I-35 / I-240 Exchange

[Plutonic Panda]

Oklahoma Department of Transportation

[baralheia]

Work on this project begins in earnest today, according to the portable electronic message signs. This will be Phase 1a, reconstructing the ramps between Shields and Santa Fe on I-240, as well as relocation of the south-west service road.

[bombermwc]

it sure would be nice if they didn't block one of the lanes on 240 during rush hour where we're now down to 1 lane. It backed up traffic from 35 back to sunnylane today as they started putting up barrier. it actually could have been handled WAY better if they put the cones west of the junction since the work is after that. It would allow the 35 traffic to get out of the way and still keep 2 lanes flowing east of 35. keep 1 lane closed west of the junction for the work, but that still leaves 2. Instead, they made 240 traffic have one lane and then dedicated the other lane to traffic coming from 35 north, to 240 west....all 4 cars of it.

[baralheia]

ODOT tweeted this morning that the eastbound I-240 off ramp to Shields is now closed for reconstruction. The eastbound service road is also narrowed to one lane for this project.

[bombermwc]

Yup. They've taken out quite a bit of the concrete sides, taken out the guardrails, lights, etc. It's sort of an odd location to choose as the start of the whole project since it's so far away from the junction, but i guess it makes sense to cut off those ramps that will be gone so they aren't in the way. It would be nice to see the east bound shields to 240 ramp go next. It's dangerous enough on a normal day, but with limited merging next to temporary concrete barriers its going to be a lot worse and there's NO room for anyone to get away from an accident there.

[bombermwc]

Looks like they're making progress on the new walls for the lane expansion under Shields. The temporary road is now active on westbound and it looks like they'll be ready for the new temp lanes on east bound soon. Couple of things though....

1 - keeping the east bound on-ramp to 240 from shields doesnt make any sense because of the mess that there is with the lane closure. Although i think it's oddly caused there to be fewer wrecks because people are moving more slowly. And then they've kept the off-ramp from 240 west. Both of these are in the plans to be taken out so im curious why they didnt just take them out to begin with???

2 - The big one! - The routed traffic to the temporary lanes on 240 west today and did it by closing the inside lane. Guess what that did? Caused a traffic backup....duh. They had been land shifting so far and it kept the flow going. I'm not sure what idiot decided this plan, but with 35 traffic merging EXACTTLY at the same spot, it's squeezing more traffic in there than it can handle. I've already emailed ODOT to ask that someone re-evaluate the way this was done to allow for better flow. It looks like someone took the easy way out by just throwing up cones and a sign...but it's not the right way. shave up the lane markers and put some temporary reflectors up with the cones to direct traffic.....come on people, think flow!

[bombermwc]

Well no replied from ODOT...no surprise there. But i basically saw something that would tell me there's no chance in hell that they'll change it. They left the inside lane "open" because that's the path the construction vehicles are taking to get into the area. Hopefully this phase dooesnt take as long since they dont have all that wall shoring up to do.

When i left on Friday, the west bound traffic was backed up from the Shields bridge all the way to the Sunnyland bridge. COME ON!!!!! There really has to be a better way to do this.

[Pete]

[SoonerDave]

Someone with better eyes and understanding of road construction plans *please* help me. It looks like the phase currently under construction is depicted on that diagram as having I-240 go *OVER* Shields Blvd, but as I drive that stretch of road twice a day I see that's obviously (?) not what they're building right now. Am I just being a dunderhead and colossally misreading or misinterpreting that map?? Or is there a secondary part of this construction to elevate I-240 that I'm just missing??????

[Scott5114]

I think that the purple highlighting just went outside the lines. It's hard to tell with such a low-res map, though. There wouldn't be much of a point in switching the two.

The layout of this interchange reminds me a lot of the I-35/I-435 Johnson County Gateway interchange in Lenexa, Kansas, before the recent upgrades. It'll be a huge improvement over the cloverleaf, for sure.

[SoonerDave]

I think that the purple highlighting just went outside the lines. It's hard to tell with such a low-res map, though. There wouldn't be much of a point in switching the two.

The layout of this interchange reminds me a lot of the I-35/I-435 Johnson County Gateway interchange in Lenexa, Kansas, before the recent upgrades. It'll be a huge improvement over the cloverleaf, for sure.

Oh, absolutely. I've been driving that route (i-240) nearly every work day for the last 30 years (gulp) and I'm delighted to see a rebuild start. It's a little disheartening to see that the next phase won't come for four more years, but at least it's on the map. It's heartbreaking to see accidents in that area nearly *every day* for all these years. I hope perhaps the reconfiguration of the ramps in this first phase will help at least some.

[ljbab728]

http://m.newsok.com/article/5529733

One of the most dangerous interstate on-ramps in all of Oklahoma is about to get a major upgrade under a contract awarded Monday by the state Transportation Commission.
A $10.6 million contract to revamp the southwest corner of the Interstate 35/Interstate 240 interchange in South Oklahoma City was awarded Monday to Duit Construction/TTK Construction of Edmond. The contract includes about $500,000 in additional incentives for early completion of the project.

[SoonerDave]

http://m.newsok.com/article/5529733

Great news - especially work starting in 60-90 days. I'm guessing it will dovetail with the (near?) completion of the new ramps/paving going on right now.

[king183]

Great news - especially work starting in 60-90 days. I'm guessing it will dovetail with the (near?) completion of the new ramps/paving going on right now.

Good news the work will be done, but yet another fleecing of the taxpayer and unnecessary traffic disruption with this project taking 4 years. The idea that this type of project takes 48 months to complete is complete and utter BS.

[HangryHippo]

Good news the work will be done, but yet another fleecing of the taxpayer and unnecessary traffic disruption with this project taking 4 years. The idea that this type of project takes 48 months to complete is complete and utter BS.

I thought the NewsOK article said the total reconstruction would take 8 years, which is utter horse****!

[jn1780]

Good news the work will be done, but yet another fleecing of the taxpayer and unnecessary traffic disruption with this project taking 4 years. The idea that this type of project takes 48 months to complete is complete and utter BS.

I wonder if a possible Trump transportation stimulus would speed things up.

[king183]

I thought the NewsOK article said the total reconstruction would take 8 years, which is utter horse****!

Oh, god, you're right. I was just looking at the graphic, but the story does say 8 year project. Your description of it as "horse****" is spot on.

I truly don't understand why our legislature, governor, ANYONE drags ODOT and the contractors before a committee to explain this crap. Why do we constantly settle for this?

[baralheia]

The main reason that these projects take so long is funding. If ODOT had all the money to do the entire interchange up front, they could get it done just as quickly as our neighboring states... but because we don't adequately fund our state government and the Oklahoma Constitution requires state agencies to work on a cash basis and not incur debt, ODOT is forced to complete projects piecemeal. Phase 1a - relocating the service road in the SW quadrant of the intersection and reconstructing the ramp from eastbound I-240 to southbound I-35, is only the second phase of a project chopped into 6 phases. Once phases 1 and 1a are complete, then there will be no further work done to the interchange until at least 2020.

Here's an updated construction timeline map from ODOT (click to embiggen):

[gopokes88]

The main reason that these projects take so long is funding. If ODOT had all the money to do the entire interchange up front, they could get it done just as quickly as our neighboring states... but because we don't adequately fund our state government and the Oklahoma Constitution requires state agencies to work on a cash basis and not incur debt, ODOT is forced to complete projects piecemeal. Phase 1a - relocating the service road in the SW quadrant of the intersection and reconstructing the ramp from eastbound I-240 to southbound I-35, is only the second phase of a project chopped into 6 phases. Once phases 1 and 1a are complete, then there will be no further work done to the interchange until at least 2020.

Here's an updated construction timeline map from ODOT (click for larger map):

I don't think the average joe realizes how stupid and restrictive the OK constitution is

[bombermwc]

Im not sure why everyone thinks Texas does everything perfect. They spend a lot of money on roads, yes, but they also do a helluva lot of toll road construction these days too. Any new road in the DFW area is toll just like in OK.

Take a look at 635 and you can see how they spend a WHOLE lot of money to float the road above the express lanes, but gone are the HOV, in come the TOLL express lanes with varying prices. Not sure how that's an improvement for traffic flow. It's still just as clogged the entire length of 635 as it has been for 30 years. And short of buying up a couple billion dollars more of frontage, they're stuck. They simply pushed some of the cost off to those willing to pay the toll (which i would bet are either the wealthy or the visiting through traffic).

Want to talk about long term projects....I think Texas holds the current record for the 35W work in Forth Worth. It has a planned timeline of at LEAST 20 years. It's a complete disaster and if you've ever driven through that in the last 5 years, you know what i mean. The frontage roads/city streets are actually FASTER than the interstate.....absorb that for a minute. I saved almost an hour of sitting in traffic by letting Google Maps take me through parts of the frontage/city to bypass it at 2pm on a Friday. What the crap would rush hour look like.

Not to mention how when you get out of the main city interstates, the TX state highways are piles of complete crap. Yeah they're all glitzy in the cities and whatever, but outside of the cities they are even worse than OK state highways. I'm actually often impressed at how the "off-the-beaten-path" highways in OK are in such good shape considering the lower traffic. One thing that's helped that is how many of them were built with concrete and not asphalt, so they've held up better.

So say what you will, but i think NOT having the debt is still the better way to go. If we did incur debt, i think we'd simply see a longer term between projects because we'd also have interest to pay off, not just waiting for dollars to build up. And stop thinking the grass is greener in TX....it's not. It's a different variety, but it's still grass.

[SoonerDave]

Im not sure why everyone thinks Texas does everything perfect. They spend a lot of money on roads, yes, but they also do a helluva lot of toll road construction these days too. Any new road in the DFW area is toll just like in OK.

Take a look at 635 and you can see how they spend a WHOLE lot of money to float the road above the express lanes, but gone are the HOV, in come the TOLL express lanes with varying prices. Not sure how that's an improvement for traffic flow. It's still just as clogged the entire length of 635 as it has been for 30 years. And short of buying up a couple billion dollars more of frontage, they're stuck. They simply pushed some of the cost off to those willing to pay the toll (which i would bet are either the wealthy or the visiting through traffic).

Want to talk about long term projects....I think Texas holds the current record for the 35W work in Forth Worth. It has a planned timeline of at LEAST 20 years. It's a complete disaster and if you've ever driven through that in the last 5 years, you know what i mean. The frontage roads/city streets are actually FASTER than the interstate.....absorb that for a minute. I saved almost an hour of sitting in traffic by letting Google Maps take me through parts of the frontage/city to bypass it at 2pm on a Friday. What the crap would rush hour look like.

Not to mention how when you get out of the main city interstates, the TX state highways are piles of complete crap. Yeah they're all glitzy in the cities and whatever, but outside of the cities they are even worse than OK state highways. I'm actually often impressed at how the "off-the-beaten-path" highways in OK are in such good shape considering the lower traffic. One thing that's helped that is how many of them were built with concrete and not asphalt, so they've held up better.

So say what you will, but i think NOT having the debt is still the better way to go. If we did incur debt, i think we'd simply see a longer term between projects because we'd also have interest to pay off, not just waiting for dollars to build up. And stop thinking the grass is greener in TX....it's not. It's a different variety, but it's still grass.

Lots of wisdom here. I take the annual trek to Dallas for OU-Texas just about every year, and the construction on I35E from Denton to Dallas is virtually impassable on that Friday afternoon. Several years ago, I discovered what I think is the 380 loop eastbound toward the Tollway and it is a *breeze* back to 635. Yeah, its a toll road, but given that the construction turns I35E into a parking lot for literally *hours* I think it's a cheap investment to save time. I don't know what road planning whiz kid came up with the idea of rebuilding ALL of I-35E between Denton at Dallas at essentially the same time, but I'd have to think it was someone who never has to *drive* it. To say it's nightmarish is like saying the Titanic had an ice problem.

[Plutonic Panda]

It's funny when people talk about bad traffic now that la is my home lol

But what boggles my mind is the at grade crossings in west Texas on interstates. I don't care how low the traffic counts are, no excuse for that. Although Texas now has plans to upgrade every one, I still have trouble believing they're there now.

[baralheia]

Interesting that despite not specifically naming a state, people assumed I was referencing Texas. Though that's not entirely wrong, Texas isn't the only state I was thinking of that has a better-funded DOT that can get similar projects done much faster... MoDOT was more at the front of my mind when I made that statement. Of course, no state is without it's troubles; no DOT is without it's lemon projects - but other states seem to have their stuff together enough to get "simple" interchange projects done much more quickly than ODOT, and a large part of that is funding. Now, I'm certainly not saying all highway projects should be done on credit, running up a huge deficit. But not having that funding vehicle as an option, combined with a seeming inability to properly fund the department in the first place, results in a "simple" interchange project like the I-35/I-240 interchange that stays under construction for 6-8 YEARS. If ODOT could fund the entire project right now, it could be fully complete in one to two years.

[Plutonic Panda]

IMO, if you want to look for the best roads and highways, look no further than Utah. That state not only has the best quality roads I've ever seen, but the designs are great as well.

[Snowman]

Interesting that despite not specifically naming a state, people assumed I was referencing Texas. Though that's not entirely wrong, Texas isn't the only state I was thinking of that has a better-funded DOT that can get similar projects done much faster... MoDOT was more at the front of my mind when I made that statement. Of course, no state is without it's troubles; no DOT is without it's lemon projects - but other states seem to have their stuff together enough to get "simple" interchange projects done much more quickly than ODOT, and a large part of that is funding. Now, I'm certainly not saying all highway projects should be done on credit, running up a huge deficit. But not having that funding vehicle as an option, combined with a seeming inability to properly fund the department in the first place, results in a "simple" interchange project like the I-35/I-240 interchange that stays under construction for 6-8 YEARS. If ODOT could fund the entire project right now, it could be fully complete in one to two years.

Ironically I was just talking to someone from rural Kansas, now living in Kansas City the other day and they kept going on about how terrible the condition of Missouri roads are and how much needs done.