Future
ODOT has announced plans to widen 2 miles (3.2 km) of Interstate 35 through Norman, from the McCall Bridge over the Canadian River to the Main Street interchange (Exit 109). Controversy surrounding the project arose when early drafts eliminated the SH-74A/Lindsey Street interchange (Exit 108B), due to its proximity to the SH-9 interchange (Exit 108A). A public meeting held in Norman attracted 300 attendees, many bearing "Don't Close Lindsey" signs. Attendees cited the impact on local businesses and those attending University of Oklahoma football games as grounds for opposing the closure of the interchange. A former OU economics professor estimated the interchange's closure would cost Norman $100 million over the course of fifteen years.
At the meeting, four proposals were displayed, only one of which displayed no access from Lindsey Street. A second proposal would preserve access to Lindsey Street but require the seizure of a newly-built Chevrolet dealership near the interchange. The third proposal would instead send the ramps around the dealership, and the fourth, the highest-cost alternate, would use bridges to prevent Lindsey Street and SH-9 traffic from conflicting. ODOT said their design standards did not require consideration of OU football traffic, because they only considered the 30th highest traffic percentile. One ODOT engineer was quoted as saying, "Otherwise, we'd have to 10-lane everything in Norman."
Read more about this topic: Interstate 35 In Oklahoma
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)