How come George Nigh's Northwest Passage never came to be?

he was only able to get around a 100 million (todays value $256,997,557.66 accounting for inflation) but it was used to upgrade state highway 3, just not to interstate standards.

If there were an interstate built between Denver and Oklahoma City, do you think people traveling between the 2 states would increase? How would the economies be affected also?

I don't know about to and from Denver, but Pueblo to Shreveport (via OKC and Texarkana) would make sense.

That's a whole lot of money to be spent on a road that goes through the middle of nowhere. There's a whole lot of nothing between OKC and Denver..might be the worst stretch of that in America if they built such a road. Seems like there would be more efficient uses of the money.I thought that was the idea of an interstate. To quickly get you through the "nothing" to where you want to end up.

Being selfish I would love to see such a road. I'm a Cardinals fan and we travel to St Louis a couple of times a year. It's nice to have a straight shot there. I'm also an Avalanche fan and being able to do the same to Denver would be great.

... Pueblo to Shreveport (via OKC and Texarkana) would make sense.

Where's the freakin' Like button when ya need one?

i would love to seea interstate from dever to shreveport (middle okc. i would probably do a road trip to denver if we had that road, also it might help out with the n.w part of oklahoma.. new jobs like gas stations, restaurants along the interstate.. I wish this could be in the idea- planning box for development

plus it could help revitalize NW Oklahoma and W Kansas. Maybe it should be a toll road all the way, like I-95 from Baltimore-NY.

Imagine seeing the freeway signs, DENVER (and Denver 600) from OKC and Denver people seeing OKLA CITY (and Okla City 600). .... Long drive, my man.

plus it could help revitalize NW Oklahoma and W Kansas. Maybe it should be a toll road all the way, like I-95 from Baltimore-NY.

Imagine seeing the freeway signs, DENVER (and Denver 600) from OKC and Denver people seeing OKLA CITY (and Okla City 600). .... Long drive, my man.

If one was made it probably would tie into i25 near Pueblo since then you are picking up the most cities without interstate quality roads between the two off highway 50 in Colorado and Kansas, it would almost certainly be a toll road given the federal highway budget is overwhelmed trying to maintaining the current system.

Im ok with that, snowman. But I doubt the 3 states would go for it at this time.

How come George Nigh's Northwest Passage never came to be?

Because it's a passage to nowhere.

Your best case scenario would be this- Eventually, there are plans already in the works long range to extend I-49 from Shreveport to Kansas City through Texarkana along the US 71 corridor. So, that would take care of the Shreveport to Texarkana leg. Then, there would need to be a four lane built from Texarkana NW to to Hugo. I would unfortunately have to call this the "Pipe Dream Expressway". If we were able to somehow get this built, one would most likely be forced to take the Indian Nation to Henryetta...unless SH 3 is eventually upgraded totally to four lane status to Shawnee. From there, I-40 is the ticket to Amarillo, where you could see US 287 upgraded North to Limon, where the existing I-70 would serve as the last leg. This route has already been studied by the State of Texas for commercial travel between Texas and Denver. The alternate route over to Pueblo is also a possibility. Left out would be any interstate through NW OK though, in my opinion. Not enough population or traffic to justify a totally new road where Woodward is your only decent size city, unless that pesky OTA gets close to their bond due date. At that point, anything is possible. The last thing they will ever do is let those bonds expire (in 2028 I believe), where by state law, all our toll roads then become free. The Turner makes way too much money for them to ever let that happen.

Maybe many wont like this idea, but maybe we should make I-49 go up through Tulsa, then let Kansas extend it to Kansas city? We already have the Interstate Road already built - just maybe as Turnpike, we could just connect to Texark then sign it as I-49 thru Tulsa then on up through Bartlesville then hand it off to Kansas.

We could still/later work on the NW passage from OKC to Colorado as a separate deal - everyone wins; Tulsa finally gets an Interstate Freeway to a major city besides OKC and OKC could 'complete' it's crossroads position.

There simply isn't the demand. You can drive from Boise City to Guymon and only see 30 cars come by on the opposite direction.

Maybe many wont like this idea, but maybe we should make I-49 go up through Tulsa, then let Kansas extend it to Kansas city? We already have the Interstate Road already built - just maybe as Turnpike, we could just connect to Texark then sign it as I-49 thru Tulsa then on up through Bartlesville then hand it off to Kansas.

We could still/later work on the NW passage from OKC to Colorado as a separate deal - everyone wins; Tulsa finally gets an Interstate Freeway to a major city besides OKC and OKC could 'complete' it's crossroads position.

This has been discussed before. There is a long-range plan for I-45 from Houston to Dallas to follow the US 75 corridor north of Dallas into Oklahoma. That would eventually connect to Tulsa bypassing the small towns and then eventually either joining US 71 or continuing along the 75 or 169 alignment to Kansas City. The state hasn't done anything though so I don't see this happening anytime soon. That will happen before an interstate is built to Denver.

I-49 through Arkansas will not happen for a long time either. Building an interstate through the mountains would be extremely expensive.

http://www.interstate-guide.com/future.html

Looks like there are talks of an Interstate 31 Wichita-Lincoln-Sioux City.... so we'd have straight line to Omaha.

With the shape I-40 is in, and the lack of funds to even have appealing rest areas, I think the idea of new interstates is crazy.

With the shape I-40 is in, and the lack of funds to even have appealing rest areas, I think the idea of new interstates is crazy.

That's a this state thang, for whatever reason or non-reason the deciders chose to rely upon. The lack of effort within our borders is not what I see when I drive elsewhere.

http://www.interstate-guide.com/future.html

Looks like there are talks of an Interstate 31 Wichita-Lincoln-Sioux City.... so we'd have straight line to Omaha.

What's in Omaha?

What's in Omaha?


Pig Pen, or at least he was the last time the Duck talked to him.
:sofa:

Pig Pen, or at least he was the last time the Duck talked to him.
:sofa:

"I'll take 'Ancient Pop Culture References' for $1200, Alex."

Well, pop culture would be the wrong cat but yeah it is semi ancient (pun intended.)

It's from a 70's country tune, Convoy, by CW. McCall.

the thing that blows my mind about 'convoy' is that chip davis of mannheim steamroller wrote the music. oh... and if i get that tune stuck in my head, i'm holding kevinpate personally responsible. -M

the thing that blows my mind about 'convoy' is that chip davis of mannheim steamroller wrote the music. oh... and if i get that tune stuck in my head, i'm holding kevinpate personally responsible. -M

The Convoy song was once used as the theme for OSU football one year back in the 70’s.
It was a Jimmy Johnson and OSU creation that gives me a good chuckle anytime I’m reminded of that song.

Sorry to steer the thread onto an access road, but dang, I've been sitting here thinking of several old narrative 'songs' from that era. Sigh, I sure miss Tom T Hall. He was a good one.

Could a new highway between OKC and Denver be a possibility under the new infrastructure bill? This has been a missing link in our interstate highway system for generations.

Had a long conversation about it on AARoads forum as well. Yes and interstate from OKC pointing NW to Denver would be a God send. I bet it would get even more use if connected to a new road from OKC to Texarkana connecting to I-49. This would allow New Orleans and Dallas to also utilize such a route.

Number One. Make it so........ l'd certainly love it!

Is 420 already taken/

Really, l'd be happy with a SH 3 NW Hiway extension towards Watonga and faster ways around Woodward and Guymon.

It would make a lot of sense, but as far as I know nobody at the official level is talking about it.

It's important to understand that the Nixon administration phased out federal-level planning of the road network in favor of a block-grant model. That is, rather than giving money to build specific Federal Aid highway corridors, FHWA writes the state DOTs a check and the state is responsible for deciding where they want to spend that money. Some "high priority corridors" are granted special funding through earmarks, but this is done on the initiative of Congress. There is, of course, no guarantee that Congressionally-earmarked highways are well thought out or necessary—for instance, look at the new Interstate 69, which is useful at its beginning and end but has a long section in the middle that's redundant to existing highways, and at its south end becomes such a mess that there are three Interstate 69s running parallel to each other because a Congressman was just writing every road he could into the bill.

My understanding is that the new infrastructure bill will operate on the block-grant model and does not currently specify any individual corridors to receive a dedicated budget. This could change as the negotiations continue.

Without the top-down federal planning administrators, a project like this needs either enough buy-in from the state DOTs that they want to spend their budget on it, or enough political support that the representatives of the affected states write it in as an earmark. The shortest route between Oklahoma City and Denver, using the most existing road corridors (which is far cheaper because less land is needed), would be to follow US-270 to Fort Supply, then cut northwest to Limon, Colorado to tie into Interstate 70. Thus arises one of the issues that makes this corridor complicated: a direct route cuts through an extremely unpopulated section of southwest Kansas, such that Kansas would have to spend quite a large amount of money on a road that barely benefits their state. There are a couple of ways around that: you can follow the route to Boise City and turn north on US-287 to Limon, bypassing Kansas entirely, or move the route through Kansas in such a way that it serves Dodge City and Garden City, which pass for the major population centers in that region of Kansas, so that it has some value to Kansas. Either way, you are adding more miles to the route, which means the time savings is reduced and cost is increased, which means there's less of an incentive to build the road.

Additionally, without the designation of a high-priority corridor or even an unfunded mandate from Congress, the state DOTs will naturally be reluctant to commit to a multistate corridor like this. It generally isn't well-received when a state DOT builds a road up to a state line, and the adjoining state is not interested in continuing it, so it ends up just dead-ending. A great example of what can happen is the north end of Highway 58 (https://www.google.com/maps/@36.9976668,-98.2918112,3a,63.3y,354.66h,77.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGFh07rNLnk91PTb3klggSA!2e0!7i1 3312!8i6656)—clearly Oklahoma and Kansas were not on the same page here. (Even when both states agree they want to build a road, this can happen. Arkansas and Missouri went through this for something like 20 years with I-49 in NW Arkansas because every time Missouri had the funding to build, Arkansas didn't, and vice versa.)

The entirety of the Oklahoma portion of this route falls in the district of Rep. Frank Lucas (R), so if you want this to happen, he's probably the guy you need to talk to. I wouldn't get my hopes up too much, though, since he voted against the stimulus bill (as did every House rep from Oklahoma). But you can call his office and suggest it if you have some time to kill and there aren't any brick walls nearby to shout at.

I don't ski anymore but when I did an Interstate directly from OKC to Denver would have been amazing. And cost me a lot because I'd have gone skiing way more often.

I don't ski anymore but when I did an Interstate directly from OKC to Denver would have been amazing. And cost me a lot because I'd have gone skiing way more often.

A curious observation I've made over the years is that there are a *lot* of conspicuous gaps in NW <==> SE interstates. I found that out years ago when I planned my family's first driving trip to Florida. The Appalachian Highway was one of those "earmarked" routes they finally finished into a full-n interstate (I-79 I think) about four (?) years ago. As nice as it is, though, it doesn't go all they way from Birminhgam to Memphis; you still have to take a very industrial stretch from there to north Mississippi and then on the rest of the way.

OKC to Denver is one of those same directional highways. And if I'm not mistaken, Gov George Nigh planned a big NW corridor interstate project from OKC to the panhandle, but didn't get any support for it.

The interstate system was designed for NE to SW travel. Which explains the lack of NW->SE routes.

The interstate system was designed for NE to SW travel. Which explains the lack of NW->SE routes.
Apart from the obvious geographical issues that would make such a route extremely expensive, what a route it would be to travel from Seattle to New Orleans. That would be something.

The interstate system was designed for NE to SW travel. Which explains the lack of NW->SE routes.

It was actually designed as a grid system, more or less. Diagonal routes like I-44 are more of an exception rather than the rule (and I-44 is only there because US-66 was there before it).