Burying 235 Between I40 and I44?

[Spartan]

I like this kind of big thinking. I grew up with the idea of moving I-40 and several cities removing freeways around their downtowns. Columbus has spent a ton on caps for their myriad of downtown freeways, and Syracuse (or Rochester?) removed a freeway recently. Dallas is talking about it right now with the (?)45 spur, and they're capping another leg of it by the Arts District.

We shouldn't be afraid of price tags bc everything is going up, including our revenues, which is a lucky position that we are in and may not always be in.

[Just the facts]

JTF, let me get this straight...

You want to increase the pedestrian friendliness of our city streets, but you also want to INCREASE the traffic of these same streets by removing highways? Not seeing your logic at all here bub....

Highways serve a major purpose, and since they are the one true streets that should be fully dedicated to car travel then we should NEVER remove them. As also has been noted, highways throughout time have spurred major developments & that isn't changing any time soon.

When freeways are removed the traffic vaporizes; it doesn't just get re-distributed to other streets. For the rest of your comment - you are living in the past. The times, they are a changin'.

More People Rode Public Transit Last Year Than Any Time In The Last 60 Years | Co.Exist | ideas + impact

We’ve recently covered the news that more people are foregoing car ownership than ever before, so it would make sense that public transit is becoming more and more popular at the same time. Now there’s data to prove it.

The American Public Transportation Association’s latest figures, released today, show that more Americans used public transit in 2013 than at any time in nearly 60 years. That amounts to a whopping 10.65 billion passenger trips, beating the previous record in 1956 and a more recent peak in 2008, when gas cost more than $4 a gallon and 10.59 million trips were taken.

If OKC want to compete in the future, it has to adopt what the future demands.

[Buffalo Bill]

This specific highway has also managed to spur major segregation in this city. But that is for another thread.

That segregation was there long before I-235. "The other side of the tracks". If anything, it has lessened substantially since the construction of I-235.

Maybe we should be looking at tearing out the BNSF tracks?

The physical barrier!

The impediment to redevelopment!

[Snowman]

I think JTF started smoking something HARD lately.

Removing highways does NOT (nor has it ever) removed demand. It simply pushes the demand elsewhere. You DO NOT want people using Lincoln or Classen as the main thoroughfare. Guess what, that's why 235 exists...to pull people OFF of those roads. Not only did building it NOT kill ANY business development, but it actually HELPED to create the health center. I've seen you say on this forum how you support the Health Center and how it's growing. Guess what, NONE of the west-side development would be there without 235. Why? Because the highway's construction demolished the homes and spurred the buyout of countless homes in the area. The cost of development in that area would have otherwise been too prohibitive and wouldn't have happened. I gurantee you 100% if 235 wasn't there, we would NOT have OU Med Center. Instead, we'd still have a spattering of independent facilities that are ALL on the verge of bankruptcy....and you'd have a very slow response time for EMSA to get there because of the removed access. Force EMSA to Lincoln for the whole trip south down 235, and you'll increase their time by several minutes as they have to spot at every intersection to make sure some idiot didn't hear/see them.

Not to mention the fact that almost ALL of the people that use 235 don't live anywhere near it. All those Edmond folks you like to complain about still have to get where they're going. Same for those coming from Moore/Norman. Pushing them to the other routes makes absolutely no sense. You push more to 44 and you're going to have to spend a heck of a lot more taking out more homes to widen the thing than you're going to get back out of removing 235.

You can want all day, but the reality is, people don't have another option, and they're not going to chose a train unless it's faster. This might make the train faster because the road would be so bad with 235 removed. But you're making the assumption some idiot politician would actually agree to make people unhappy to force them to rail....never ever ever ever gonna happen and good luck getting anyone to support you.

OU Med Center started working in the area around 1910, had moved everything out of Norman by the 30s, had already grown into a massive complex by the 60s, yet i235 would not be completed for till like the 80s.

[Plutonic Panda]

I'm not concerned with the poll. I'm not concerned with the poll at all.

retiny

[Of Sound Mind]

I think I've finally seen "the light" of what JTF is saying... I've now switched sides and advocate burying I-235... and I-35... and I-40... and I-44... and every major thoroughfare... and all traffic will just vaporize... all development barriers will be removed... and all our economic problems solved.

[bombermwc]

Except the major one....the tracks.

It would be nothing but a disaster.

[Just the facts]

I think there actually is a plan somewhere to route freight traffic around downtown OKC. I have long advocated for the urbanization of the railroad viaduct to remove the physiological barrier it presents. This has been done with amazing success in London, Paris, NYC, and countless other places. And by urbanization, I mean opening the space under and over the tracks for development.

This is a railroad viaduct in London which was converted to allow office use under the tracks (which run on top of the building).

[AP]

I think I've finally seen "the light" of what JTF is saying... I've now switched sides and advocate burying I-235... and I-35... and I-40... and I-44... and every major thoroughfare... and all traffic will just vaporize... all development barriers will be removed... and all our economic problems solved.

I know facts aren't big on you. And Freakonomics probably is a good source for you, or the links to studies talked about in the article. But, maybe you'll read this piece and learn a little bit. Probably not. You'll find a way to dismiss the facts and dismiss me as smoking something.

Freakonomics » Does Destroying Highways Solve Urban Traffic Congestion?

[venture]

I know facts aren't big on you. And Freakonomics probably is a good source for you, or the links to studies talked about in the article. But, maybe you'll read this piece and learn a little bit. Probably not. You'll find a way to dismiss the facts and dismiss me as smoking something.

Freakonomics » Does Destroying Highways Solve Urban Traffic Congestion?

Looking at the examples presented, I think the biggest missing piece in all of this has to be existing transit options that have helped absorb traffic as well. I would imagine having commuter rail combined with street car service in that are is going to be needed to soften the blow.

[Of Sound Mind]

I know facts aren't big on you. And Freakonomics probably is a good source for you, or the links to studies talked about in the article. But, maybe you'll read this piece and learn a little bit. Probably not. You'll find a way to dismiss the facts and dismiss me as smoking something.

Freakonomics » Does Destroying Highways Solve Urban Traffic Congestion?

Read it. Sounds good in theory. But as venture pointed out, OKC does not have the same transit alternatives that the cited examples have. What works in the urban-dense cities won't automatically work in places like OKC. In a utopian world where economic realities are non-existent, these solutions are flawless.

[Just the facts]

This subject seems to be more intuitive to some than it is to others. People drive because there is a road - period. That is basic undeniable fact #1 (no road - no driving). Fact #2 is that people adjust their driving based on traffic conditions. At some point traffic reached an equilibrium of how congested the road is vs. how much someone wants to get from point A to point B. At 5PM a lot of people want to get from A to B really bad because they are willing to drive in rush hour traffic (the worst of all congestion) to do it. Some group will also wait until 6PM to drive home (this is called latent-demand). If capacity is expanded members of the latent-demand group will move up to the 5PM time slot which will return congestion to its pre-expansion level but now will be 3 lanes of congestion instead of 2 (equilibrium will be reached again). And as ODOT predicts, the additional expansion will result in more people locating at one end of the expansion and working at the other end - THAT IS induced demand. The only way road expansion can happen and NOT produce induced demand is if a cap on development at one end of the expansion is put in place. For example, one would have to say that no new businesses could open in downtown OKC (or expand for that matter) unless there was an off-setting job loss in downtown. Then expansion could occur and no new cars would enter the equation and congestion (for the latent-demand group) would go down.

A Cal-trans study said that all freeway capacity expansion was gone within 4 years of the expansion. We are spending billion to save a few minutes every 4 years. What a waste of resources and tax dollars.

On edit - keep in mind that a single rail of mass transit can carry the same capacity as 15 lanes of interstate while costing a fraction of the price, but even if it was never built the people using I-235 would have a choice to make - either move closer to work or work closer to home. Either way, the result is that traffic simply evaporates, which has been proven time after time in cities around the world (including places like Milwaukee which doesn't have a mass transit system that replaced the freeway they removed).

[Rover]

Some people actually believe the demand is for driving. The demand is for being able to move to and from a place of choice to and from another place of choice. The road, railroad, boat, plane, etc. allows them to do it. But to say the road creates demand for driving is a fundamental misunderstanding of demand. The demand is to be able to live in a place they find desirable and affordable and to work, recreate, etc. in other places they choose or where they have opportunities. The road, railroad, etc. is merely the tool to satisfy a demand.

[Just the facts]

Like I said - some people...

[Rover]

Yes, intuition is always an easy claim because you can't prove it and often it is self claimed. Economics is a very complex study and most people totally disregard all the relevant data they wish to eliminate or ignore. Correlation and cause/effect often are very different.

If you put a road from nowhere to nowhere there would be no traffic on it. I have seen such roads. So merely putting a road in place does not create traffic. Putting a road in place to and from places people want to be enables demand to be fulfilled.

Since this topic was to bury or not to bury the road and it is unclear as to either the cost or the value of the results, it would be interesting to know what the actual value of the reclaimed space above the roadway would be. Any guestimates?

[bombermwc]

That's not exactly sound reasoning there JTF. At some level yes, if there is a lack of a road then you can't drive on a road. But you also are making the assumption that if the road were taken out and a rail line put in its place, that everyone that uses that road would instantly start using the rail.
1 - no politician would ever approve doing that because it would be political suicide because of the uproar in losing that artery
2 - even if a rail were put in, you would not find people here using it. All it would do would cause the traffic to be redirected to roads that can't handle it
3 - the limited amount of land that would be recovered would not create an economic impact high enough to even pay for the demolition of 235 (not that it would ever happen anyway). This same argument follows if you bury the road. You cannot bury it deep enough in OKC to be able to build on top of it. You will get some green space back, but in terms of a so-called "barrier", it will still exist....oh and so will the ACTUAL barrier...the rail. That would also mean that you've decided what the road will be for the next 100 years. So it actually reduces your options for altering the roadway in the future because its cost-prohibitive to change it. It's actually cheaper to just build a new one....check out the tunnels in Mobile, AL as an example. Rather than alter the Government St. tunnel, they built a brand new one for I-10. Both get clogged for miles in rush hour but there aren't any options available. There is a bridge (ie re-routing traffic like you're suggesting), but it's several miles (~5) up the river so its only used by bypass traffic. This is a road in the heart of their downtown as well....in many respects it would be a very similar project. They, in fact, built a new highway for access to their downtown to alleviate some of the traffic from the west. They do have a bus system (and it's more reliable than ours) and no one rides it. They're far more compact as a metro than OKC too. Granted it's only 250K people, but walkability really depends on block size areas, not sprawl. The city predates the U.S., so they've been around to see different models....and they are building...check out the RSA Battlehouse Tower...tallest in AL.

The last few posts are trying to turn this into a economics supply vs demand discussion. Problem is, transportation isn't economics. It's a service that is created to be able to handle the demand that it's produced...regardless of what form it takes. Part of that discussion is knowing your target market. In OKC, it's cars...hands down. Unless/Until a fully constructed commuter rail makes it faster to get from point A to point B than a car, it will never work. And that means with 235 too.....that's why the thing exists!

[Just the facts]

I don't know what to tell you Bomber but politicians all across America are doing exactly what you say they won't do. City after City are in the process right now of removing urban freeways and replacing them with at-grade streets. Yes some of them are also putting in better mass transit, but not all of them. They finally learned that spending transportation dollars to cover the growing travel distances is a dead-end street that we can't afford at tax rates people want to pay. If you want to pay the taxes necessary to keep moving large numbers of people between sprawling suburbia and employment centers then you will increasingly find yourself as a lone ranger, because the rest of us have wised up to the tax burden this practice is causing and don't want to pay that level of taxation.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s..._highways.html

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Three Syracuse public officials visited San Francisco this month to see the effects of replacing an elevated highway like Interstate 81 with a surface-level boulevard.

The Syracuse contingent included Andrew Maxwell, director of the Syracuse-Onondaga County Planning Agency; Van Robinson, president of the Syracuse Common Council; and Bill Simmons, executive director of the Syracuse Housing Authority.

...

Representatives from New Orleans, who are confronting similar decisions, also participated in the two-day visit earlier this month. The group met with urban planners, city officials and others to discuss the impacts of removing sections of highway from neighborhoods in San Francisco and Oakland.

[bombermwc]

Well you say that, but we haven't seen actual projects completed have we? And they aren't pulling the highway out if they are converting it to a blvd. That's very different from what you are saying do here...which is remove a road all together.

Although I don't really have to worry about it, because it wont ever happen.

[Just the facts]

Well you say that, but we haven't seen actual projects completed have we? And they aren't pulling the highway out if they are converting it to a blvd. That's very different from what you are saying do here...which is remove a road all together.

Although I don't really have to worry about it, because it wont ever happen.

Yes - it really has happened and is going to be happening even more. Also, I did say to replace I-235 with streets - that is what restoring the original grid is all about. Does it need to be a multi-lane boulevard? No, because 2 of them already exist on either side of it (Broadway and Lincoln) and commuter rail to Edmond is on the way. At some point in the next 15 years I-235 is going to reach its life-expectancy and will need to be replaced or removed. There is no way around it.

[bombermwc]

I don't see why you say that though. How is it near its life expectancy? MAJOR work is being done on the interchange to help traffic flow and HALF of it just got widened as part of the pre-project to the interchange. The only "old" part is some of the newest interstate in OKC outside of the turnpike and I-40. It's actually some of the best pavement in town too. Its held up better than any other road because it was built correctly. The only problem it has is at the 40 end where ODOT designed the most idiotic way of merging/exit only/exit patterns they possibly could. But even then, you're talking about the last mile of the thing.

Since it's a concrete road, "replacing" means that SHOULD it start to have pavement problems (which it does not), then they will just scrape it smooth. That extends it's life another 15 years before they could just go back and do it again. It's in no way in any danger of needing to be ripped up and replaced....and will NEVER be removed. I'm not sure what to say here, but it will never ever ever ever ever be removed. To think so it just fantasy. And burying it is just as fanciful. You may not agree with the road, but there are thousands of people that use it every day that do. I used it every day on my commute from MWC to OCU. I use it every time I go from my home up to Penn. I used it this week to go from Norman to Edmond. If you re-direct that traffic to Lincoln or Broadway (which, BTW didn't you just support Broadway being cut to 2-lanes for parking....how is that a viable Blvd?), all you're doing is creating traffic congestion and making people VERY unhappy. It's FAR FAR FAR FAR worse than whatever "barrier" you THINK it's created. I still stand by my comments about it not actually being a barrier when you look at the history of where it is and the facts about the imagery given as an example of how it's such a barrier. And I still see a lack of any evidence that shows (outside of opinion) that we would benefit in any way from removing it. In fact, the evidence all shows how bad it would be to remove it and it nothing else, it should be expanded.

If you don't think central arties should be expanded and instead be removed, then why did you support I-40's expansion? We've got plenty of comments from you on here from that. You don't get much more central that I-40 since its actually closer to the CBD than 235 is.