My Idea For 14th/Old Cheney/Warlick

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:55 pm

-Make southbound 14th (as Warlick begins and splits with 14th) an overpass over northbound Warlick.
-Turn Old Cheney into an overpass above Warlick.
-14th and Old Cheney would be left untouched.
-Add an onramp from Old Cheney to southwestbound Warlick for access.
-To avoid potential traffic problems, close off Sun Valley View. (Sorry)
-Add an onramp from northeastbound Warlick to 14th. This would be rather complex due to the houses and office buildings, but the ramp could be built without demolishing any of the houses or office buildings. The ramp would take a southeastwardly turn to avoid the buildings, pass under the Rock Island Trail, and eventually intersect with 14th.

guitarguy · Post by **guitarguy** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 1:53 am

After just moving back to the area and visiting my buddy and his wife in Lincoln who life in apartments near here I'm blown away at how bad the traffic is in southern Lincoln in these areas.. giving Warlick a dedicated lane and giving the other lanes their own place seems like a great idea since the traffic down here at rush hour is very bad and honestly the traffic in Lincoln is worse than Omaha traffic due to no quick ways around... even though its no where close to NYC traffic.. drives me nuts since a city the size of Lincoln shouldn't have traffic like this and it only gets this bad from bad planning departments..

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:24 am

Lincoln's been trying to preserve their "small town" feeling for so long. Now that the city's gotten so big, they can't do that anymore. They're as big as Omaha was 30 years ago.

I know how bad traffic in Omaha can get. A month ago, I went up there to pick up my brother and niece who were returning from a family reunion in Spokane, WA. On the way to the airport, I-80 had slight congestion at L Street and I-680. On the way back, the ramp from the westbound I-80 collector/distributor road to westbound L was backed up. The cars weren't even moving. They were just sitting there.

guitarguy · Post by **guitarguy** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:33 am

Believe me you'd take that traffic any day vs NYC which doesn't move during rush hour ever.. pretty much any time you can guarantee a 3.5 hour commute home after work every single day of the week you'll appreciate the minor traffic Omaha has and take it with a smile on your face.. because it can always be much worse.. even Chicago traffic is miserable and takes hours to commute every day.. so be glad that Omaha isn't much larger with traffic that takes hours to get through..

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:48 am

guitarguy wrote:so be glad that Omaha isn't much larger with traffic that takes hours to get through..

No kidding. I remember when I was a new driver in Lincoln and traffic was SO BAD on 70th Street that I had to sit through a whole light cycle to get through the 70th & Pioneers intersection at "rush hour".

Though, getting across Lincoln is exhausting if you can't take 84th or the West Bypass. The single lane with center turn just doesn't cut it.

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 4:26 am

guitarguy wrote:so be glad that Omaha isn't much larger with traffic that takes hours to get through..

Thanks for the tip.

almighty_tuna wrote:The single lane with center turn just doesn't cut it.

Lincoln's got a lot of those kinds of streets. Personally, I think Omaha could use some more of those on their 2-lane streets.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:30 am

mrsticka wrote:Lincoln's got a lot of those kinds of streets.

No kidding.

TitosBuritoBarn · Post by **TitosBuritoBarn** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:03 pm

guitarguy wrote: even Chicago traffic is miserable and takes hours to commute every day.. so be glad that Omaha isn't much larger with traffic that takes hours to get through..

Some rankings put us as the second most congested city.

Whenever I go into the city from my place in the 2nd ring suburbs, I have to go by the Hillside Strangler, which sounds like a murderous bridge troll, but is actually a freeway interchange. The times that I'm not faced with the scenario captured by Google Streetview below are far fewer than the times I am (also note the gray Corolla cutting in line on the shoulder)

http://goo.gl/maps/pfvJy

And then there are these two bottlenecks. They're fun too.

http://goo.gl/maps/0mQMc

http://goo.gl/maps/OjgvY

The window of speed-limit-reaching (which is 45), free flow traffic on that second one is between about 11 pm and 6 am.

guitarguy · Post by **guitarguy** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:07 pm

Amazing how a good day is a day when you can move without stopping.. a bad day is well.. absolutely horrifying.. its a helpless feeling not knowing how long you'll be stuck in traffic especially if you have somewhere to go..

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Sat Sep 07, 2013 3:50 pm

I have a pretty good idea of how bad traffic can get in bigger cities. I've been to Seattle many times. I-5 and I-405 can back up for miles. I've been caught in gridlock a couple times.

But anyway, back in Omaha, I-80 is 5 lanes at Q and L Streets (2 east, 3 west) not counting the C/D lanes. Why?

Post by **BRoss** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:37 pm

mrsticka wrote:But anyway, back in Omaha, I-80 is 5 lanes at Q and L Streets (2 east, 3 west) not counting the C/D lanes. Why?

Because they're a decade behind widening that section. At least this will be changing next year. I remember when I had to drive through there every day how bad traffic could get.

guitarguy · Post by **guitarguy** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:39 pm

Another reason was it seems like the city bet wrong on the direction the suburbs are growing.. It seems like with the annexation of Elkhorn they figured the city would continue Westward and instead its growing South and Southwest which were previously not developing at all..

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:02 pm

HR Paperstacks wrote:
mrsticka wrote:But anyway, back in Omaha, I-80 is 5 lanes at Q and L Streets (2 east, 3 west) not counting the C/D lanes. Why?
Because they're a decade behind widening that section. At least this will be changing next year. I remember when I had to drive through there every day how bad traffic could get.

I can remember when westbound I-80 was also only 2 lanes in that area and there was no concrete divider down the middle. And also, the collector/distributor roads didn't extend to I-680. The exit from eastbound I-80 to northbound I-680 was a left-side exit.

Post by **BRoss** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:41 pm

While that was changed up before I was old enough to notice developments of the city, I did come across that when looking at historical imagery in Google Earth from 1993:

From what I remember about that time was my dad always complaining about construction on 72nd.

mrsticka · Post by **mrsticka** » Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:05 pm

Yep, that's what I was talking about. That's what it looked like when I lived in Omaha. They changed it to what it is today in early 1995 (that's when construction started) and it took almost 2 years to complete. Another thing that was different was Q Street was just a 2-lane bridge over I-80. I-680 and Dodge was a full cloverleaf interchange. It still was years after I'd moved.

When I lived in Omaha, this is what the I-80/I-480 interchange looked like. I posted this picture on my first message here over a year ago. This photo was from 1966 and I-80 wasn't completed yet then.