Vision Extension - IDL Removal/Demolition

[DowntownDan]

I would support removing the north leg of the IDL, or even better, rebuilding it underground. Cost wise, I am sure the only option is removal. Removing I-244 east of the IDL is dumb and won't happen. Gilcrease isn't a viable alternative for I-244, in either efficiency or capacity.

One thing to be very careful of, if the north leg is removed, keep ODOT away from the replacement. Don't replace it with any kind of "boulevard" or anything like that. Just restore the original grid.

I still can't believe they managed to get an interstate completely re-routed to accommodate a basketball arena while we've been asking for years to have a smaller portion of an interstate demolished or moved to correct a historical injustice. I agree, restore the street grid, and officially make everything to the north of the IDL part of downtown, at least through OSU Tulsa and Langston.

[LandArchPoke]

Wow, the logistics and surface losses required to accomplish such a re-configuration, would be epic.  I can see easily need full-width transitions to and from 75 then have to widen 75 and then there's the transition onto the 244 River bridge and back to 412 from the BA (nothing but a major public hospital in the way).  

Might be a challenge for the route to keep it's interstate highway designation and related funding, realistically a below grade section appears to me to be the only viable highway methodology.

It actually would have none to very little impact - definitely not epic. You have to consider that we have numerous regional corridors of high capacity highways that service essentially the same corridors. If the impact would be detrimental, we would have already figured that out given how many times entire sections of the IDL have been closed for construction in the past 5 years. People are smarter than we give them credit for sometimes, there are plenty of ways to get east-west regionally without 244 and north south without the Tisdale and 75 if they were all replaced with surface at-grade streets. 

Here's a few maps, similar to in that presentation. If you go to minute 30, that's where they discuss traffic and route alternatives. There's no reason why the Gilcrease, if the NW portion is finished to interstate standards, couldn't be designated as 244 instead and then eventually whatever Interstate they want to call it for the 412 corridor to I-35 and into NWA.

Current:



Gilcrease North Route:



This adds 3 miles to the drive - at 70 MPH it could possibly add 2 1/2 minutes to a drive east west. Why is 244 needed in that case? Keep in mind too given the curves and interchanges, you can't drive 70 MPH on the IDL, so in reality if you divert regional traffic to the Gilcrease and at a higher average speed your drive times are essentially the same. When the Gilcrease is done, 244 is 100% obsolete along with most of the IDL.

Current - Additional Route Option:



I-44/Gilcrease South Route:



This adds 6 miles to a drive, at 70MPH you're talking about 5 minutes extra driving time. Just doesn't justify a need for duplicate corridors.

Now let's look at an example of the north south travel options too.

Current North-South Route:



Gilcrease West Route:



This option also only adds 3 miles to a trip, so you're talking 2 1/2 minutes extra driving time.

Everyone freaked out over Riverside's closure, but between that and closing sections of the IDL non-stop for half a decade has proven that things like this don't create unmanageable traffic congestion. People adapt, they leave sooner/later to avoid peak times, find other routes, etc. Carmageddon doesn't exist. It time we right size infrastructure and stop building expensive redundant corridors. There's just little justification for keeping the IDL.

[LandArchPoke]

Also, some additional info from INCOG traffic counts to consider:

https://incog.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8f4d62c5aecc4629a019f9cbe0076b89

75 only carries 35,000 cars per day in this area north of 244. Drops to 26,000 between the BA and 244.
Tisdale carries around 25,000 per day.

Why do we need highways for these areas with so few cars, especially when there's multiple other regional routes. The on/off ramp traffic counts suggest that only around 10% of these cars are actually accessing downtown too. So reducing these corridors to boulevards would not create massive traffic problems getting into and out of downtown either once the regional travels use other routes.

Riverside, Yale, Memorial, 71st, etc. all carry similar and/or more cars per day. Highway 97 between Pratville and 412 carries 30,000+ cars per day and it's far from congested.

[LandArchPoke]

Based on the length of time it took to extend 169 from 21st to 51st and to extend the Gilcrease from Sheridan to Peoria, none of this will happen for the next 20 some years.

The infrastructure bill has a highways to boulevard program in it, otherwise you're right that given how slow most big infrastructure projects take for review and to get federal funding allocated we'd be looking out a decade at least probably.

So there will be funding available for projects like this all over the US in the next year or two if the bill is passed. It's just a matter of does Tulsa want to get it's act together and pursue this. Biden even talked about 244 being a prime candidate for that program while he was in Tulsa. It's actually very realistic that this could be completed within the next five years.

[Vision 2025]

Redundant corridors serve a very necessary purpose to travelers, commuters and commercial traffic when there are accidents and especially when with major construction closures and provide capacity.  The idea of stuffing all 8 lanes of 244 capacity onto other roadways and not expecting a significant increase in peak transit times in my opinion is wishful thinking.

Don't get me wrong I support fixing the barrier of the North IDL but that fix has to work for the entire community, including those who are passing thru on the highway system.  I like the thought process but show me it works with a properly calibrated dynamic traffic model and I'll listen otherwise we get the Hwy 75 Dallas mess.    

[Red Arrow]

Biden even talked about 244 being a prime candidate for that program while he was in Tulsa.

Given the location and audience for his speech, no surprise.

[Red Arrow]

I still can't believe they managed to get an interstate completely re-routed to accommodate a basketball arena while we've been asking for years to have a smaller portion of an interstate demolished or moved to correct a historical injustice. I agree, restore the street grid, and officially make everything to the north of the IDL part of downtown, at least through OSU Tulsa and Langston.

There was also the need to accommodate traffic which has significantly increased since 1966.  See near the bottom for the project overview: https://oklahoma.gov/odot/citizen/major-projects/completed-projects/i-40crosstown.html

Where would you move the north leg to? 

[LandArchPoke]

Redundant corridors serve a very necessary purpose to travelers, commuters and commercial traffic when there are accidents and especially when with major construction closures and provide capacity.  The idea of stuffing all 8 lanes of 244 capacity onto other roadways and not expecting a significant increase in peak transit times in my opinion is wishful thinking.

Don't get me wrong I support fixing the barrier of the North IDL but that fix has to work for the entire community, including those who are passing thru on the highway system.  I like the thought process but show me it works with a properly calibrated dynamic traffic model and I'll listen otherwise we get the Hwy 75 Dallas mess.    

I might agree somewhat with you if the alternative corridors were at or over capacity. They are not though. I-44 given it's recent expansion can handle a lot of additional traffic. Like I said too earlier, Highway 75 and the Tisdale carry a similar amount of traffic as Memorial, Yale, Riverside, Highway 97 in Sand Springs, etc on those portions they mentioned to remove/rebuild. Yet the cost to build and maintain limited access highways is astronomically more expensive than to build a road and maintain something like Memorial... it makes no sense financially to have a highway when an at-grade option could carry the same amount of vehicles, they just might have to stop at a few more stop lights (that's not the end of the world). Not counting the fact that a highway and ODOT does not contribute anything to our tax base, it erodes it. What is a more economically prosperous corridor, Memorial between the Creek and 111th or the entire portion of I-244. Memorial is, and if it was a limited access highway like 244 you'd severely limit it's productivity and Memorial is a pretty auto centric area but you can still build more in that area given the width of right of way in comparison to a full highway and the ability to have numerous ingress/egress access points which limited access highways do not. The IDL takes up as much land mass as the entire portion inside the IDL (was mentioned in that presentation) that's pretty astounding. Downtown is the single most productive area in our MSA given the density in its contribution of tax revenues. Having some much of that area dedicated to regional travelers, in the highest value area of town, makes no financial sense. Why are we prioritizing someone from NWA getting to I-35 2-3 minutes faster or someone from Bartlesville to get to Glenpool 2-3 minutes faster over the economic health of our city or out of the fear that an accident might cause traffic to back up half a mile once or twice a month? It's completely backwards, sorry.  

The Gilcrease currently is one of the least traveled corridors, it can easily handle all or most of the traffic from 244. 244 is not a huge commuting corridor during rush hour like the BA or 169, which means you don't have a huge crush of vehicles at once in comparison to other corridors in town. Most of the traffic is regional traffic that is more consistent throughout the day, we way over expanded 244 years ago. There is less than 10,000 cars that exit 244 to access downtown in a day in comparison to the BA which has closer to 25,000+ cars per day exit to downtown. I've traveled that corridor over decades during rush hour and rarely if ever is it bumper to bumper traffic between Sand Springs and 169, outside of trying to exit the highway to get on 169. The only congestion points on I-44 are highway interchanges during rush hour (BA, 169).

Fiscally speaking, this is the reason why we can't pay our bills or maintain anything. We have corridor after corridor of redundancies that are not needed and we have prioritized people who don't live here to get through town a few minutes faster over our own economic sustainability. Even on the off chance we increased congestion slightly on other corridors our economy is not going to collapse. If it takes someone 3-4 extra minutes to get somewhere because they might have to drive on the Gilcrease loop or stop at a few more stop lights on the new boulevards to get to or through downtown isn't the end of the world. If congestion was that big of an issue how are places like Austin, Nashville, LA, San Fran, Seattle, NYC, DC, etc. some of the most desirable urban places for businesses and people to move to? People may complain about it, but we can't spend billions upon billions to try to solve it, because we can't. Induced demand is a pretty commonly accepted theory now and has been proven over and over. We can't let the irrational fear of congestion get in the way of the economic and social health of our cities. Being able to build thousands of new housing units, retail, and businesses is more important than being able to make sure someone from NWA can get to I-35 a couple minutes fasters or to preserve one of the 3 options for them to get there in the off chance there's an accident someone one day that might close the highway for 30 mins. Why should they take priority over people who live here? We put way to much priority in urban freeways that are nothing but a black hole for cities.    

[Red Arrow]

Also, some additional info from INCOG traffic counts to consider:

https://incog.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8f4d62c5aecc4629a019f9cbe0076b89

75 only carries 35,000 cars per day in this area north of 244. Drops to 26,000 between the BA and 244.
Tisdale carries around 25,000 per day.

Why do we need highways for these areas with so few cars, especially when there's multiple other regional routes. The on/off ramp traffic counts suggest that only around 10% of these cars are actually accessing downtown too. So reducing these corridors to boulevards would not create massive traffic problems getting into and out of downtown either once the regional travels use other routes.

Riverside, Yale, Memorial, 71st, etc. all carry similar and/or more cars per day. Highway 97 between Pratville and 412 carries 30,000+ cars per day and it's far from congested.

I invite you to visit S Memorial between 121st and 91st pretty much any time but especially during the rush periods and during the lunch crowd.  It's not too bad between maybe 8 PM and 6:15 AM.  By 6:30 AM, northbound gets busy.  Construction north of the Turnpike to 91st has made it even worse.  Traffic diverts to Sheridan which can also back up about a half mile.

[LandArchPoke]

I invite you to visit S Memorial between 121st and 91st pretty much any time but especially during the rush periods and during the lunch crowd.  It's not too bad between maybe 8 PM and 6:15 AM.  By 6:30 AM, northbound gets busy.  Construction north of the Turnpike to 91st has made it even worse.  Traffic diverts to Sheridan which can also back up about a half mile.

I unfortunately live in this area now (I wasn't able to find a house in midtown in the time frame I needed to be able to move and had to settle for a house I like, but in a less desirable location for me personally). I am on Memorial almost daily at all times of day. It's really over blown how 'congested' it is... especially after living in other major cities where I could walk faster than most cars could drive. I don't think people here really grasp how lucky we are in terms of traffic.

The construction currently north of the Creek doesn't mean we should widen every other corridor around Memorial though (which would be the same reasoning for keeping 244). You're proving the theory that people adapt, and they can easily figure out alternative routes (given the increased traffic on Sheridan in particular). If I have to go north beyond 101st or coming back south, I actually take Yale or Riverside usually now versus Memorial or Sheridan. I'll drive to Mingo or Garnett if I need to be further east and double back at 81st if needed to get back to Memorial or Sheridan. Does it add a few minutes to my drive? Yes, but hardly discourages me from living my life and getting things done that need to be done, I just leave a few minutes earlier. The same thing would happen if 244, Tisdale, and 75 were converted to at grade boulevards. Some will still take the same corridors, just a bit slower. Most others will adjust and adapt to the alternative routes.

[Vision 2025]

LandArchPoke,

You stated that various alternate routes are just a few miles further with above speed limit speeds and that simply won't hold up, congest a corridor it dramatically slows all traffic and greatly increases accident risk.

I'm sorry but I see removing 244 as taking us back to the issues 44 and 244 had before this last round of widenings.  

[Red Arrow]

I unfortunately live in this area now (I wasn't able to find a house in midtown in the time frame I needed to be able to move and had to settle for a house I like, but in a less desirable location for me personally). I am on Memorial almost daily at all times of day. It's really over blown how 'congested' it is... especially after living in other major cities where I could walk faster than most cars could drive. I don't think people here really grasp how lucky we are in terms of traffic.

I wouldn't move to one of those other major cities.  Many, however, have useable public transportation.  NYC, Phila, Boston, DC, San Francisco, some areas of LA (I think), Toronto.  Comparing Tulsa traffic to those cities' traffic is kind of like comparing a nasty cold to pneumonia.  (I was going to say flu vs. Covid but thought that might be a bit much.)  My opinion is that if drive time more than doubles, congestion is not insignificant.

The construction currently north of the Creek doesn't mean we should widen every other corridor around Memorial though (which would be the same reasoning for keeping 244). You're proving the theory that people adapt, and they can easily figure out alternative routes (given the increased traffic on Sheridan in particular). If I have to go north beyond 101st or coming back south, I actually take Yale or Riverside usually now versus Memorial or Sheridan. I'll drive to Mingo or Garnett if I need to be further east and double back at 81st if needed to get back to Memorial or Sheridan. Does it add a few minutes to my drive? Yes, but hardly discourages me from living my life and getting things done that need to be done, I just leave a few minutes earlier. The same thing would happen if 244, Tisdale, and 75 were converted to at grade boulevards. Some will still take the same corridors, just a bit slower. Most others will adjust and adapt to the alternative routes.

Road rehab on Memorial is temporary and is much needed all the way to near 71st.  The quality of initial and rehab road construction in OK is probably a topic for another thread.  A lot of the congestion on the east-west streets out here could be handled by a center turn lane.  I haven't diverted to Garnett lately but traffic on Mingo can get nasty.  Diverting to Yale to get to the Creek is an option I sometimes use to go to Riverside Airport.  The traffic lights at Riverside & 101st seem to take forever to change so I rarely go that way. Getting off 169 Southbound to Memorial can be dangerous with drivers cutting in line or waiting in the thru lane for someone to let them in.  Same thing on I-244 eastbound to go south on 169.  There are 11 traffic lights Memorial starting at 111th to and including 91st. With a few more accidents at 106th PL (by 1st Pryority Bank) there will probably be one there too.  With all the housing/apartments being built south 111th, I believe in a few years there will be a need to widen either Yale or Sheridan and maybe Mingo.  Traffic is only going to get worse.  When my family moved here in 1971, Memorial was 2 lanes south of the RR tracks at 41st and it didn't matter.  The likelihood of usable public transit out here anytime soon, or maybe ever, is minimal. No one is going to stop development and cars will be the only transportation option.  Large lots like where I am are a thing of the past so there will be thousands of cars per square mile.  Cars sitting at traffic lights, especially in the summer, contribute to the ozone situation.  Electric cars will help but not eliminate the pollution since most of the electricity around here is still fossil fuel based.

[LandArchPoke]

LandArchPoke,

You stated that various alternate routes are just a few miles further with above speed limit speeds and that simply won't hold up, congest a corridor it dramatically slows all traffic and greatly increases accident risk.

I'm sorry but I see removing 244 as taking us back to the issues 44 and 244 had before this last round of widenings.  

How close do you believe other routes in town are at or above capacity? They are not even close - pretty much every freeway in our city operates below 50% of capacity outside of 30 minutes during the AM and PM rush hour. Also, why should we sacrifice the most valuable land in the region so someone from out of town can drive through town 2-3 minutes faster? You didn't answer that question. You haven't even offered up any evidence or reason behind why you think this will create unreasonable congestion - I've offered up a lot of points that show the reasoning why that would not happen and the concerns about traffic are way overblown.  

If other corridors couldn't handle it, how do you explain the fact we haven't had massive traffic jams over the past five years as entire sections of the IDL closed - not just narrowed for construction - completed closed (including 244 - the north leg of the IDL) for months at a time. Our city didn't fall apart, nor did we even have a semblance of traffic chaos/congestion anywhere because of that. It's a doom and gloom scenario that plays out all of the time by people everywhere and it has never happened once when a freeway closes and it's planned. People adapt.  

We're talking about diverting 30,000 to 40,000 cars a day throughout a system of highways in the metro area that are already well below capacity limits. Not a single freeway in town has moderate congestion that would cause you to not at least be able to drive the speed limit, most not even in rush hour, outside of a hand full of highway interchanges like BA/169, BA/I-44, and I-44/169 that can moderately back up traffic for 30-45 mins during the AM & PM rush hour.

I really don't understand what's concerning about that? Say those extra cars per day, not only added 3 minutes of drive time but also added 2-3 minutes additional because instead of driving 70, you had to drive 60 because the highway is somewhat full of car. How is that a catastrophe, even if it did happen (it wouldn't)? Why should we prioritize making sure someone who doesn't live here or care about our city gets through our city center as fast as possible when it causes us to lose out on millions (30, 40, 50 million a year in tax revenues at least - you should watch the feasibility portion). Our priorities should be to the growth and health of our city and not getting held up on the fact we might mildly inconvenience out of town drives by not allowing them to cut through downtown anymore. That pays for a lot of firefighters, police officers, schools, etc. that we miss out on year after year and have for decades now at this point. You're talking in a range of an economic loss of over $1 billion since the IDL was finished, just for the land the IDL sits on, not including the resulting destruction of 3,000+ homes/businesses in Greenwood for UCAT or the hundreds of parking lots created inside the IDL that's probably resulted in just as significant or more in terms of economic loss to the city. We wonder why we can't pay our teachers or pay for the upkeep on roads... maybe we should just raise the sales tax to 20% I guess instead of figuring out ways to remove unneeded over scaled infrastructure and rebuild neighborhoods that will increase our tax base and economic sustainability of our city.

Again, traffic and congestion concerns in this town are so ridiculously over blown - people's homes and businesses didn't deserve to be destroyed so someone's drive is slightly less traffic-y and 2 minutes shorter and we certainly shouldn't allow that reasoning to be behind why it's not the right thing to go back and correct the wrongs of destroying Greenwood and countless other neighborhoods for the sake of thinking we need to have 3-4 options that get us to the same place within a few minutes difference.    

[LandArchPoke]

I wouldn't move to one of those other major cities.  Many, however, have useable public transportation.  NYC, Phila, Boston, DC, San Francisco, some areas of LA (I think), Toronto.  Comparing Tulsa traffic to those cities' traffic is kind of like comparing a nasty cold to pneumonia.  (I was going to say flu vs. Covid but thought that might be a bit much.)  My opinion is that if drive time more than doubles, congestion is not insignificant.

Road rehab on Memorial is temporary and is much needed all the way to near 71st.  The quality of initial and rehab road construction in OK is probably a topic for another thread.  A lot of the congestion on the east-west streets out here could be handled by a center turn lane.  I haven't diverted to Garnett lately but traffic on Mingo can get nasty.  Diverting to Yale to get to the Creek is an option I sometimes use to go to Riverside Airport.  The traffic lights at Riverside & 101st seem to take forever to change so I rarely go that way. Getting off 169 Southbound to Memorial can be dangerous with drivers cutting in line or waiting in the thru lane for someone to let them in.  Same thing on I-244 eastbound to go south on 169.  There are 11 traffic lights Memorial starting at 111th to and including 91st. With a few more accidents at 106th PL (by 1st Pryority Bank) there will probably be one there too.  With all the housing/apartments being built south 111th, I believe in a few years there will be a need to widen either Yale or Sheridan and maybe Mingo.  Traffic is only going to get worse.  When my family moved here in 1971, Memorial was 2 lanes south of the RR tracks at 41st and it didn't matter.  The likelihood of usable public transit out here anytime soon, or maybe ever, is minimal. No one is going to stop development and cars will be the only transportation option.  Large lots like where I am are a thing of the past so there will be thousands of cars per square mile.  Cars sitting at traffic lights, especially in the summer, contribute to the ozone situation.  Electric cars will help but not eliminate the pollution since most of the electricity around here is still fossil fuel based.

Definitely wasn't trying to directly compare Tulsa traffic to those cities, but what I am trying to address is a lot of people have always said and still do that congestion will ruin our city. It doesn't, and it won't. If congestion resulted in economic decline there's no reason why all of those other cities with horrendous traffic are so desirable to so many people and businesses. I'd be curious if anyone could point to a single example of a vibrant neighborhood that has no congestion - you can't. When you try to un-congest an area, you remove it's vibrancy. 

I know traffic sucks and I'm not saying it doesn't - we just can't make that reasoning our number one thing behind every decision on how our city is shaped and built. If we do, we end up where we are today in a city that does struggle to properly maintain infrastructure and also staff city services appropriately. I'm also not saying highways should be removed everywhere, they can be appropriate in suburban areas and it's reasonable to expand them in some cases. However, I feel it is never the right option to dedicate so much space in the core of the city to something as unproductive as a highway. I'm a firm believer in the village development concept and the 15-minute city. The results of PlaniTulsa sowed that was how most people in Tulsa wanted our city to develop (our city leaders just decided to ignore it for the most part still). In general, that concept is not compatible with making sure people can cut through village centers as fast as possible. If we developed the city appropriately we would resolve some of the issues of not being able to afford upkeep but also things like having to drive so far if the proper nodes are developed in various parts of town. Downtown will always be the primary village center for the region, but to have a health/functioning/sustainable city it is not going to happen by trying to build our way out of traffic, it's just a reality of life. If we don't come to realize that, it won't be many more decades before our city is bankrupt or we're paying taxes twice the rate we are now because we don't have the right scale of development to support the infrastructure we've built.   

[Red Arrow]

Also, why should we sacrifice the most valuable land in the region so someone from out of town can drive through town 2-3 minutes faster?

When traveling cross country, I don't mind a few extra miles or minutes to avoid a downtown.  If the IDL is removed, just make the signage obvious to out-of-towners which way and which lane to be in well before the choice is required.  I still have to be careful not to wind up going to Sand Springs instead of going south on 75 from I-244.  And, don't do like St Louis did in the early 70s with "TO I-44" signs that dumped my family on surface streets when expressway options around town were available.  We were a caravan of 3 cars, 2 pulling trailers.  We were not happy.  

If other corridors couldn't handle it, how do you explain the fact we haven't had massive traffic jams over the past five years as entire sections of the IDL closed - not just narrowed for construction - completed closed (including 244 - the north leg of the IDL) for months at a time.

Other legs of the IDL were still open.  Redundancy works.  That doesn't mean that redundancy has to cut through the heart of downtown.

We're talking about diverting 30,000 to 40,000 cars a day throughout a system of highways in the metro area that are already well below capacity limits. Not a single freeway in town has moderate congestion that would cause you to not at least be able to drive the speed limit, most not even in rush hour, outside of a hand full of highway interchanges like BA/169, BA/I-44, and I-44/169 that can moderately back up traffic for 30-45 mins during the AM & PM rush hour.

The INCOG traffic count you linked shows 70,000+ cars on I-244 through downtown.  You claim less than 10% exit somewhere downtown.  That leaves more like 60,000+ to divert.  Gilcrease is only 4 lanes (2 each direction) and 60 MPH west of 75 to the Tisdale. And, of course, the Gilcrease is not yet complete.

You're talking in a range of an economic loss of over $1 billion since the IDL was finished, just for the land the IDL sits on, not including the resulting destruction of 3,000+ homes/businesses in Greenwood for UCAT or the hundreds of parking lots created inside the IDL that's probably resulted in just as significant or more in terms of economic loss to the city.

Urban Renewal didn't really renew much of anything.  Why was so much land set aside for UCAT rather than rebuilding neighborhoods?  Parking lots are probably not  a direct result only of building the IDL.

Again, traffic and congestion concerns in this town are so ridiculously over blown - people's homes and businesses didn't deserve to be destroyed so someone's drive is slightly less traffic-y and 2 minutes shorter and we certainly shouldn't allow that reasoning to be behind why it's not the right thing to go back and correct the wrongs of destroying Greenwood and countless other neighborhoods for the sake of thinking we need to have 3-4 options that get us to the same place within a few minutes difference.

Agreed that traffic here isn't as bad as Boston, NYC etc but anyone that still thinks you can get anywhere in Tulsa under 20 minutes is only fooling themselves.