OKC Boulevard

[mugofbeer]

^

Believe the city will eventually add bike lanes.

The landscaping -- which is finishing up on most stretches -- looks pretty nice.

As long as they keep it properly watered.

[Plutonic Panda]

There are also tons of other areas around Dallas that are dead and don’t abut freeways.

It doesn’t serve the function of being a business connection well because OkDOT was forced to butcher it and water it down.

[Bellaboo]

As long as they keep it properly watered.

It's all irrigated.

[Pete]

Lotsa trees on the section just west of Scissortail Park:

[shawnw]

There's some P180 brick in one of the medians as well I noticed. As one that has always been opposed this street design (or even existing) I'm not afraid to admit it's looking a lot better of late. That doesn't mean there isn't a ton more work to do, but it's less bad that before.

[David]

Give it a few years and all those trees will be quite nice looking.

[HOT ROD]

i hope so

[shawnw]

Funny thread, relevant entry:

https://twitter.com/jerry_pham/statu...70449061642241

Bonus round: this GEM of an intersection that leaves no ambiguity to where you are.

[bombermwc]

i hope so

Did you visit the canal that weekend it first opened? It was pretty uninspiring in terms of landscaping as well. Heck, they only had about 4 patches of grass slapped down on either side of the sidewalk at that point.

The new Myriad Gardens were similarly uninspiring when they were first planted. For any landscaping, you really have to give it a 3-5 years to let it fill out as the plants grow before you know what it's going to really look like.

[Plutonic Panda]

I hate to beat a dead horse but this is currently proposed for College Station(a small ish town between Austin and Houston).







https://bcsmpo.org/DocumentCenter/Vi...d-Final-Report

Absolutely insane but awesome proposal. Whether it gets built or not remains to be seen. The simple fact it was even proposed and studied makes me mad that small towns in Texas have ideas like this yet nothing like this was merely considered for Oklahoma’s capitol and largest city. The best we could do is a hybrid freeway/large at grade slab of concrete.

[Plutonic Panda]

As a reminder we even had an OKCTalk user do some mock up renderings of his vision for the Boulevard which was pretty cool:





Which you see more here: https://www.okctalk.com/showthread.p...500#post548500

Again I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here but I saw that proposal for College Station and it immediately made me think of the OKC Boulevard and how Oklahoma’s largest city ended up with a rural highway design replacing an elevated freeway through its downtown yet some small town in Texas gets that.

[Buffalo Bill]

I hate to beat a dead horse but this is currently proposed for College Station(a small ish town between Austin and Houston).







https://bcsmpo.org/DocumentCenter/Vi...d-Final-Report

Absolutely insane but awesome proposal. Whether it gets built or not remains to be seen. The simple fact it was even proposed and studied makes me mad that small towns in Texas have ideas like this yet nothing like this was merely considered for Oklahoma’s capitol and largest city. The best we could do is a hybrid freeway/large at grade slab of concrete.

All it costs is a 10th of the State budget. I’m sure your boys in the legislature would be down for that.

[Plutonic Panda]

All it costs is a 10th of the State budget. I’m sure your boys in the legislature would be down for that.

With federal funding the cost would be brought down a bit but yes great things cost a great deal of money. The typical Oklahoma attitude is what leads to the state being completely mediocre. Also, if people in the state were willing to pay more to improve it and not have some of the lowest taxes in the country, perhaps the legislature would have a little bit more to work with.

[jn1780]

We wouldn't need anything as extravagant as College Station, just something better than the bridge that was built at Western.

[GoGators]

OKC has made a lot of bad planning decisions throughout its history. OKC Boulevard is definitely one of those bad decisions.

[Plutonic Panda]

We wouldn't need anything as extravagant as College Station, just something better than the bridge that was built at Western.

You’re probably right but it just sucks how we ended up with a 4 lane rural highway design. It seems there could have been something better built between that and the College Station proposal.

[HOT ROD]

if you hadnt told me that was College Station, I would have sworn that first pic was of OKC on Lincoln Boulevard and 4th Street, the streets in the pic look just line Lincoln as do the surrounding land use.

That vision works perfectly for OKC.

[ChaseDweller]

Don't know if this has been mentioned or not but the speed limits on the East end of the boulevard have been adjusted. It's now 35 all the way to the railroad underpass. Either that or someone stole the first 25 MPH sign. This makes much more sense in the context of the current lack of pedestrians out there. If the Coop land gets developed, it may need to go back down.

[Dob Hooligan]

I think I was hallucinating, but it looked to me that east bound OKC Boulevard had a light (or flashing yellow arrow) for left turn onto east bound Reno this week. Didn't that left turn used to be illegal?

[turnpup]

Just a few days ago I made the left turn there also thinking it was new. Usually I go down to Shartel before turning left.

[Laramie]

I think I was hallucinating, but it looked to me that east bound OKC Boulevard had a light (or flashing yellow arrow) for left turn onto east bound Reno this week. Didn't that left turn used to be illegal?

Don't recall it being illegal; seems as though there use to be an option with a left protected turn arrow or a yellow caution turn--this may have been before the Boulevard.

Recall getting off there when my friend (Diabetic) had an episode--had to turn into what was a Phillips convenience store service station in 2000, (Reno/Exchange) leaving a $10 bill, grabbing a candy bar--later returning to get my change.

God rest his soul, my friend died two months ago (January 2021) from complications associated with diabetes.

[DowntownMan]

I think I was hallucinating, but it looked to me that east bound OKC Boulevard had a light (or flashing yellow arrow) for left turn onto east bound Reno this week. Didn't that left turn used to be illegal?

Mayor Holt posted about this the other day. One of the things the city was planning to get fixed once they took over from state that just got accomplished

[catch22]

As Sir Elton John said many decades ago, the boulevard is not that bad.

Not great, either, though.

[rte66man]

I remember when the State spent millions "beautifying" Lincoln north from the Capitol to 36th St (IIRC 1998 or so). As part of that project, they planted a crapload of trees. Today, most of them look pretty good plus they help hide the industry on the west side of the street.

[MagzOK]

I remember when the State spent millions "beautifying" Lincoln north from the Capitol to 36th St (IIRC 1998 or so). As part of that project, they planted a crapload of trees. Today, most of them look pretty good plus they help hide the industry on the west side of the street.

The idea was to remove everything from the middle so that when you're driving south toward the capitol, you'd have an unobstructed view of the dome. I do think it's a pretty drive in.