! A new underpass will be coming to the railroad crossing at 4th Street. It will take about 5 years before work is completed.
! A new underpass will be coming to the railroad crossing at 4th Street. It will take about 5 years before work is completed.
that's a much needed change but it's going to be a rough 5 years for those who live and work around 4th.
I was surprised to see that Moore rejected a quiet zone.
I wasn't... most people don't live close enough to the tracks to care and those of us that do don't notice the trains anymore.... not to mention it was a lot of money to implement and we had 5 property tax raising questions on the ballot. Plus once the underpass is built the train will only sound at Main and 12th & 34th Streets.
I'm really still surprised the Prop 1 passed.... I think if it had just been the underpass without the other improvements it would have failed but adding the other street improvements pulled in votes from people that probably hardly ever use 4th Street.
The quiet zone seemed to be way overpriced compared to Norman. Norman did a quiet zone for $300,000 while Moore was asking for over $1,000,000. But, since the overpass won then I assume trains will be blowing their horns less anyways. They can sound at 34th Street, No need to blow at 19th or 4th Street once the overpass is completed. And then that leaves 2 more crossings north of 4th to sound the horn.
I'm happy to see Eastern/Toby Keith get a major facelift. That will be huge.
Are there any updates on the Underpass? The 34th St Bridge has been done quite a while. Thought they were marking lines at the crossing a while back...then nothing. Trains are getting longer & slower.
This was posted to their facebook page about 2 weeks ago. Basics are they are waiting for plans and have started making offers to property owners. They expect the project to take 1.5 to 2 years once it is started.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3556638861033651
It looks like the railroad isn’t eager to cooperate here:
https://oklahoman.com/article/566910...g-rebuild-case
I took from the article that the city of Moore took out a $28 million bond issue to pay for the project; approached the railroad about cost sharing; the railroad was talking and then backed out; the city found a section of state law that says the city cannot pay over 50% of a railroad project; the city went to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and asked them to make the railroad pay for all of it; the railroad says the city doesn't have the right to control the road because it is also a state highway.
Confused yet? I sure am.
I feel the railroad should pay for at least some of it. It is their trains that are blocking the road. I feel if they really wanted they could have possibly extended their double track down South to at least 34th Street or Indian Hills to allow for trains to stop at a different location that isn't as busy since 19th already has an underpass. But in that scenario they would have to pay all the costs.
I don't blame BNSF. If my neighbor told me he was going to pay for a new fence because he wants one, and then said I should pay half - I would be upset. And then I would be livid if he said sorry, don't pay half just pay for the full thing. Seems like Moore should have done some research and talked to BNSF before selling this to voters.
But it's a different situation. This is a fence you installed originally and use everyday, sometimes causing your neighbor pain while you use it.
I definitely think the costs need to be shared, because the city could have approached the railroad a long time ago when these things were originally planned, maybe even correcting the issue before Moore grew to big and made a complete mess out of things.
That's the really sad part. BNSF offered to split 50/50 an underpass @ NE 12th St, 20+ years ago (when 12th was widened to 4 lanes. Moore declined. There was not much East of Eastern then. What do they say about Hindsight ?? also the crossing @ 12th is still single-track. That's why the trains have to stop & wait, blocking Main & 4th.
I hope they can solve it and move on with the project
It was supposed to start a few days ago. It has been Delayed to October according to this
https://spotlight-okdot.hub.arcgis.c...4fb982/explore
se4thstunderpass.jpg
Barriers are now out on the side of the road. It is about to get started
YAY!!!!! Now, if we can just get 12th street next!
I don't think they have enough room to do one at Main do they? The city building is pretty darn close there. But if they could also get that one, we could basically become a quiet zone without needing to designate it a quiet zone since all of the crossings would be overpasses. How glorious that would be. And safer.
Not sure there's enough street traffic on 34th yet to justify it down there. But give it another 10 years and we may be saying something different. No matter how much you think Moore has filled-in, there's still a lot of farm land that's being sold off (and just outside Moore in the OKC limits) to keep that population increase going for another 50 years at least. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a 4th high school in another 30 years.
I wonder if Norman will ever build underpasses for Tecumseh and Lindsey. IMO those are probably the two streets that need it the most, in that order.
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