Traffic congestion

[Hondo1]

Just read an article about OKC being ranked 19th in the nation for traffic congestion according to a survey done by Texas A & M University. But recently I've noticed that traffic on my commute to work has been much lighter than normal. I thought it would pick up when school resumed but it hasn't, which concerns me somewhat. I don't enjoy heavy traffic but it does reflect many things including growth, jobs, commerce. etc. etc. I hope we're not contracting. Is it my imagination or Is anyone else experiencing anything similar?

[rezman]

I usually leave the house at or right before 5:00am. I used to be one of only a handfull of vehicles on the road on my route to work. Over the past several months, I've been noticing more traffic out early. Not sure what that means other than there's more folks out early.

[OKCRT]

Just read an article about OKC being ranked 19th in the nation for traffic congestion according to a survey done by Texas A & M University. But recently I've noticed that traffic on my commute to work has been much lighter than normal. I thought it would pick up when school resumed but it hasn't, which concerns me somewhat. I don't enjoy heavy traffic but it does reflect many things including growth, jobs, commerce. etc. etc. I hope we're not contracting. Is it my imagination or Is anyone else experiencing anything similar?

Don't worry,it will be back to normal soon. Traffic gets a little heavier every year. 20 years ago it was free sailing,not anymore.

[Snowman]

It seems like people are getting worse about rubbernecking at accidents and somewhat related managing to create a traffic jam where nothing obvious has happened (and there was not any sort of road design thing like a drop in number of lanes or a highway juncture that might cause issues on it's own).

[KayneMo]

I'm a new commuter since moving to OKC about 4 weeks ago (I drive from downtown to Newcastle), but I was surprised to experience how busy I-44 is, especially further south of the city. Both northbound and southbound 44 (technically EB and WB) is quite heavy when I leave OKC in the morning and also when I come back in the afternoon. In the mornings, northbound 44 has backed up several times from about 240 all the way to SW 149th. I was just surprised to see that many commuters go into the city on 44 from south of the Canadian River.

[White Peacock]

20 years ago it was free sailing,not anymore.

Man, in the 90s, it was a breeze going anywhere at just about any time of day. The only time you'd come upon a traffic jam on the interstate would be in the event of an accident, and the roads near Penn Square Mall were horrible shortly before Christmas. Otherwise you could get from one extreme point to the other in 20 minutes tops.

My shift at work recently changed to 8a-5p, and I expected nightmare traffic. It's more congested in the mornings, but manageable if you're aggressive enough. That 5pm traffic on Memorial is a bitch, though. We've certainly outgrown the little-big-town infrastructure that we built in the 20th century.

KayneMo mentioned how congested I-44 can get; it can be a serious nightmare south of 40 in the Northbound lanes. It's almost to 217 (PDX) levels of congestion. It's still a better place to drive than Dallas or Seattle, so we've got that going for us.

[adaniel]

I'm a new commuter since moving to OKC about 4 weeks ago (I drive from downtown to Newcastle), but I was surprised to experience how busy I-44 is, especially further south of the city. Both northbound and southbound 44 (technically EB and WB) is quite heavy when I leave OKC in the morning and also when I come back in the afternoon. In the mornings, northbound 44 has backed up several times from about 240 all the way to SW 149th. I was just surprised to see that many commuters go into the city on 44 from south of the Canadian River.

OKC has an extremely large catchment area in terms of employment. I knew at least 3 people from Chickasha or southward who commuted to OKC daily, so I am not surprised that 44 experiences heavy traffic that far outside the city. Even moreso, 40 both east and west of the city can be heavy at times despite being far outside the urbanized area.

As far as the original question, I think traffic patterns are too fickle to extrapolate any short term economic trends from them. No doubt the local economy has tapped the brakes compared to last year, but definitely not enough to affect traffic in any meaningful way. Summer vacation season is still going on and will until after Labor Day, so that probably has more of an affect than anything.

I am guessing this is the survey you were referring to. Kinda interesting OKC ranks 19th in traffic despite ranking 41st in metro size.

[OKCRT]

Man, in the 90s, it was a breeze going anywhere at just about any time of day. The only time you'd come upon a traffic jam on the interstate would be in the event of an accident, and the roads near Penn Square Mall were horrible shortly before Christmas. Otherwise you could get from one extreme point to the other in 20 minutes tops.

My shift at work recently changed to 8a-5p, and I expected nightmare traffic. It's more congested in the mornings, but manageable if you're aggressive enough. That 5pm traffic on Memorial is a bitch, though. We've certainly outgrown the little-big-town infrastructure that we built in the 20th century.

KayneMo mentioned how congested I-44 can get; it can be a serious nightmare south of 40 in the Northbound lanes. It's almost to 217 (PDX) levels of congestion. It's still a better place to drive than Dallas or Seattle, so we've got that going for us.

2 major Interstates going right through the city so we catch a lot of traffic that is coming and going to other cities/states. Couple that with the growing pop. and the bottlenecks and it can become quite heavy at times.

[Hondo1]

Well, maybe it is the summer season. For reference, my commuter route is east on 122nd to Hefner Parkway then south to I-44 to Lincoln. Normally, traffic accessing the on-ramp to Hefner Pkwy is backed up well beyond the Hefner Police Station. Merging onto the parkway is generally slow and laborious, however recently, my entire 11 mile commute is not much different than driving on a Saturday afternoon.

[Zuplar]

I'm a new commuter since moving to OKC about 4 weeks ago (I drive from downtown to Newcastle), but I was surprised to experience how busy I-44 is, especially further south of the city. Both northbound and southbound 44 (technically EB and WB) is quite heavy when I leave OKC in the morning and also when I come back in the afternoon. In the mornings, northbound 44 has backed up several times from about 240 all the way to SW 149th. I was just surprised to see that many commuters go into the city on 44 from south of the Canadian River.

Yeah I44 is always terrible always it seems. I try my best to not use it which sucks since it's the closest interstate to me. They could add an extra 2 lanes in each direction, but not sure if that'd help.

[Bellaboo]

My commute is 19 miles mostly on I-40 and I-235. For years the summer (roughly mid may to mid august) season has been light compared to when school is in. The traffic has not yet changed in the last couple of weeks like it has in the past, and for that matter seems to be even less congested in the last week.
Has there been that many local job losses ?

[rezman]

I'm a new commuter since moving to OKC about 4 weeks ago (I drive from downtown to Newcastle), but I was surprised to experience how busy I-44 is, especially further south of the city. Both northbound and southbound 44 (technically EB and WB) is quite heavy when I leave OKC in the morning and also when I come back in the afternoon. In the mornings, northbound 44 has backed up several times from about 240 all the way to SW 149th. I was just surprised to see that many commuters go into the city on 44 from south of the Canadian River.

That traffic is a sign of the growth in far southwest side of Okc , Mustang and the Tri-City area... (Newcastle,Tuttle, Blanchard) plus Bridgecreek, Dibble, Amber... Etc.

[adaniel]

My commute is 19 miles mostly on I-40 and I-235. For years the summer (roughly mid may to mid august) season has been light compared to when school is in. The traffic has not yet changed in the last couple of weeks like it has in the past, and for that matter seems to be even less congested in the last week.
Has there been that many local job losses ?

As of July of this year, job growth in OKC was 2.4% YoY

Oklahoma City : Southwest Information Office : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

And while I cannot speak for the current population growth, the civilian labor force is as big as its ever been.

They have not come out with July's total UE rate, but the June 2015 rate was the exact same as it was in June 2014.

[Teo9969]

Keep in mind that lots of infrastructure changes have happened to metro area interstates in the last few years, and I'm sure traffic patterns change at a relatively slow pace. Those updates may just now be showing improvement to the network. I have nothing to back this up, it's just a hunch.

To combat anecdote with anecdote, I would say that my commute to work (4:00 - 5:00 PM taking WB I-44 from Western to Britton Rd. via NB LHP) seems to be as busy as ever. It's not particularly consistent, but I feel like backups are happening earlier than they ever have, and I generally just feel like there's more traffic around me than there was 4 or 5 years ago.

[KayneMo]

Average annual daily traffic for 2014 for the metro. The highest count in the metro, and state, is on I-44 between 23rd and 36th at 163,400 vehicles per day (a total of 59.6 million vehicles traversed this part of I-44 in 2014).
http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/Maps/...4/UrbanMap.pdf

[Plutonic Panda]

OKC was ranked as having the 19th worse traffic in the US. Surprising actually. Tulsa is in the 40's.

http://www.weather.com/travel/commut..._No_7_20151020

[Uptowner]

Not surprising at all. OKC has been home base all my life and it just gets larger in area and denser in the core. Yet no new infrastructure in the decades I've been driving here. It just gets worse, and the driving habits more bizarre.

I have a theory that I think is one of many, contributing factors. I recently lived a block away from the large elementary school I attended in the early 80's. There was no traffic in the neighborhood, we rode our bikes all over the streets and those crappy cars from the era were basically incapable of speeding.

Fast forward 30 years: the surrounding streets are now a 1 lane impassable clusterf@^k of parents camping to pick up their kids. I now live near yet another school and it's the same story. I get worked up into minor rages by parents who are Just plain shutting villa down, blocking side streets and laying on their horns thinking I'm trying to snatch their parking spot or skip them in line while trying to come home.

What happened to the bus? I rode the bus/biked(in the warm months) until I could afford my own pos car in junior year. 1 bus = 40 kids. That's THOUSANDS of cars on the road. Leading right into rush hour. I don't understand it. I hear the bus doesn't deliver unless you live less than a mile away now in OKC. That's ludicrous! I'd gladly pay some kind of "get the brats, back on the bus tax"

Then there's the "it's not safe for children anymore" argument. But that's a totally different topic.

[Uptowner]

*besides the highway system. I always end up moving to be closer to work and most of my transit is on surface streets and boulevards with the exception of the belle isle to I-235 slingshot into the eastern core. Thank odot it's open again.

[Jeepnokc]

Not surprising at all. OKC has been home base all my life and it just gets larger in area and denser in the core. Yet no new infrastructure in the decades I've been driving here. It just gets worse, and the driving habits more bizarre.

I have a theory that I think is one of many, contributing factors. I recently lived a block away from the large elementary school I attended in the early 80's. There was no traffic in the neighborhood, we rode our bikes all over the streets and those crappy cars from the era were basically incapable of speeding.

Fast forward 30 years: the surrounding streets are now a 1 lane impassable clusterf@^k of parents camping to pick up their kids. I now live near yet another school and it's the same story. I get worked up into minor rages by parents who are Just plain shutting villa down, blocking side streets and laying on their horns thinking I'm trying to snatch their parking spot or skip them in line while trying to come home.

What happened to the bus? I rode the bus/biked(in the warm months) until I could afford my own pos car in junior year. 1 bus = 40 kids. That's THOUSANDS of cars on the road. Leading right into rush hour. I don't understand it. I hear the bus doesn't deliver unless you live less than a mile away now in OKC. That's ludicrous! I'd gladly pay some kind of "get the brats, back on the bus tax"

Then there's the "it's not safe for children anymore" argument. But that's a totally different topic.

I agree. Part of the problem now also is how expansive the school districts have gotten as the metropolitan area has gotten larger. If you are at the end of the bus route, it is an hour or more extra on the bus 2 times a day. This is valuable time for homework, etc before the evening extracurricular activities. Thus, we car pool kids in our neighborhood with two other families.

[MagzOK]

ODOT attempted to get an outer loop done through the eastern sides of the metro as to ease our central interstate traffic problems but the people spoke and shot it down. It was the 'not in my backyard' citizens. But really, and outer loop through the areas surely would have brought economic development to the eastern region. MWC leaders were fully in favor of it seeing the economic potential.

[BBatesokc]

My schedule is such I can normally just choose not to drive in specific areas during peak congestion. However, the last couple of weeks my work has necessitated me going from East Edmond to downtown daily. In my experience, traffic along I-35 to downtown is pretty heavy when you'd expect it to be (7am-8:30am). So much so I decided to leave the house around 6am. This way I tend to head home around 4pm and miss the flood of people leaving downtown starting around 4:30pm. I usually utilize my Waze app as its great at letting me know about accidents and such.

To me, the worst is going from Moore to OKC and vice versa. Fortunately I rarely have that drive. 2nd worse is Broadway extension in the morning and the 3rd is the Parkway/Portland route around Memorial headed north. Had a couple of weeks worth of work that direction and it was a nightmare!

[John1780]

I used to live in Dallas, and this doesn't approach the near parking lot conditions that plague the DFW metro area, but it can get fairly bad on I-44 and Broadway ext. With that said, I just leave for work around 6:30 now and it's miles better than leaving out at 7:00.

[corwin1968]

I've been commuting Southbound on the Hefner Parkway for about 17 years and it' gotten so bad that I now dread the drive every morning. Another poster was right about the rubbernecking getting worse. I've worked on The SW side (along SW 44th) since 2001 and I have a hard time believing how much traffic has grown in that area. It sometimes takes several minutes just to get out of a parking lot because there are so many cars.

[kevinpate]

I do not do many early mornings in OKC, but when I do, I'm leaving Norman at 6:30 or so. I enjoy a relatively care-free, rarely touch the brakes trip into downtown. I grab a drink and perhaps a sandwich somewhere and then catch up on emails, reg. mail, and daily file review while already in okc, rather than plug away at it at home/office and then crawl into OKC with the other sit and wait on the interstate crowd.

Sometimes I use a quiet corner in the court bldg. and sometimes I just use my vehicle. Depends on outside weather/temp.

It's been a while since I had to fuss with afternoon congestion. I work around it and peacefully coexist most of the time.

If I had a regular schedule in downtown okc, I'd do the same on a daily basis. Hard to be productive in stop and wait on the interstate, but beat it in the am or defer it it in the early eve and wasted wait time becomes productive time.

[Uptowner]

DFW is another beast altogether. At time I think it rivals LA bit then I remember those haunting trips on the 10 and 101 where everyone is doing 85mph bumper to bumper in gleaming luxury cars at dusk headed toward the hills in the westbound lanes.

I recently had a trip that required a crosstown Dallas trip on W-bound I-30 on a Sunday afternoon. 30 minutes and 100 yards down the road my wife says "oh dear there must be a fatal accident." I started laughing hysterically and told her it was just church traffic. "You should see it at rush hour, people just abandon their cars on the median and walk to work."