BEWARE!!! Crosstown Blvd Speedtrap

[betts]

Speed limit is going to be 25 in the non-elevated portion. Personally I'm hoping for speed bumps. There will be a lot of potential pedestrians crossing the boulevard. OKC must become a more pedestrian-friendly downtown. This whole conversation illustrates why the boulevard was a disastrous idea.

[OKCisOK4me]

For reals Betts! The fact that anyone is surprised about a "speedtrap" here is no surprise at all for those of us who have been pushing for slower speed limits on the boulevard. To slow from 65 to 45 from the exit, and driving on the flyover ramp toward the old I-40 alignment, if you lay off the gas pedal on that exit only ramp, you'll easily be doing 40 by the time you hit the 45mph limit. Bravo for the speedtrap!

[Plutonic Panda]

For reals Betts! The fact that anyone is surprised about a "speedtrap" here is no surprise at all for those of us who have been pushing for slower speed limits on the boulevard. To slow from 65 to 45 from the exit, and driving on the flyover ramp toward the old I-40 alignment, if you lay off the gas pedal on that exit only ramp, you'll easily be doing 40 by the time you hit the 45mph limit. Bravo for the speedtrap!

What is the point of having lower speeds on a street where no one is going to be walking? Seriously. Explain the point of that.

[betts]

Who said no one is going to be walking on the boulevard? Or at least crossing it? The park will undoubtedly have adjacent housing. No one will be walking from there to school, Thunder games, to the Myriad Gardens, to downtown restaurants? How about convention goers? They will never be going to the park? Or people attending events at the park won't be crossing the boulevard? People drive down my street at 40-50 mph sometimes (all I've seen doing that under the age of 30) and I worry that a pedestrian will be hit. How about a street with high pedestrian traffic? OKC police can add to their coffers on the boulevard all they want as far as I'm concerned. Teach drivers early that there are consequences to breaking the law there.

[Plutonic Panda]

Who said no one is going to be walking on the boulevard? Or at least crossing it? The park will undoubtedly have adjacent housing. No one will be walking from there to school, Thunder games, to the Myriad Gardens, to downtown restaurants? How about convention goers? They will never be going to the park? Or people attending events at the park won't be crossing the boulevard? People drive down my street at 40-50 mph sometimes (all I've seen doing that under the age of 30) and I worry that a pedestrian will be hit. How about a street with high pedestrian traffic? OKC police can add to their coffers on the boulevard all they want as far as I'm concerned. Teach drivers early that there are consequences to breaking the law there.

Have you even been on the BLVD? There are no sidewalks. It isn't even at grade. ItsIt's elevated. No one is walking on it. It's a highway.

[Urbanized]

The problem is that it was built for 70 MPH speeds, but limited at 45. The lanes aren't 9 feet. More like 11 or 12. People don't (naturally) set their speeds based upon speed limit signs. They base it upon how fast the road FEELS. We respond instinctively to our built environment. DESIGN is the problem here; NOT the people who are intuitively responding to that design. It's a bait and switch.

[jn1780]

Who said no one is going to be walking on the boulevard? Or at least crossing it? The park will undoubtedly have adjacent housing. No one will be walking from there to school, Thunder games, to the Myriad Gardens, to downtown restaurants? How about convention goers? They will never be going to the park? Or people attending events at the park won't be crossing the boulevard? People drive down my street at 40-50 mph sometimes (all I've seen doing that under the age of 30) and I worry that a pedestrian will be hit. How about a street with high pedestrian traffic? OKC police can add to their coffers on the boulevard all they want as far as I'm concerned. Teach drivers early that there are consequences to breaking the law there.

No one is going to be walking on the western half. It's a a glorified ramp. Might as well be able to drive fast through this deserted stretch of road until you actually get to the first intersection.

[Urbanized]

Part of the problem on the existing approaches is that they will encourage continued high speeds on the at-grade portion. An example of this effect is the people who fly off of I-235 and routinely hit Walnut, the Walnut Street bridge, and even (the ultra-wide) Mickey Mantle in Bricktown at 40-50 mph.

That's why the portion of the boulevard yet left to be designed SHOULD have narrowed lanes, wide sidewalks, protected bike lanes, street trees, parking lanes, and as many design cues as possible (BESIDES speed limit signs) to tell drivers to slow the eff down. But honestly, I wouldn't count on many of those, either.

[Spartan]

That would require this city to stand up to one of the most aggressive cabals of traffic engineers ever..

Well, most people don't go more than 10 over here, and that is a stretch. You can fly by people doing the speed limit in this city.

Take it as it is, but the BLVD. is there and that's what we have, so appropriate speeds need to be set.

It's astounding because the way traffic engineers think is not the physical determinism that you outline. The approach is universally applied to linear infrastructure, like sewer lines and power lines, where you can improve and adjust flow and service levels accordingly. In other words, in theory a speed limit controls the flow of traffic on a roadway and will bring it down to a speed that works to meet the mitigation assurances ODOT has lined out in the EIS.

Traffic engineers should be empowered to draw specs and nothing more, particularly create policy, because they do not have policy backgrounds and the policies they tend to create resemble the same fragmented understanding of urban environments. Yesterday in Columbus our chief mobility engineer was just ran over on a street that I argued to him a month ago was too wide and fast. It's horrifying because as masses of people return to our downtowns, more people are going to die because our planning and traffic policies don't value pedestrians and bicyclists.

This boulevard is an epic fail, and this thread with people complaining about speeding tickets merely contributes a little more to the evidence. The state needs to reach some kind of agreement to stop doing damage to OKC.

Have you even been on the BLVD? There are no sidewalks. It isn't even at grade. ItsIt's elevated. No one is walking on it. It's a highway.

We know. That's the problem. Use your brain.

[Urbanized]

Here are compelling numbers on mixing speed and pedestrians:

Effects of Speed on Pedestrian Fatality Rates

Newton's laws dictate that a doubling in vehicle speed results in a stopping distance four times as long and four times as much kinetic energy absorbed during an impact. Driver response times further increase stopping distances. As a result, a small increase in roadway traffic speeds results in a disproportionately large increase in pedestrian fatalities...

...Relationship of Vehicle Speed to Odds of Pedestrian Death in Collision

Vehicle Speed Odds of Pedestrian Death
20 mph 5%
30 mph. 45%
40 mph. 85%
...

[Urbanized]

The problem isn't the people speeding. The problem is the people who designed the road in such a way as to make people feel like they SHOULD be speeding.

[Tritone]

Relax. When the potholes develop drivers will slow down. Problem solved.

[Plutonic Panda]

The problem is that it was built for 70 MPH speeds, but limited at 45. The lanes aren't 9 feet. More like 11 or 12. People don't (naturally) set their speeds based upon speed limit signs. They base it upon how fast the road FEELS. We respond instinctively to our built environment. DESIGN is the problem here; NOT the people who are intuitively responding to that design. It's a bait and switch.

Thank you. That's that's what I'm trying to say. I guess I'm not good at wording or phrasing my thoughts.

[Plutonic Panda]

We know. That's the problem. Use your brain.

OK< so why are we advocating for lower speed limits on this portion then when we know there will be no pedestrians around and no reason not to have higher speeds?

[Spartan]

No, I am advocating for ACOG to form its own DOT and then get recognized by federal DOT as Central Oklahoma's official coordinating agency, and get its own direct appropriations from now on. A la Chicago DOT.

ODOT does a great job designing roadways for the Guymon or Vinita

[catch22]

The problem is that it was built for 70 MPH speeds, but limited at 45. The lanes aren't 9 feet. More like 11 or 12. People don't (naturally) set their speeds based upon speed limit signs. They base it upon how fast the road FEELS. We respond instinctively to our built environment. DESIGN is the problem here; NOT the people who are intuitively responding to that design. It's a bait and switch.

Exactly. Signage will never reduce the speed limit of the design.

SW 54th street north of the airport is designed for 60 MPH, has only 1 intersecting street (Air Cargo Rd) between Portland and MacArthur, and only two actively used driveways (Metro Tech and the Guard base). 54th Street goes under Meridian as an underpass, and has high speed exits to connect to Meridian. It is posted for 45 mph. Without being a conspiracy theorist, I think the city deliberately overdesigns certain roads with the intention of posting a really slow speed limit for revenue. Sw 54th is one of the most patrolled streets in the city when it comes to speed traps. I've been using it for 5 years and at least twice a week they have the speed traps up. Gotta keep the city revenue coming in.

[catch22]

Exactly. Signage will never reduce the speed limit of the design.

SW 54th street north of the airport is designed for 60 MPH, has only 1 intersecting street (Air Cargo Rd) between Portland and MacArthur, and only two actively used driveways (Metro Tech and the Guard base). 54th Street goes under Meridian as an underpass, and has high speed exits to connect to Meridian. It is posted for 45 mph. Without being a conspiracy theorist, I think the city deliberately overdesigns certain roads with the intention of posting a really slow speed limit for revenue. Sw 54th is one of the most patrolled streets in the city when it comes to speed traps. I've been using it for 5 years and at least twice a week they have the speed traps up. Gotta keep the city revenue coming in.

Edit: SW 54th street has 11 1/2 foot lane widths. I-44 just east of the airport has... 12 foot lane widths. So, 6 inches is the difference between interstate highways speed and 45 mph OCPD speed trap speeds.

[betts]

Have you even been on the BLVD? There are no sidewalks. It isn't even at grade. ItsIt's elevated. No one is walking on it. It's a highway.

The part you've been on will connect with the at-grade portion. I don't trust people to slow down when they magically arrive at at-grade. In the two blocks where I live, there are two lights at the ends and a stop sign in the middle. It's a residential street and we still have people screaming through at 40-50 mph at times, running the stop sign. It's definitely going to happen on the boulevard and something bad is going to happen to a pedestrian and the unlucky person who hits them. The more speed traps on the boulevard, the merrier, as you can only get a ticket if you're breaking the law.

[OKCisOK4me]

What is the point of having lower speeds on a street where no one is going to be walking? Seriously. Explain the point of that.

You just need to learn to slow down son...

[Plutonic Panda]

You just need to learn to slow down son...

Alright

[Tritone]

It is kind of mean to build a road that could easily handle higher speed (SW 54th is an excellent example) and then impose a lower speed limit.

I can see Urbanized's point about the "feel" of a road and figure that's what Plutonic Panda is writing about.

We all probably need to slow down once in a while; I know I've been rolling along comfortably, looked at the speedo-meter and thought "Whoa! I'm going way too fast." Having a high speed limit at one end of the boulevard where there are no pedestrians could certainly cause me to forget to slow down when I got to the pedestrian-rich environment. Rumble strips would probably help but maybe not.

[tfvc.org]

There are other roads that feel like they should be at a slower speed rate and are marked at higher. South Western between Norman and OKC used to be that way when it was a dangerous narrow 2 lane road. Marked at 55 but should have been at 35-40. Now it is a nice wide 4 laner and it feels like it should be 60-65 in places.

[Spartan]

Yikes... South Western is four lanes all the way to Robinson now?

[Anonymous.]

Horrible quality, but just for clarification of what the OP is talking about:

In yellow is where they start shooting your speed, and the red/blue circle is where they sit.

[RadicalModerate]

I thought They tore down The Crosstown Expressway at least a couple of years ago.
Oh. For just a moment there, I forgot for a second, that this is now the Crosstown Boulevard.
Sorry for any Confusion.

Take that as a low-key, suburban, Spartan: "Yikes"!
Without the symbolism implied.