The idea that traffic engineers make decisions based on data and not on their philosophy, their ideology, their training, and their priors is just not true. Were traffic engineers and policy makers just "following the data" when the crime of jaywalking was invented in the 1920s? Did data drive Robert Moses's passion for the (thankfully never built) Lower Manhattan Expressway? How about ODOT's data on the Oklahoma City Boulevard?

Traffic engineering has advanced quite a bit since the 1960s. Like most parts of American society, things that were considered acceptable back then are not anymore. There was no such thing as environmental review until the 1970s, for instance.

Keep in mind that the engineering data may say one thing but something else gets built because of an elected official's say so. You can find plenty of instances nationwide of unnecessary road construction or traffic control changes because a politician got involved in the process and overrode the engineering data on the subject.


What data explains why, to this day, we have not a single foot of protected bike lane anywhere in OKC?

I would imagine the data you're looking for there would be the city's transportation budget.


What data informs the belief that shortening my car commute by 30 seconds is worth more than a pedestrian's life?
FHWA in Washington DC maintains actuarial data that is used in transportation cost-benefit analyses. Usually it's not used to address level-of-service issues, but rather things like "considering the number of accidents on this curve, would spending the money to install a guardrail make sense?" Morbid stuff, but yeah, there's data on it, calculated down to the cent.


If you then make the conscious choice to design the built environment so that drivers are the only concern, they'll quickly forget that pedestrians even exist. Believe me, I experience it on a regular basis!
I would be afraid that automatically including a pedestrian phase would be more dangerous in areas where there is not the pedestrian traffic to justify it. If people get used to stopping for a pedestrian signal and seeing no pedestrians use it, they won't be expecting there to actually be a pedestrian there the time one uses it, which could be disastrous.


Streets don't belong to traffic engineers. They don't belong to Public Works. They don't belong to drivers. They belong to the public.
I mean, you could turn that around and say streets don't belong to pedestrians either, they belong to the public. In most of Oklahoma City, "the public" and "drivers" is synonymous.

The problem with traffic engineers is that they only consider how many cars they can get from point A to point B as quickly as possible with zero regard for the area in between those points. See OKC boulevard for the perfect example of this practice. Traffic engineering hasn’t evolved that much from the 60s to think that was a good idea.

Gators, that is due to OkDOTs backwards policies and doesn’t reflect all modern day traffic engineers.

why are they so against modern technology?

Just install the "new" poles without buttons already. this is a no brainer and should be the case at every major intersection in the city and EVERY stoplight downtown. IMO, you should ONLY need a beg button if you are accessing a street that has a dedicated left hand turn on the opposite way - in which, the walk signal would be delayed until the left arrow is red. And these would only be at major intersections, if at all since you still could 'program' the pedestrian signs with the dedicated lefts in mind (if no car is there, then the walk sign starts with parallel traffic green, etc).

Not sure why this is so hard to figure out and why 'engineers' in OKC point out the ease of pressing a button (when I'm sure none of them do, they just jaywalk like everybody else in OKC).

Honestly, wouldn't it be less costly to avoid the buttons?

Gators, that is due to OkDOTs backwards policies and doesn’t reflect all modern day traffic engineers.

This is true, especially because of Stuart Chai. I believe once he's gone and we get somebody else in his position (that wasn't an apprentice/assistant of his), things will probably change.

From Lackmeyer's chat today (with Mayor Holt):

Guest said:
Good Morning Steve and Mayor Holt. Is project 180 finished downtown? I'm surprised that Main Street/Broadway intersection as well as the streets were never completed. The roads and sidewalks are in terrible shape. Being near a couple of major employers think somewhat of a priority?

Steve Lackmeyer replied:
I'm going to take this one. Eric Wenger, the city's public works director, reports Project 180 is complete. But the city is still planning on improvements to Broadway and Main, but they must wait until work surrounding First National and BancFirst Tower is complete.

I'm told the reopening of those streets should be completed later this year.

I'll do a final total of what was promised and budgeted for P180 and what was actually done.

They missed it by a mile.

I'll do a final total of what was promised and budgeted for P180 and what was actually done.

They missed it by a mile.

Should have named it Project 90.

I'll do a final total of what was promised and budgeted for P180 and what was actually done.

They missed it by a mile.

Many miles.... Thanks for doing that summary, it was a cluster****, be nice to see how "complete" it actually is, lol. Be interesting to post that on next week's chat and see if it even gets past moderation.

Should have named it Project 90.

Project Moving Target.

https://twitter.com/dtOKCbuilds/status/1423371762197204998


Progress continues on construction of @Project180 Package 8 by the @cityofokc. This is the final package of the over decade long project to transform the streets and sidewalks in the core of @DowntownOKC in to a safer, greener, and more pedestrian friendly place.

I know the management and oversight was horrible but I wonder with a new city council, mayor, and manager if things would be the same with a 2nd P180 initiative.

Plans have been filed to redo the sidewalks along Broadway from NW 4th to Broadway Circle (just north of 10th).

I'm sure it will be done to P180 standards although it doesn't look like they plan to repave Broadway.


HTTP://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/broadway052323b.jpg


HTTP://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/broadway052323a.jpg

My dream is this is the pre-cursor to adding a return streetcar track on the west end while removing all angled parking here. The main thing that makes me hope that is the plans will actually widen the road on the west side.

It looks like this will remove some of the outer edge of the stamped 'bricks' and replace with concrete and proper, painted crosswalks. Then it will relocate all of the ADA ramps to point pedestrian traffic directly across, as opposed to current configuration of a single ramp pointed diagonally.