OKC Roads 4th Worst in Nation

[boitoirich]

Nearly half of the major roads in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa are in poor condition, costing area drivers almost $800 each year in additional vehicle operating costs. Among large cities (500,000+ population), Oklahoma City drivers faced the fourth highest vehicle operating cost (VOC) due to deteriorated roads ($782 annually per average driver), and the city ranked 10th in the percentage of pavements in poor condition at 47 percent.

The Tulsa metro area has the second highest VOC among large cities, costing the average driver $784 annually. With 46 percent of major roads in poor condition, Tulsa ranks 11th among large cities. Driving on roads in disrepair increases consumer costs by accelerating vehicle deterioration and depreciation and increasing needed maintenance, fuel consumption and tire wear.

For the full report, visit: http://www.tripnet.org/docs/Urban_Ro...lsa_100313.pdf

[Easy180]

Can we blame any of this on our lovely Okie extreme weather conditions?

[Bunty]

Can we blame any of this on our lovely Okie extreme weather conditions?

No, instead, Oklahomans would far rather drive on bad roads than pay a penny or two more on a gallon of gas to make them better. Surely, car repair and tire sellers, like Firestone, would rather not see anything more done to make roads better, either.

[cbing04]

No!

[OKCisOK4me]

Easy enough for ya Sid, you have a net gain of $782 in your wallet

It's funny cause I think Tulsa roads are really nice compared to here. At least we have "Project 1---whatever ya wanna call it" downtown and old 2 lane roads are being converted to 4 lane monsters out in the suburbs. It's unfortunate that Oklahoma City is 640 or so square miles. Let's see where our ranking would be at if we were measuring a more concentrated area...

[bchris02]

You don't realize how bad the roads are here until you live somewhere that actually has good roads and then come back. Try living in Charlotte for a year and then coming back here and you'll think to yourself "I never realized the roads were this bad." I really wish the major thoroughfares in suburban OKC would be done like the ones in Edmond, with medians and turning lanes. They are FAR more enjoyable to drive and more efficient than the typical OKC style where you can never pick up decent speed in either lane because of people turning left or right.

[bradh]

You don't realize how bad the roads are here until you live somewhere that actually has good roads and then come back. Try living in Charlotte for a year and then coming back here and you'll think to yourself "I never realized the roads were this bad." I really wish the major thoroughfares in suburban OKC would be done like the ones in Edmond, with medians and turning lanes. They are FAR more enjoyable to drive and more efficient than the typical OKC style where you can never pick up decent speed in either lane because of people turning left or right.

I'll hand it to you, I expected you to tell us Tulsa's roads were way better than OKC's.

Obviously to have the nice lit medians like you have in Edmond along Covell and Broadway, you pay a premium, but why OKC didn't put in more double turn lanes along some roads is baffling.

[Plutonic Panda]

Edmond's roads suck. There are way too many damn stoplights and it is like people in this city are unable to drive over 40MPH.

The new Covell is a disaster. Lanes are way too wide for 45MPH. You can drive very safe at 55 or 60MPH on it. The turn lanes are long enough to slowly come to a stop from 60MPH. Way too many street lights. They lighted the majority of the road up like a Christmas tree, but didn't light up the portion of the railroad underpass. It is unsafe and uninviting for bikers and pedestrians. They didn't go big, they went small. This would've been a great time to introduce illuminated street name signs and do something cool like install illuminated lane dividers or something. Edmond built a bogus crap road. This is obviously the future of roads in Edmond. The only good thing is they designed it to be easily widened to six lanes when the time comes.

[bchris02]

I'll hand it to you, I expected you to tell us Tulsa's roads were way better than OKC's.

LOL, no. I give Tulsa their due where they are indeed better than OKC but I am not really pro-Tulsa. In fact, that city has a few shortfalls that keep it from being a place I would want to live unless I didn't have any other options.

Obviously to have the nice lit medians like you have in Edmond along Covell and Broadway, you pay a premium, but why OKC didn't put in more double turn lanes along some roads is baffling.

Most other major cities I've been in except for OKC and Tulsa have the lit medians, double turn lanes, etc as the norm, similar to the way Edmond does it. It's a lot more stressful to drive on OKC-style roads that are pretty much just four lanes with no medians and no turn lanes except in major intersections. The medians may prevent people from turning left onto a minor side street, but they also keep traffic flowing smoothly. If you are going to do it OKC's way, you need a center lane for people who just want to go and not worry about stopping for people turning left or right.

Edmond's roads suck. There are way too many damn stoplights and it is like people in this city are unable to drive over 40MPH.

The new Covell is a disaster. Lanes are way too wide for 45MPH. You can drive very safe at 55 or 60MPH on it. The turn lanes are long enough to slowly come to a stop from 60MPH. Way too many street lights. They lighted the majority of the road up like a Christmas tree, but didn't light up the portion of the railroad underpass. It is unsafe and uninviting for bikers and pedestrians. They didn't go big, they went small. This would've been a great time to introduce illuminated street name signs and do something cool like install illuminated lane dividers or something. Edmond built a bogus crap road. This is obviously the future of roads in Edmond. The only good thing is they designed it to be easily widened to six lanes when the time comes.

I don't drive Covell very much. I personally don't like Broadway (especially near downtown Edmond) so I am definitely not praising that. What I think is a good design is 33rd and 15th between Broadway and Santa Fe. While that is just a few short miles, if all of suburban metro OKC was designed that way, with stoplights only at the mile intersections, I think traffic would flow much smoother and there would be far less accidents. Plus, its aesthetically pleasing.

NW Expressway, Classen, and 39th Expressway are about the only "good" suburban roads in OKC proper.

[venture]

Edmond's roads suck. There are way too many damn stoplights and it is like people in this city are unable to drive over 40MPH.

The new Covell is a disaster. Lanes are way too wide for 45MPH. You can drive very safe at 55 or 60MPH on it. The turn lanes are long enough to slowly come to a stop from 60MPH. Way too many street lights. They lighted the majority of the road up like a Christmas tree, but didn't light up the portion of the railroad underpass. It is unsafe and uninviting for bikers and pedestrians. They didn't go big, they went small. This would've been a great time to introduce illuminated street name signs and do something cool like install illuminated lane dividers or something. Edmond built a bogus crap road. This is obviously the future of roads in Edmond. The only good thing is they designed it to be easily widened to six lanes when the time comes.

Wait what? You want to go 55 or 60 on Covell? There are way too many curb cuts for that. I could see maybe...MAYBE...50 mph in some areas, but not 55 or 60. Really if you feel the need to go that fast, I send my condolences to your family now for when you decide to wrap yourself around a telephone pole and they have to scrape you off. You are on a city street, not a limited access roadway/highway. How inviting is it for bikers and pedestrians when your dumbass jumps the curb going 60 mph and plows them down? We get you like to go fast, but at some point you need to grow up before you kill someone for being an idiot.

[Plutonic Panda]

Wait what? You want to go 55 or 60 on Covell? There are way too many curb cuts for that. I could see maybe...MAYBE...50 mph in some areas, but not 55 or 60. Really if you feel the need to go that fast, I send my condolences to your family now for when you decide to wrap yourself around a telephone pole and they have to scrape you off. You are on a city street, not a limited access roadway/highway. How inviting is it for bikers and pedestrians when your dumbass jumps the curb going 60 mph and plows them down? We get you like to go fast, but at some point you need to grow up before you kill someone for being an idiot.

oh boy, spare me the pitty. It isn't going to happen Venture. If I were doing 80 or something, then yes I understand. If you seriously suggest that me going 50MPH might be safe, but somehow going 60-which is just 10MPH more-is going to result in me having to be scraped from the cement, then all I can do is question your line of logic of that and look at things from a rational perspective. I know exactly when and where I can go fast and slow down when I need to. The only speeding tickets I have ever gotten is when some ****head pig pulls me over on a highway late a night when I'm cruising along at 90 or so with virtually no traffic. Literally, every single ticket I have ever gotten was on a highway. I'm being dead serious with that.

It so goddamn funny how I have yet to get into one wreck and have been driving for three years and I know people whom have driven as long as I have or shorter and have had 4+ wrecks. Bottom line is, I drive 20 or under in school zones, 20 or under in residential areas where there might be kids, and I am very aware of what is going on around me and have actually gave people crap for going too fast in my neighborhood as my neighbor has little kids and I am close to him and his wife.

I have gone on tracks and driven very fast. I was driving a Ford Raptor SVT doing near 80MPH on sand driving over sand dunes in Kermit. About a month ago, I had the honor of driving a new Jag F Type around the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. I was doing well over 150MPH and coming close to its top speed of 184MPH. I am comfortable at driving at high speed and have had a little experience with people who do it for a living and as the years go by, I meet more racers and people who have the opportunity to design and build these types of vehicles and they show me some amazing driving. I am not a professional by any means and have much to learn.

As far as you rant of my post, I'm not even going to go into major detail of it and you can go cry about it on Northwest expressway where people do 60-70mph(I volunteer at Baptist regularly so I know this) and see if they give crap. Bottom line is, don't criticize my driving until you've seen it first hand and stop acting like anyone who speeds is a danger. That logic is crap and has no evidence to back it up. You drive at high speeds just fine and never get in one wreck, the dumbasses that seem to fill the roads these days do stupid sh*t like in attentive driving, weaving through traffic, and blowing though intersections without any regard to road signs and row, are the ones that cause the wrecks. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a cop drive like a maniac trying to pull someone over who was doing maybe 10-15 over limit. I won't even get into what I saw an Edmond cop do the other day. For the record, there are actually a few police officers I am friends with and which is why I challenged MustangGT in another thread and decided it wasn't even worth it to get into, but again, I won't get into that.

It should also be obvious, how on a city street, we can't have a posted speed limit of 60MPH, since everyone would likely be doing 65-70 and having a packed city street with cars going 60 would present safety hazards. I thought it was obvious and I wouldn't have to state that. The fact is, a 50 MPH speed limit would be adequate on a road with lanes this size, but we shouldn't have cars going 50+mph on a city street that fronts a school and community park with children running around it. That is why I specifically pointed out the lanes should be narrower and that would come with no reason to have a higher posted speed limit than 45MPH, which IMO, is really what should be the highest speed limit on any city street with the exception of limited access expressways, such as NW EXPRESSWAY, and city freeways.

Back to topic with my original post, did you want to address my concerns for this roadway or just make bogus assumptions of me wrapping myself around telephone poles and plowing down bikers?

Now once again, one of my problems with Covell, the lane widths of this road, they are perfectly fine for driving speeds of 60 or above and encourage people to do so. There is absolutely no reason to have the lanes this wide. Have you even been on Covell? How long they made dedicated turn lanes that turn into low traffic side streets? It seems like the city of Edmond encourages this kind of activity as well as having people run red lights and such. They put so many lights and it is so weird how I am so tempted to run and/or try to beat the lights in Edmond as there are too damn many of them and they always seems to turn red right as you hit them, but yet, when I'm in Plano or Frisco, I never really have that issue. Why?

Synchronize them, do whatever, but there shouldn't be a light for a PetsMart and a Homedepot as well as Academy(I'm referring to Broadway in Edmond). If you are unable to navigate out of those parking lots, then you really don't need a license. I'm not saying it is a sin to have a few areas where there are more than one stoplight per mile. I don't care, but in this city, it seems there are like 3-5 per mile EVERY FREAKING MILE OF THE CITY!!!!!!!! They are now putting in a new stoplight on the most recent upgrade of Kelly going into Mitch park. It is a joke man. A simple solution to this, better city planning. In downtown areas, I can understand not having super blocks and putting in a bunch of stop lights and/or stop signs, but not in a suburb setting. In urban settings, put stoplights every 1/4 mile or less, that is fine, say like around UCO and in Downtown Edmond. In a place like 33rd and BLVD or Kelly and Covell, consolidate the back roads and funnel them into one road going into ONE other road, either Covell or Kelly. You would still have the option of turning out onto the street through a curb cut and either continuing through to make a left turn or turn right and then continue on until you can make a legal u-turn.

Anyways, that's my take on it. Don't like it, tuff, I don't what to tell you. I am not for turning city streets into high-speed highways. . . I am not for making urban streets six lanes with no stop lights or stop signs. . . I am not advocating leaning left or right(no political reference intended) on any issue regarding pro-urban and pro-surban. I am for giving people choice; creating urban and suburban environments and doing so efficiently and well thought out. Suburban being car oriented(which I like) and urban being geared towards pedestrians. While I learned from JTF you can't do these both equally in one setting, I think you can connect these two and allow for better interaction than most think.


BTW. . . . Just realized, this post is actually off topic and I am sorry about that; just wanted to clarify my original post. It still stands. The new Covell is not a good model for new road construction in OKC. Also Venture, I don't want to start any "beef" with you man. Calling people names just hurts man and I don't I understand it. You obviously took what I have said and taken it way out of context or maybe I just didn't explain myself clearly. I have actually been slowing down quite considerably from how I used to drive during my first year. If I sounded combative in anyway, I didn't mean it, it is just it gets annoying when people take what I say and twist it on me or insinuate something that isn't true, like me driving 100MPH down every road I drive on.

[venture]

"Roads are fine. You people are fine. There are no cracks in the roads. We will build more roads. We have plenty of money for roads."

[OKCNDN]

Yup, OKC roads are total crap. Even the brand new expressway is not as smooth (mainly the transition areas where the new construction ends and the old build restarts) as could be expected of a new construction. Go to a city with a bigger budget (face facts, OKC is poor compared to other cities) and their roads are much better.

Don't know if I have mentioned this previously, when I worked highway construction during my college summers in OKC I talked to more than a few OKC highway engineers. They mentioned OKC as using the old, dated 1950's California street and highway manual. They mentioned the traffic plans, road plans were passable as CA back then was still bigger than OKC is even today. But the construction methods and materials OKC was using (from the CA 1950's manual) were laughed at big-time by these people. They said OKC was stupid for using a manual that old. There was an updated version with much better standards available for purchase. Also mentioned was the management of ODOT, not the top dog but the main guy down a few rungs from the top dog, the one in charge of the actual construction. That was the guy who wanted to use this old manual. The engineers said OK had little hope of getting a newer manual because this guy called that thing his bible. He knew it in and out, had several copies at the office and one at home. No way was he going to change. Maybe that can explain why OKC roads and OK roads in general are so bad.

[venture]

Yup, OKC roads are total crap. Even the brand new expressway is not as smooth (mainly the transition areas where the new construction ends and the old build restarts) as could be expected of a new construction. Go to a city with a bigger budget (face facts, OKC is poor compared to other cities) and their roads are much better.

Don't know if I have mentioned this previously, when I worked highway construction during my college summers in OKC I talked to more than a few OKC highway engineers. They mentioned OKC as using the old, dated 1950's California street and highway manual. They mentioned the traffic plans, road plans were passable as CA back then was still bigger than OKC is even today. But the construction methods and materials OKC was using (from the CA 1950's manual) were laughed at big-time by these people. They said OKC was stupid for using a manual that old. There was an updated version with much better standards available for purchase. Also mentioned was the management of ODOT, not the top dog but the main guy down a few rungs from the top dog, the one in charge of the actual construction. That was the guy who wanted to use this old manual. The engineers said OK had little hope of getting a newer manual because this guy called that thing his bible. He knew it in and out, had several copies at the office and one at home. No way was he going to change. Maybe that can explain why OKC roads and OK roads in general are so bad.

Careful. They probably are going to read this and find out where you live and turn your street to gravel.

[mugofbeer]

Don't know if I have mentioned this previously, when I worked highway construction during my college summers in OKC I talked to more than a few OKC highway engineers. They mentioned OKC as using the old, dated 1950's California street and highway manual. They mentioned the traffic plans, road plans were passable as CA back then was still bigger than OKC is even today. But the construction methods and materials OKC was using (from the CA 1950's manual) were laughed at big-time by these people. They said OKC was stupid for using a manual that old. There was an updated version with much better standards available for purchase. Also mentioned was the management of ODOT, not the top dog but the main guy down a few rungs from the top dog, the one in charge of the actual construction. That was the guy who wanted to use this old manual. The engineers said OK had little hope of getting a newer manual because this guy called that thing his bible. He knew it in and out, had several copies at the office and one at home. No way was he going to change. Maybe that can explain why OKC roads and OK roads in general are so bad.

Sure....right....

[Mel]

This is an piece put together and cited by people who make a lot of money off of building new roads. I guess I'd take it with a massive grain of salt.

I can't Sid, I'm on a very low salt intake diet.

[PWitty]

This is an piece put together and cited by people who make a lot of money off of building new roads. I guess I'd take it with a massive grain of salt.

I would have to agree. I'll start out by saying that I haven't driven in a ton of major cities, but of the few I have driven in I wouldn't say that OKC roads were the worst. Maybe it's just the parts of OKC I've driven in, but I thought the roads in OKC were actually BETTER than the roads back home in KC and the roads I drive on now around Pittsburgh.

Don't even get me started on Pittsburgh's roads, they're TERRIBLE IMO. All of their highways look like they're from the 1950's and a good chunk of them are all only 2 lanes, even around the DT area. I mean I understand that they have limited space to work with and the roads take some damage from the cold weather, but I have to believe they could be much better. The fact that Pittsburgh didn't pop up on their list of US cities between 250K-500K makes me question their rating system.

KC's roads are better than Pittsburgh's, but they still leave a lot to be desired. There is a lot of new interstate work around the metro area that is top notch, but I have yet to find a road in Missouri that doesn't make me fear for my tire's lives.

[Just the facts]

This is an piece put together and cited by people who make a lot of money off of building new roads. I guess I'd take it with a massive grain of salt.

Here are the Board of Directors just to prove this. It reads like a who's who of the road construction industry.

TRIP Board of Directors

I'll give them this - they make a very persuasive argument to stop building new roads if we can't even maintain and repair what already exists. I wonder how this group would feel about a moratorium on any new roads or the widening of any existing roads. My guess is they wouldn't like it.

BTW - I love this image they have on their page. Pretty much sums it up.

[boitoirich]

Here are the Board of Directors just to prove this. It reads like a who's who of the road construction industry.

TRIP Board of Directors

I'll give them this - they make a very persuasive argument to stop building new roads if we can't even maintain and repair what already exists. I wonder how this group would feel about a moratorium on any new roads or the widening of any existing roads. My guess is they wouldn't like it.

BTW - I love this image they have on their page. Pretty much sums it up.

Right, this as a planning and design issue rather than a road quality issue. Unfortunately news stories about this focus on the $70 million a year we spend on patching up streets and will conclude we need to spend more than that.

I know that people here find it a quality of life issue to be able to get across the city within 20 minutes by car. But the bloated system of collectors and arterials that allows it comes at a cost.

[Just the facts]

I know that people here find it a quality of life issue to be able to get across the city within 20 minutes by car. But the bloated system of collectors and arterials that allows it comes at a cost.

This is the part that gets me. No one wants to pay what it cost. Mention an increase in the gasoline tax to an amount it would take to do this and people think you killed their cat, not to mention what a $1/gallon gas tax would do to the economy. Mileage tax? No way man, that hurts the poor and is an invasion of privacy. Tolling all interstates? No way man, that will disrupt commerce. Well, something has to give because we are as broke as the roads are. If we want to keep the wheels of commerce turning we have to .... here let me quote Kunstler (I bolded the key statement):

Simmons-Kunstler interview

We are going to have to significantly downscale, rescale, resize and reorganize all of the major activities of American life. We are going to have to do agriculture in a different way. We are going to have to grow a lot more of our food locally. We are going to have to rescale and reorganize trade and commerce. The big box model for commerce is very shortly going to come to an end. That’s Wal-Mart and Target and all of that. We are going to have to rebuild local interdependent networks of economic activity of a kind that were systematically and methodically destroyed by large corporations. And we are going to have to get on that job soon. And when we do we are going to find that our communities will restore themselves. We are going to probably have to say goodbye to the gigantic centralized school districts with their yellow fleets of school buses that run an average of 100,000 miles a year. All of these things are going to have to be changed. And you know this tremendous inertia in our culture we have all these investments we have made in the infrastructure for running things they way we run them. And we are not going to change them easily. There is going to be a titanic struggle to maintain the entitlements to these things whether they can be maintained or not. But you know what? Circumstances are going to compel us to change whether we like it or not. There has been a big argument over suburbia for the last fifteen years, and some of the apologists for it like David Brooks of the New York Times have made the argument repeatedly that suburbia must be great because people like it. And by the way that’s a foolish argument just to begin with, but the fact of the matter is whether people like it or not it’s coming off the menu. We are not going to be able to do it anymore whether we like it or not. And that’s…you know, life is tragic. This is not a Bruce Willis movie where we are going to be rescued at the last moment by some miracle. Life is tragic. History is remorseless and history doesn’t care whether we pound our culture down a rat hole. And that’s what we are in the process of doing. By not paying attention.

[mugofbeer]

I certainly don't see Denvers streets being any better than OKCs. These things are full of potholes due to the snow and heat of the summer and wear out much faster. I think this report is BS.

[Just the facts]

I certainly don't see Denvers streets being any better than OKCs. These things are full of potholes due to the snow and heat of the summer and wear out much faster. I think this report is BS.

I invite you to tour their web site. Here is their report on Colorado. Spoiler alert - Colorado roads suck also.

http://www.tripnet.org/docs/Urban_Ro...ngs_100313.pdf

Washington, DC – Deteriorated roadways in the Denver and Colorado Springs metro areas cost area drivers approximately $600 each year in additional vehicle operating costs. Among large cities (500,000+ population), Denver drivers face the 16th highest vehicle operating cost (VOC) due to deteriorated roads, with the average motorist losing $615 annually. Drivers in the Colorado Springs area lose $589 annually as a result of deteriorated roads, the 20th highest vehicle operating cost in the nation. Driving on roads in disrepair increases consumer costs by accelerating vehicle deterioration and depreciation and increasing needed maintenance, fuel consumption and tire wear.

I love this headline on the story

DETERIORATED DENVER AND COLORADO SPRINGS ROADS COST DRIVERS APPROXIMATELY $600 EACH YEAR. ROAD CONDITIONS EXPECTED TO DECLINE FURTHER IF FEDERAL AND STATE LAWMAKERS FAIL TO ACT. FEDERAL FUNDING FOR REGION’S HIGHWAYS SET TO BE SLASHED IN OCTOBER 2014 UNLESS CONGRESS APPROVES ADDITIONAL REVENUES.

[OKCisOK4me]

Wowzers PluPan! You shoulda just sent a personal message like you did for me when I gave my pre condolences to your family. Just because you have THREE years of driving experience and you're a perfect driver when children are present doesn't mean something bad can't happen to you.

[Plutonic Panda]

Wowzers PluPan! You shoulda just sent a personal message like you did for me when I gave my pre condolences to your family. Just because you have THREE years of driving experience and you're a perfect driver when children are present doesn't mean something bad can't happen to you.

lol, which is precisely why I stated I have much to learn and I am nowhere near perfect. Something bad can happen to anyone.

Also, what private message are you referring to? My mind is blank on this one.

[OKCisOK4me]

lol, which is precisely why I stated I have much to learn and I am nowhere near perfect. Something bad can happen to anyone.

Also, what private message are you referring to? My mind is blank on this one.

I deleted message history recently, but I had wished your family condolences on some thread where you were talking about driving 120mph down Broadway Extension and I was saying how you could get a blown tire and roll your car and you sent me a PM to explain how excellent your driving skills were...