Traffic in OKC

[Teo9969]

To comment on everything up thread, I know it can be problematic to create too much capacity, but if there's one place to plan for the future, it's interstate interchanges. At least regrade and redrain for additional lanes to be added 20+years out, even if you're not pouring concrete for another 20 years. There's got to be a better way to plan for things than providing just enough for now only to have to screw traffic up again at a major interchange 20-30 years later. The collective loss of time to the city because of traffic at that junction (and others) is a major social and economic issue. We need to think about what happens if OKC has an Austin/Seattle style boom sometime in the next 30 years and have the foresight to spend a little bit of extra money and time now to save us what will be a lot more money and a lot more time between now and 2050.

[HFAA Alum]

To comment on everything up thread, I know it can be problematic to create too much capacity, but if there's one place to plan for the future, it's interstate interchanges. At least regrade and redrain for additional lanes to be added 20+years out, even if you're not pouring concrete for another 20 years. There's got to be a better way to plan for things than providing just enough for now only to have to screw traffic up again at a major interchange 20-30 years later. The collective loss of time to the city because of traffic at that junction (and others) is a major social and economic issue. We need to think about what happens if OKC has an Austin/Seattle style boom sometime in the next 30 years and have the foresight to spend a little bit of extra money and time now to save us what will be a lot more money and a lot more time between now and 2050.

The only way to mitigate that is to give more options in terms of public transportation. If the state doesn't invest in things like high-speed rail or subway lines, the problems will continue to exist. You can build and expand as much interstate you want, all that does is further congest the roads for the future. Then there's maintenance delays for road fixing and bridge repairs, and then there's more of a chance of an accident to occur since there will be more drivers. And since there will be more drivers, there will be a need to maintenance those bridges and roads more frequently. It's time we stop living in the 20th century and start looking to expand our travel options to make the state friendlier to travel and tourism.

[Plutonic Panda]

Induced demand is malarkey and there is zero evidence of it in OKC. There are no numbers for how much traffic accounts for induced demand nor is a distinction made from it and latent demand.