Everywhere you turn, something is torn up....

[bombermwc]

You know, I'm sure they did all these projects during COVID because there were fewer people on the road, but 2 years of this mess has about driven me over the edge.

Everywhere I turn, ODOT or OKC has something torn up along every possible commute path.
44's resurfacing seems like its never-ending....finish the freaking project already! I've never seen a resurface project take so long.
40 is a wreck, but no way to avoid that given what they are doing.
Why not throw airport road in there for fun? Let's see if we can make their eyes twitch....
How about Council, then they get it no matter what path they try to take. Now this one i will also say is nice now that the main intersections dont have such bad asphalt that some cars cant drive without scraping bottom.
Well, since we can't let anyone have a full path anywhere, then they had 35 in there for a while too

None of them seem to be quick projects either. They rip out half of each of the bridges along the way and patch them back up. And that seems to be a 6 month project for each bridge for some reason.
Granted, these things were definitely needed, I'm just curious why they all had to happen at the same exact time so that there is no path to avoid it on the commute.

Or am i nuts?

[BigSully]

You aren't nuts. It's infuriating.

[kzizok]

It really is bad. Its hard to find routes around all of the road construction in the city. Speaking of that, what about the construction sites on I-35 to the Texas border?

[catch22]

It’s like that everywhere right now.

Can’t complain about the poor shape of roads and also complain about the construction to remedy it….

[HangryHippo]

You may be nuts, but not about this!

[Roger S]

It really is bad. Its hard to find routes around all of the road construction in the city. Speaking of that, what about the construction sites on I-35 to the Texas border?

Construction on I-35 to the Texas border, and beyond, has been ongoing for the 42 years I've lived in Oklahoma.... I can count on 1 finger the number of times I have driven from OKC to DFW and not been through a construction zone in those 42 years.

I will say that at least for the last couple of years that they have done a good job of opening the construction zones back up during the Red River Rivalry game.

But also to add to the main point of this thread.... Since I drive to Ardmore almost every weekend. I've learned a lot of alternate routes to avoid construction..... Highway 76 and 77 being two of them..... 77 has had a bridge under construction for most of the year, maybe longer, and now 76 from Lindsey to Blanchard us under construction..... It's getting to the point that I'm going to have to start cutting all the way over to 81 but I'm afraid it's probably under construction too..... And the last phase of widening for Highway 53 to my farm is beginning and it's only taken them about 10 years to do the first 2 phases.... So I probably get to deal with that for 5 years when I finally get moved to the farm this spring.

[kzizok]

^^^^Yeah, there has always been some I 35 construction but right now it is particularly bad. Im in a similar boat as I travel it a lot and have tried all of the alternate routes but they are frustrating as well. I guess just driving it so often makes it seem worse, I dunno.

[traxx]

Can’t complain about the poor shape of roads and also complain about the construction to remedy it….

I can and I will.

There's always road construction going on in the greater metro as well as in the state but our roads never seem to get any better. It's an anomaly. How is this possible?

[T. Jamison]

There's always road construction going on in the greater metro as well as in the state but our roads never seem to get any better. It's an anomaly. How is this possible?

It's the circle of life. You build a road, and another reaches the end of it's lifecycle, you fix that road, another reaches the end of it's lifecycle and so on ad infinitum.

Oklahoma just happens to have deferred maintenance for so long that it takes an obscene amount of work to catch up. Hopefully, they can and we can quit complaining about both issues.

[shartel_ave]

You know, I'm sure they did all these projects during COVID because there were fewer people on the road, but 2 years of this mess has about driven me over the edge.

Everywhere I turn, ODOT or OKC has something torn up along every possible commute path.
44's resurfacing seems like its never-ending....finish the freaking project already! I've never seen a resurface project take so long.
40 is a wreck, but no way to avoid that given what they are doing.
Why not throw airport road in there for fun? Let's see if we can make their eyes twitch....
How about Council, then they get it no matter what path they try to take. Now this one i will also say is nice now that the main intersections dont have such bad asphalt that some cars cant drive without scraping bottom.
Well, since we can't let anyone have a full path anywhere, then they had 35 in there for a while too

None of them seem to be quick projects either. They rip out half of each of the bridges along the way and patch them back up. And that seems to be a 6 month project for each bridge for some reason.
Granted, these things were definitely needed, I'm just curious why they all had to happen at the same exact time so that there is no path to avoid it on the commute.

Or am i nuts?

I have a reverse commute, I live in the inner city and work on the outer edge of OKC. To get to work I take N Shartel to NW 30th to Classen to NW Expressway. Going home I take NW Expressway to the LHP to 44 exit on Penn then south to NW 39th left on NW 39th to Classen to NW 30th to N shartel round trip is about 6.5 miles with an average of 15 to 20 minutes. Sometimes I will take NW 36th to Western to NW 30th or take NW 36th to N Shartel then go south on N Shartel. I guess I'm fortunate because there is no current construction for my commute. I always check OKC traffic online before leaving work so if there is a wreck on LHP or 44 I take NW Expressway all the way Classen.

[SEMIweather]

I think OKC also just has a huge amount of infrastructure to handle for a Metro of 1.4 million since there are pretty much no barriers to growth and therefore everything is very sprawled out.

[bombermwc]

For me personally, I just wish they would have done things one area at a time. For example, don't do the same chunks of 44 and 35 at the same time so people have a route to take to avoid the construction. The way they did it this round, no matter where you go, your path is hit by seemingly endless construction projects.

[shartel_ave]

The I-44 and I-40 intersection needs renovated badly it is a horrible bottleneck even during non peak times.

I use to live in San Antonio and Las Vegas and they can build roads in both cities and they build rathy quickly.

Problem with San Antonio is they never consider mass public transit which crazy for the 7th largest city in the nation and 2nd largest city in Texas.

[Plutonic Panda]

It's incredible that San Antonio doesn't have a metro system by now nor is one even planned unless I missed something.

[progressiveboy]

I never could understand why OKC will not pave their roads in concrete? The longevity of their roads would last a long time and the city would not have to do a sloppy patchwork of filling in the craters and pot holes. It really does not affect me since I no longer live in OKC. Our roads in DFW are paved in concrete for the most part and are overall must smoother and better than roads in OKC. Come on OKC, step up to the plate and demand better roads including paving them in concrete!!

[Swake]

I never could understand why OKC will not pave their roads in concrete? The longevity of their roads would last a long time and the city would not have to do a sloppy patchwork of filling in the craters and pot holes. It really does not affect me since I no longer live in OKC. Our roads in DFW are paved in concrete for the most part and are overall must smoother and better than roads in OKC. Come on OKC, step up to the plate and demand better roads including paving them in concrete!!

Concrete costs 1/3 more and lasts 3 times as long.

Draw your own conclusions.

[mugofbeer]

Asphalt is a petroleum product and OK is a petroleum state. Texas gets concrete locally as well as being a petroleum state. It's all a matter of available money and economic intetests.

I will point out that OKC did rebuild a number of intersections in concrete.

[Jersey Boss]

Concrete costs 1/3 more and lasts 3 times as long.

Draw your own conclusions.

The penny wise and dollar foolish way of doing things. It's the local standard.

[Plutonic Panda]

The penny wise and dollar foolish way of doing things. It's the local standard.

Yep

[progressiveboy]

Why is this the local standard? Do Oklahoman's not want good roads? Or is it they do not want to pay for them? Are you saying Oklahoma is cheap?

[ChrisHayes]

I'm willing to bet you'll find concrete roads are pretty rare. I'm originally from Ohio, and you almost never see concrete roads up there. Everything is asphalt. As for the original topic, I'd rather see a number of projects going on across the city at one time, than having them stretched out for years on end.

[bombermwc]

I'm willing to bet you'll find concrete roads are pretty rare. I'm originally from Ohio, and you almost never see concrete roads up there. Everything is asphalt. As for the original topic, I'd rather see a number of projects going on across the city at one time, than having them stretched out for years on end.

That also means that they're going to be due to be repaired again all at the same time....
So that means rather than being able to spread that cost out, it will all come due at once. And since they won't have the budget to do it, they'll have to drag it out and let the unfunded projects lag behind and get worse in the meantime.

[catch22]

Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine….

Either way people are going to be impacted, there is no way around critical infrastructure construction being disruptive.

[Scott5114]

I'm willing to bet you'll find concrete roads are pretty rare. I'm originally from Ohio, and you almost never see concrete roads up there. Everything is asphalt. As for the original topic, I'd rather see a number of projects going on across the city at one time, than having them stretched out for years on end.

Plenty of them down here in Norman. Heck, the residential street outside my house is concrete.

[bombermwc]

Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine….

Either way people are going to be impacted, there is no way around critical infrastructure construction being disruptive.

I think you missed what point I was making. I'm not suggesting we not do it. I was suggesting that they DO spread it out. Don't do it all at once. You want to work on I-35 today and then I-40 tomorrow, ok fine. That way i can make a personal choice on which route to take to avoid what's going on and the price is spread out more evenly. I'm not saying dont do construction at all. In fact, i'm in support of the fuel tax to help better fund ODOT FOR construction. But planning it differently is what I'm suggesting.


Arkansas is a good example of what happens when you do it all at once. Back around 2000 ish, the state pretty much repaved the entire interstate system with new asphalt (not concrete). Guess what all came up for repairs at the same time.......the entire freaking state.