake of time, they don't actually etch into the concrete before laying the paint down, thus it's beaten and worn down MUCH faster.

And the roads, no matter how new, tend to look like crap because of it. And in some parts of town, when it rains it becomes rather difficult to see where the lanes are because the paint doesn't reflect, either because it's already worn away or it just doesn't reflect like the "old" paint used to.

Or perhaps I'm just crazy.

^^^^^^^^^
In the instance above, the wrong material was used. The City has openly admitted this. There WAS surface prep; they sandblasted the concrete where the paint went down. But unfortunately they used a product that had flexibility issues when used on concrete. They are currently replacing these crosswalk markings with a much more durable material; it's just taking a considerable amount of time to do so.

The repainted some of the crosswalks but I haven't noticed any new work in quite some time.

There are still tons left to do.

I'd say 75%+/- of the affected crosswalks have been repainted. Some of the ones that are bare today were never painted to begin with.

Besides the one I photographed, here are two oldies that look particularly bad:

NW 5th & Robinson right in front of the memorial
Park & Hudson, which connects City Hall, the court house and the library

Two highly visible intersections that have yet to be touched, even though this repainting project was kicked off over a year ago.

It's unfortunate this project has taken way, way too long to be completed.

It's unfortunate this project has taken way, way too long to be completed.

And has cost way, way more than it should've.

Is there a timeline on when it's supposed to be completely done?

2014.

2014.
http://www.okctalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12359&stc=1

2014.

hmmm.

The last promise was late 2015.

We are already way past that and they aren't even close to finished.

Have some of the commercial developments delayed this, or is it just general delays and/or incompetence?

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that they've had to do a lot more utility relocations than they expected to do. Not sure if that's true, and if that's the reason for the delay, but that's what I seem to remember.

Here is an updated map.

No way are they done with this even by the end of this year, as they haven't even started on some big chunks.

http://www.okctalk.com/attachments/development-buildings/12361d1457628770-project-180-project180031016.jpg

I will also add, not only did they delete many blocks completely, they only did partial improvements on many more.

For example, along Robins south of Park, they did not install any pavers and even the light fixtures on the east side where never changed out. Also no furniture, bike racks, etc.

Several more examples of this.

There were also a couple of other plazas that got deleted, like in front of the Cox Convention Center.

I will also add, not only did they delete many blocks completely, they only did partial improvements on many more.

For example, along Robins south of Park, they did not install any pavers and even the light fixtures on the east side where never changed out. Also no furniture, bike racks, etc.

Several more examples of this.

There were also a couple of other plazas that got deleted, like in front of the Cox Convention Center.

What was the reason for deleting blocks? Was it a shortfall in budget / missed deadlines or something else?

What was the reason for deleting blocks? Was it a shortfall in budget / missed deadlines or something else?

IIRC, Midtown had already had a recent reconstruction in parts of it, including new lights and signage, and it just didn't need it. Someone else know more ?

The deletions were mainly because they ran far over budget on the first few phases they rebuilt.

Pete, any chance they will do a new p180 when this one is finished?

What was the reason for deleting blocks? Was it a shortfall in budget / missed deadlines or something else?

Rick Dowell ran a campaign against the look of the improvements and a decision was then made to remove certain areas in the NW portion of the original plan.

Somebody somewhere got paid way too much.

Rick Dowell ran a campaign against the look of the improvements and a decision was then made to remove certain areas in the NW portion of the original plan.

Right, but even after they removed those blocks, P180 was so incredibly over budget they had to slash a good chunk of the streets they had promised to re-do.

They are basically doing about 60% of what was promised (less if you count the areas that didn't get the full treatment) and it's taking them 3-4 years longer to complete.