I40/I44 Interchange

[rte66man]

Haven’t heard anything on this one in a while now

The 8-Year Plan still has this scheduled to start in FFY2024

[bombermwc]

Well the saga of I44 continues. They have moved all the way up to the bridge just south of the I-40 junction.

I hope this is the last piece to do and they will leave this stretch of road freaking alone. MY lucky, they'll finish it up just in time to start the entire junction work so we can start enjoying that fun for the next 10 years.

[gopokes88]

Why not just rebuild the entire interchange instead of doing small tweaks constantly? The infrastructure money is there, and it would qualify.

[Ryan]

Why not just rebuild the entire interchange instead of doing small tweaks constantly? The infrastructure money is there, and it would qualify.

Is there a timeline on the current work right now?

[therhett17]

The stretch of WB I-40 between this interchange and the North Canadian is terrible, the potholes are awful and half of the road signs can't be read. Will that stretch be fixed when this interchange gets reworked?

[Snowman]

The stretch of WB I-40 between this interchange and the North Canadian is terrible, the potholes are awful and half of the road signs can't be read. Will that stretch be fixed when this interchange gets reworked?

While it looks like they have plans to do surface work on that area already on the 8-year plan, there is not really anything indicating it is expressly linked to work on the i40/i44 junction, and it is not uncommon for individual project's order in the plan to change as new versions of the plan come out.

[therhett17]

Drove through here recently, and I think the eastbound I-40 bridge is more potholes and patches than pavement. It's in pitiful shape, hope they at least re-pave it soon.

[therhett17]

The I-40 bridges need surface repair very badly. They're extremely rough to drive on and there are more dips and potholes than road. Hope the city does something soon, not sure what the hold up is.

[ManAboutTown]

The I-40 bridges need surface repair very badly. They're extremely rough to drive on and there are more dips and potholes than road. Hope the city does something soon, not sure what the hold up is.

Repair of these would be the responsibility of ODOT, not the City of Oklahoma City.

[BoulderSooner]

reminder

BRIDGE & APPROACHES I-40: EB & WB BRIDGES OVER I-44 5.3 MIS. E. OF THE CANADIAN C/L("K" INTERCHANGE). 28951(04) FFY 2024 $49,467,000.00 Let 04/2024 0.100 Mi. IS040 Div. 4 OKLAHOMA

I 40 bridges over 44 will start this year .. I 40 bridges over Portland will be this year as well ..

GRADE,DRAIN,BRIDGE & SURFACE I-40: EB & WB BRIDGES OVER PORTLAND AVE. 5.0 MIS. E. OF THE CANADIAN C/L 29852(04) FFY 2024 $20,327,000.00 Let 04/2024 1.000 Mi. IS040 Div. 4 OKLAHOMA

that area should be fun for a couple of years ..

[ChaseDweller]

Certainly they are replacing the bridges over I-40, not just resurfacing them...

[BoulderSooner]

Certainly they are replacing the bridges over I-40, not just resurfacing them...

50 mil means a full rebuild .. with more lanes

[bombermwc]

Well the good news is that there's quite a bit of room at this junction. They really can do a lot of this work without causing too much of a disruption.

For example, the actual bridges over I40 today, have a large gap between them. I'm guessing that was from whatever road was there before the current junction? So at least one bridge, of a good size, can go in there to take on the traffic there, with minimal down time for tie-in work.

For Portland, there's a similarly quite large gap between them. A new bridge can be constructed between the existing bridges, to offload the traffic while they work on the other. Or, what I've been seeing ODOT do, is actually build that bridge between the roads and just leave it as an "expansion" of the existing bridges, just filling in between them. They're doing that at I40-Anderson right now. If the grading between the two is close enough, they can just tie it all together and it saves having to rebulid the whole thing.

So honestly, i think this part at least has the potential to not be nearly as intrusive as one would initially think.

[fortpatches]

Well the good news is that there's quite a bit of room at this junction. They really can do a lot of this work without causing too much of a disruption.

For example, the actual bridges over I40 today, have a large gap between them. I'm guessing that was from whatever road was there before the current junction? So at least one bridge, of a good size, can go in there to take on the traffic there, with minimal down time for tie-in work.

For Portland, there's a similarly quite large gap between them. A new bridge can be constructed between the existing bridges, to offload the traffic while they work on the other. Or, what I've been seeing ODOT do, is actually build that bridge between the roads and just leave it as an "expansion" of the existing bridges, just filling in between them. They're doing that at I40-Anderson right now. If the grading between the two is close enough, they can just tie it all together and it saves having to rebulid the whole thing.

So honestly, i think this part at least has the potential to not be nearly as intrusive as one would initially think.

Kinda wish they would keep three lanes through the intersection - so East-bound EXIT 146 isn't an "Exit only" and continues straight to have three lanes over Portland past the EXIT 147A and across the I-44 overpass to meet up where they already split one lane into two lanes at (35.46057954606177, -97.56735549660256).

Westbound EXIT 147B - really wish they could figure out how to get people to understand that there is no merging onto I-44 - you get your own dedicated lane from that ramp so there is no need to go 30MPH when you take that exit. I wish I could put up "keep moving" signs or something. haha I was also wondering if a barrier could be put up so people cannot see the traffic on I-44 since maybe that is what is causing people to slow down. They see fast traffic so they slow since they are under the false impression of needing to merge.

[bombermwc]

Well for that one, it might be the feeling that you're going to tip over. It's a bit of a weird angle.

[zefferoni]

Westbound EXIT 147B - really wish they could figure out how to get people to understand that there is no merging onto I-44 - you get your own dedicated lane from that ramp so there is no need to go 30MPH when you take that exit. I wish I could put up "keep moving" signs or something. haha I was also wondering if a barrier could be put up so people cannot see the traffic on I-44 since maybe that is what is causing people to slow down. They see fast traffic so they slow since they are under the false impression of needing to merge.

Oh man. This drives me insane on my commute home every day. People are also fond of instantly merging to the far left lane once they get on I44, I've seen so many near misses from cars yeeting themselves over there as soon as they're past the merge. Meanwhile, I'm still in the right lane that is now completely empty and am able to get up to speed unimpeded.
The zipper merge there also drives me crazy in that nobody knows how to use it, but I've already beaten that dead horse upthread.

[mugofbeer]

There should be a longer space before traffic can merge to other lanes.

This is exactly why l am disgusted with the plans for l-35/l-240 interchange because traffic will merge directly onto l-35 from the loops instead of keeping it separate as it is now. People (18-wheelers specifically) won't use the length of the lane and accelerate up to speed before merging into highway traffic.

[fromdust]

reminder



I 40 bridges over 44 will start this year .. I 40 bridges over Portland will be this year as well ..
..

The year is winding down. Has anyone heard of any updates?? I'm so freaking fed up with these bridges....these have to be the worst in the entire city.

[therhett17]

The year is winding down. Has anyone heard of any updates?? I'm so freaking fed up with these bridges....these have to be the worst in the entire city.

There are more patches than road now. Absolutely horrid

[gjl]

Can anyone explain why road patching technology has not seemed to improve any in the last 50 years or longer. Technology for just about everything else has improved but not that. Just throw some asphalt in a hole and make sure it is not even with the surrounding road surface.

[bombermwc]

Can anyone explain why road patching technology has not seemed to improve any in the last 50 years or longer. Technology for just about everything else has improved but not that. Just throw some asphalt in a hole and make sure it is not even with the surrounding road surface.

OMG yes! I think the theory is if they level it, it will push down and then be a dip. Although i've never seem an asphalt hump that did that if they properly fixed the issue in the first place rather than just shoveling some crap on top with no effort (which does seem to be what most people do because its cheaper).

If they honestly did things properly, they would rip out a section and then repair it. But that's not really the "repair" team's purpose. They just patch it up to make the road last a little longer until its bad enough that someone feels like its time to do something about it for real (10 years later). I mean how many times do you see someone put asphalt down to "fix" concrete holes too. I really laugh at that one since you know in a couple of years, it's going to be gravel pebbles instead of a patch. But they can re-patch that some hole a dozen times and still save what it would have cost to actually fix the real problem.

[Plutonic Panda]

We still have three more months to go for more projects to be let for bid. I had thought the Edmond I-35 frontage roads project, I-35/Waterloo interchanges, and the I-44/I-44 bridges were supposed to be let for bid this year. As I understand it ODOT typically doesn't award and projects for bid in December. We'll see over the next couple months. Next months meeting in October we will get an updated 8 year plan so I am excited to see what projects they add or move up but the last few years have been extremely disappointing with a lot of projects getting pushed back. The state needs to better fund ODOT. Missouri just got together and decided to widen the entirety of I-70 through the whole f@cking state and they're doing the same thing with I-44. ODOT had a bone thrown at them by allowing them to be issued bonds a few years ago(maybe pre pandemic I can't remember) but they aren't allowed to take out bonds on their own. The state needs to give ODOT a major influx of cash or find a way to allow them to generate more revenue like raising gas taxes or something.

[nickeljoshua]

So while digging around the ODOT website, I found that the project that is currently out to bid is not a rebuild like we were hoping for and instead is a rehab of the existing bridges and repaving the I40 through that area. The budget is around 10 million and they put the contract at 120 days. You can look into it on the ODOT website. It has a bid opening date of September 12 and you can also view the plans put out to bid.
https://oklahoma.gov/odot/business-c...p-12-2024.html

[bombermwc]

Well that's a major disappointment because they wouldn't spend anything on it if they had plans to tear it out any time soon. BOOOOOO

[The]

Well that’s some horseshıt.