OKC Boulevard

[BDP]

Im sure the "build more parking lots in downtown" crowd on this board love this. Elevated lanes that lead right up to your front row parking spot to the Thunder game.Bringing all of the amenities of Memorial road to Downtown.

On game nights, it probably will be a parking lot.

[HOT ROD]

i was going to just say, is traffic bad on Thunder nights?

not sure how this will "help".

[mugofbeer]

Looks like they have pulled most of the dead pine trees out on the west section. With about 90% of them dying...clearly wasn't the right choice to begin with or they got a shipment of unhealthy trees.

The natural selection of trees that grow in Oklahoma City, l don't think, has ever included pines. Plant what grows naturally here unless you plan to give them a lot of TLC and water.

[d-usa]

I drive on the thing eastbound from I-40 the other day. It’s certainly nicer than the old I-40, but it could have been so much more.

[BDP]

i was going to just say, is traffic bad on Thunder nights?

not sure how this will "help".

It will be interesting to see if it does help, or if it makes it worse. On game nights I can usually bop and weave through the grid north of the CBD and get out in 5 minutes or so. Construction is the only thing that can slow it down. Getting out of the parking garage is usually what takes the longest, but I don't have to get on a freeway to get home.

But, if everyone who needs to get on the freeway decides to use this road, I imagine it will be slow going.

[Ross MacLochness]

Looks like they have pulled most of the dead pine trees out on the west section. With about 90% of them dying...clearly wasn't the right choice to begin with or they got a shipment of unhealthy trees.

trees were a bad batch from an out of state nursery.

[gopokes88]

i was going to just say, is traffic bad on Thunder nights?

not sure how this will "help".

If people would park just 3-5 blocks away from the arena, they’d be amazed how fast they can get out.

I usually park in deep deuce and walk to the car. By the time I get there traffic is non existent.

[jn1780]

The boulevard was planned way back when everyone would laugh at the idea of OKC having an NBA team so no one can really say the boulevard is mostly for the Thunders benefit. It was all the company's around in the mid-90s that pushed for it.

[GoGators]

It will be interesting to see if it does help, or if it makes it worse. On game nights I can usually bop and weave through the grid north of the CBD and get out in 5 minutes or so. Construction is the only thing that can slow it down. Getting out of the parking garage is usually what takes the longest, but I don't have to get on a freeway to get home.

But, if everyone who needs to get on the freeway decides to use this road, I imagine it will be slow going.

The Joys of an intact grid. This is why 16,000 people leaving a Thunder game is relatively painless and Rockwell and Memorial cant handle the traffic from employees of one company. Also why all of the "Intersections to avoid" are in areas where no grid exists.

[HOT ROD]

If people would park just 3-5 blocks away from the arena, they’d be amazed how fast they can get out.

I usually park in deep deuce and walk to the car. By the time I get there traffic is non existent.

That has been my experience as well in the many visits I make to OKC. There nowhere near the amount of traffic in OKC that was experienced here in Seattle when the same team was here in a much smaller arena.

If the OKC Thunder is the biggest single draw for the city and is being handled nicely with the existing infrastructure (I-40/I-235, NW Expressway/Classen, and arterial + city grid) I too am very confused on the "need" ODOT and city business leaders saw for the boulevard.

I only see OKC's city argument for it as a ceremonial GRAND street but I thought OKC already had a Grand Avenue (now Sheridan) which IMO is still best stretch to drive through the core downtown to this day. ...

[mugofbeer]

trees were a bad batch from an out of state nursery.

I guess buying locally grown trees that are used to the local climate was too much to expect.

[Ross MacLochness]

I guess buying locally grown trees that are used to the local climate was too much to expect.

I think it was an issue of being able to find enough trees at once but idk.

[Pete]

[PaddyShack]

This really is quite useless. I live in Yukon and use it every time I come to DT, but I still don't like the way to looks and cuts up the west side of DT. I like the ease ofuse it provides, but would rather not have it for cosmetic and grid efficiency sake.

[BDP]

The Joys of an intact grid. This is why 16,000 people leaving a Thunder game is relatively painless and Rockwell and Memorial cant handle the traffic from employees of one company. Also why all of the "Intersections to avoid" are in areas where no grid exists.

True. Clogged intersections north of 50th are all pretty much self inflicted traffic jams. It's just simply what happens when you design a system that more or less forces all traffic in a square mile through one intersection.

[Pete]

The irony is that they are also improving Reno (center of 2nd photo above) with a landscaped median.

[jn1780]

Will they even have the signal timing right on the new BLVD or will it take 3 years of complaining before timing is worked out.

[BDP]

The boulevard was planned way back when everyone would laugh at the idea of OKC having an NBA team so no one can really say the boulevard is mostly for the Thunders benefit.

I'm not even sure it will benefit the Thunder in any way, whether they wanted it or not.

It was all the company's around in the mid-90s that pushed for it.

I thought it was ODOT's "solution" to building a new freeway with fewer exists. I'm just speculating, but I imagine most companies would have just preferred more exists, or at least the same number as before. 40 was basically designed to move traffic past downtown, not into it. So, they just came back with an idea to put a lot of that traffic in / out of downtown onto one road. Maybe someone was hoping it would be named after them, but, if so, they were forgetting how creative our naming game is.

I guess we'll see how well it "works" soon enough. I just hope it doesn't back up the traffic from the grid that will have to cross it...

[LordGerald]

I'm not even sure it will benefit the Thunder in any way, whether they wanted it or not.



I thought it was ODOT's "solution" to building a new freeway with fewer exists. I'm just speculating, but I imagine most companies would have just preferred more exists, or at least the same number as before. 40 was basically designed to move traffic past downtown, not into it. So, they just came back with an idea to put a lot of that traffic in / out of downtown onto one road. Maybe someone was hoping it would be named after them, but, if so, they were forgetting how creative our naming game is.

I guess we'll see how well it "works" soon enough. I just hope it doesn't back up the traffic from the grid that will have to cross it...

True story. ODOT's official name for this project is the "I-40 Bypass." I was in a meeting years ago, and the words "OKC Boulevard" never came out of the engineer's mouth.

[Rover]

True story. ODOT's official name for this project is the "I-40 Bypass." I was in a meeting years ago, and the words "OKC Boulevard" never came out of the engineer's mouth.

. This in no way fits any definition of a bypass. Hard to believe a knowledgeable official would seriously call it that. And years ago it wasn’t named the OKC Boulevard anyway.

[SEMIweather]

I'm sure I've posted this here already, but every time Pete posts a new overhead shot I crack up at how much of an obvious disaster that Reno intersection is going to be. We already have a great example of why not to build an intersection like this (NW Expressway & NW 63rd), but they went ahead and did it anyways.

[shawnw]

In conversations I've had with Mr Wenger regarding the boulevard, he's said things like "if it doesn't work we can change it", so I hope he was serious about that.

[HOT ROD]

^ how is this any different than a landscaped freeway?

I'd rather they would have spent the dollars on landscaping OKC's existing freeways in this manner and just had I-40 dump into the street grid into Reno. Could have had a 6-way intersection or a Grand Round-A-Bout complete with some OKC statue or grand fountain.

Now that's big city and would have been much cheaper to implement but a much bigger bang.

[Pete]

Key Bricktown intersection to be moved

The City of Oklahoma City is planning to spend up to $1.4 million to move an intersection and possibly a section of street in Lower Bricktown.

As the full length of the new Oklahoma City Boulevard nears completion, the city is moving forward with relocating the only intersection between the I-235/I-40 interchange and Shields Boulevard.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) is constructing the boulevard which follows the footprint of the old I-40 before it was relocated several blocks to the south.

Oklahoma City public works instructed ODOT to build an intersection at Oklahoma Avenue as the main ingress and egress out of Lower Bricktown, which contains Harkins Theater and many restaurants and attractions as well as hundreds of parking spaces.

The city had planned to acquire property to the immediate east of a Uhaul facility which would have allowed Oklahoma to connect in a straight line to Reno Avenue.

However, the city and Uhaul could not come to terms when the operators of the rental and storage facility insisted the city's $1 million offer was far too low. In a press release, Uhaul management promoted a petition against the proposed plan and said it would cost the company approximately $5 million to relocate the entrance and make other related changes.

The city then filed an eminent domain proceeding against Uhaul to forcibly take the property but withdrew the litigation before the 3 court-appointed commissioners could determine fair market value. Eminent domain binds both parties to a price once the commissioners submit their report to the court; the city stopped their suit just short of this point of no return.

No long thereafter, the city connected the boulevard intersection through an elaborate re-routing of traffic that took motorists around the Uhaul property.

OKCTalk learned city representatives had been meeting with homeowners of the Centennial Condominiums, located just east of this section of Oklahoma Avenue. Plans were shared that showed the boulevard intersection being moved to the west and then Oklahoma Avenue being rebuilt directly north to a new intersection on Reno Avenue.

Representatives from the Centennial told OKCTalk their homeowners' association is strongly opposed to the plan to move the north section of the street and recently voted to have an attorney send a letter to the city expressing their objections.

Assistant Public Works Director Debbie Miller told OKCTalk that the city is committed to moving the boulevard intersection sometime this summer, as landscaping has already commenced on the divided roadway.

Miller also said that the rest of the alignment would not be relocated without the consensus of Bricktown Entertainment – owners of the affected parking lots – and the Centennial homeowners through future meetings.

Earlier this month, city council approved a contract with engineering firm Smith Roberts Baldischwiler for planning and construction up to $1.4 million for the entire project, although it is likely the full budget won't be spent if only the one intersection is changed.

The intersection move will place it at the far western edge for two key properties on the south side of the boulevard, the 40-acre Producers Coop site and the 6-acre former Lumberyard that has substantial frontage on the roadway.

[David]

Ugh, I wish they would just not. Wait on U-Haul, see if things change, don't make a permanent decision. Maybe the Centennial HOA can stop it.

At least this is better than the dog leg around the building.