NW 23rd and Penn Streetscape changes

[jpeaceokc]

I drive through the NW 23rd and Penn intersection every day. The City has been working on it and among other things, they have removed the brick crosswalks which were I think funded by a 2000 bond and installed a few years later. They were in bad shape, it seems to me that someone in the design phase didn't think about the impact of the heavy traffic of that intersection on brick street materials. Still, it seems like quite the waste of money. I believe that about a million dollars was budgeted for the streetscape project on NW 23rd, all of it wasn't spent on that intersection of course, but one would think we would get better design for our money.

[Rover]

Was it brick, or formed concrete stained to look like brick? What would you have suggested as an alternative?

[king183]

Was it brick, or formed concrete stained to look like brick? What would you have suggested as an alternative?

I know what the poster is referring to and I believe it was actually concrete stained and formed to look like brick, though I'm not completely certain on that. It was a nice little design for the intersection and now they've been torn up and replaced by asphalt. The city had to replace something there. Utilities of some kind?

[warreng88]

I know what the poster is referring to and I believe it was actually concrete stained and formed to look like brick, though I'm not completely certain on that. It was a nice little design for the intersection and now they've been torn up and replaced by asphalt. The city had to replace something there. Utilities of some kind?

That's what I would guess, plus they were putting in the more updated handicap accessible ramps from the street instead of the normal curb like what was there previously.

[jpeaceokc]

Was it brick, or formed concrete stained to look like brick? What would you have suggested as an alternative?

I don't know whether it was brick or concrete. If it was concrete, it wasn't a very good grade of concrete because it was showing quite a bit of wear, cracks, and etc before this recent change. I would have stuck with the asphalt. The City seems determined to turn NW 23rd west of Classen into a miniature version of NW Expressway (cf Walgreens, the strip of shops set back from the sidewalk east of OCU, etc), so I don't know what purpose faux prettiness like brick crosswalks is supposed to serve.