The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has a new highway construction and improvement project proposal for 3.9 miles of highway 70 between Lone Grove and Ardmore. The proposed project will begin at Interstate highway 35 and stretch west to Brock Road.
The current estimated cost is $39.8 million dollars and will take approximately one and a half years to complete. The highway improvements proposed include reconstructing the road to four, 12-foot-wide driving lanes with a 40 foot wide median, 10 foot wide outside and four foot wide inside paved shoulders.
ODOT will be addressing sags in the roadway, vertical curve corrections will be made to help correct sight distance, and grading will be done where needed. There will be added deceleration lanes for left turn lanes and right hand turn lanes added to intersection stop lights.
A review of driveway access, median location, turn lanes, and turn signals are in the plans, as well. Two median openings will be consolidated to one at E. Case Circle.
There is a suggestion to relocate a median west of Foxden Road to a more “logical location” to provide a deceleration left turn lane. There will be a realignment of Foxden Road so that the crossing traffic, from north and south, would be reconfigured.
ODOT is looking to start the project in late 2024 with the right of way acquisitions and continuing through 2025. The actual schedule for the construction phase itself is subject to funding and can begin as soon as the funding and right of way acquisitions phase is complete; it could take up to eight years to complete, and is proposed to start in 2029.
There is a virtual public meeting and open house set up by ODOT, it can be found at https://blanton.events/ODOT_US70_vpm/. It will be open to the public until November 7, where there will be additional details, safety concerns and issues about the project. The public will be able leave comments about the suggested improvements.
Within the virtual public meeting, there are forms available to download for relocation assistance, a property rights brochure, and a comments form that can be emailed to enviroment@odot.org.