More work will be re-engaged in the next three months for the ACCESS Oklahoma long-range plan, which includes projects to widen and improve the I-44/Turner Turnpike, theI-44/WillRogersTurnpike, the John Kilpatrick Turnpike and further design work for the new alignmentoftheEast-WestConnector corridor in Oklahoma City.
ACCESS Oklahoma is the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s 15-year long-range plan that includes new route alignments as well as several new interchanges. OTA sold the first $500 million in bonds in late October 2023 to fund engineering design work and initial construction projects in the long-range plan. The program was validated for bond sales by the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Aug. 1, 2023.
Engineering design work restarted in February 2024 for 56 construction projects totaling $156 million in authorized design contracts. OTADeputyDirectorandChiefEngineer T.J. Dill updated the OTA Board this week that they will see more engineering design work contracts come before them for consideration starting in July. Dill anticipates the new design work contracts to add 57 more construction projects to the agency’s workload.
“We are making great progress right now,” Dill told the Board. “But for us to deliver this program in the timeframe we originally said, which is the 15-year time frame, we’ve got to get moving.”
The East-West Connector is a 28-mile segment of the Oklahoma City Outer Loop that will connect the I-44/Tri-city area of Newcastle, Blanchard and Tuttle at SH-37/ N.W. 32nd St. and cross the South Canadian River east to I-35 and continue east then northeast to ultimately connect with the Kickapoo Turnpike at I-40. This new alignment will expand the mobility of the south Oklahoma City metro population while also providing greater access to Moore and Norman.
Dill said initial design work on the East-West Connector segment between Newcastle to east of I-35 is nearing 60 percent plan completion and this segment remains the priority among the new alignments to construct first.
Property owners in this area can expect to hear from OTA about parcels needed for the corridor by fall 2024. A contract for design work on the segment between Bethel Rd. and I-40 is expected to go before the Board for its consideration for approval later this summer.
Dill told the Board that no design work has started yet on the East-West Connector interchange between Lake Stanley Draper and Lake Thunderbird nor has design work started on the South Extension alignment, which is scheduled for later in the longrange plan.
“We know we have to do some sort of realignment in that area, but we’re working to get the rest of the program off the ground first,” Dill said.
Oklahomans will see the new areas to be engaged for design shown in yellow on the long-range plan map on the front page of this issue.
The www.accessoklahoma. com project map was updated after last month’s OTA meeting to reflect more project areas moving to the engineering design phase this summer. Additional engineering contracts are expected to go before OTA’s Board starting in July.
