Is Interstate 280 coming to Lincoln anytime soon?

[OH HSKR FAN]

For a town with 200K residents I was wondering why you don't even have a quarterbelt? Don't live in Lincoln but just a first glance at a map tells me I don't see a lot of growth W of US77 and N of Interstate 80.

 

For you natives?

 

How is traffic/travel around town?

[tschu]

Lincoln has probably close to the worst possible infrastructure for a city of this size. There's no good way to get across town.

 

Pretty much the only thing anyone is doing to help anything at all is the North Antelope Valley Parkway project, which will eventually connect with Capital Parkway so that a lot of traffic can bypass downtown. But that's just one small project that won't help a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. We're still going to be stuck with Highway 2, O street, Cornhusker Highway, and 27th street as far as major cross-town arteries go.

[Enhance]

I echo tschu's sentiments - Lincoln is terrible from an infrastructure point of view. I grew up in Omaha within two minutes of an interstate on ramp, and you can get just about everywhere important in Omaha via the interstate or Dodge (which is essentially an interstate unto itself once you get west of 90th street.) From where I currently live in Lincoln, I don't even bother trying to go any place south of campus. Takes way too long.

 

Problem is there's really not a lot they can do about it, sans destroying half the city to build new roads.

[tschu]

Haha you're right going south is the worst.

 

The gf always wants to go down to SouthPointe to eat or do whatever else; I'm always like 'yeeeaahh, I really don't feel like driving for 25 minutes'

[teachercd]

It seems like most of the "college towns" are just brutal for getting around, unless you basically live on campus.

[Lyons in the Sea of Red.]

They need a overhead bypass going over O st, ie Dodge in Omaha. Or above 27th, which is worse. One can dream.

[HuskerFanChuck]

It's horrid to get around, but going South isn't my problem. It's going East. I can basically get anywhere South as quickly as it takes me to go to Gateway. The areas surrounding O St. in East Lincoln have been, to me, the worst place in terms of surrounding arterials to get to, for a long time. O St. has gotten better over the years, especially after making it 6 lane from 48th to 70th, but getting to 48th can be a nightmare, if you don't know exactly where you're going. It's just a tough situation, and I'm not too sure anybody has any great ideas on how to make it much better.

[Enhance]

Haha you're right going south is the worst.

 

The gf always wants to go down to SouthPointe to eat or do whatever else; I'm always like 'yeeeaahh, I really don't feel like driving for 25 minutes'

Same with my girlfriend. She says lets head to south pointe, I say I'd rather drive to Omaha.

[Enhance]

It's just a tough situation, and I'm not too sure anybody has any great ideas on how to make it much better.

You'd really have to just totally revamp parts of the city, or build expressways like you see in Omaha going over Dodge. But those expressways aren't really that plausible in most of Lincoln.

[knapplc]

Lincoln's problems can be summed up pretty easily:

 

Heading North/South, there isn't a four-lane street that goes completely through town between 10th and 84th - a distance of five miles.

 

Heading East/West you have more four-lane options, but not many. O Street is four lanes throughout Lincoln. North of O, your next four-lane street through town is Superior, three miles north of O. Your first four-lane street going East/West south of O is Old Cheney (minus the part through Wilderness Park), which is four miles south of O st.

 

Granted, there are a couple of arterials that snake their way through parts of town like Cornhusker HWY north of O which goes SW to NE, and Capitol Parkway/Normal Blvd and Highway 2 which both run NW to SE south of O street, but if you're going across town these are often not good options.

 

Lincoln is a larger town with a small-town mentality, and there is a huge contingent of Lincolnites who want to keep it that way - and they vote and support candidates who feel the same. This has led to a failure to properly plan for growth going back decades, resulting in very haphazard growth that is often hindered by special interests (such as the Country Club, the single biggest impediment to widening 27th street to four lanes through town).

 

The most ignorant thing about Lincoln is that they have bound themselves up in impediments to growth, while at the same time existing in the midst of open farmland ripe for that growth. There are no natural barriers to proper growth for this town - no large rivers, lakes, mountains or seas. Instead, Lincoln does stupid things like planting Wyuka cemetery right on its major thoroughfare, and putting plots so close to the street that it's now impossible to widen the street any further (and it needs widening, right now). They have major thoroughfares which end abruptly in unmodifiable blocks, such as 40th street at O street, Vine at 84th and at the UNL campus, 48th at Old Cheney, Holdrege at the UNL Campus, 33rd at Antelope Park and at Cornhusker HWY, 56th at Fremont St, Van Dorn st at 56th, and South st at 70th. That's most every major arterial blocked by some immovable impediment.

 

Who does that? Who thinks that's appropriate city planning? A City Council who has no plan, that's who.

[HuskerFanChuck]

Nicely put, knapp. And I don't think I had ever truly thought about this before, but what you see... is the old part of town... that loosely (very loosely, in spots) bordered by Cornhusker, Hgwy 2, to a certain degree, 70th, and 9th/10th (talking about before it starts running diagonally). The areas within those bounds are the most awkward to get around. When you get to the newer areas, the traffic flow seems to be much easier, but the parochialism in many of those areas within those bounds are much tougher and nastier to get through than anything else. Most places South of Hgwy. 2 are planned well enough that you can, fairly easily, get to wherever you want to go (and certainly as you get East towards 84th, especially past 70th, it is that way as well). The areas West of 9th/10th streets that are newer are fairly easily to get around as well. The Northern areas of town have or are close to having, a much easier traffic flow as well. (Think N. 14th, and all of the construction North of Superior taking place to help flow through much of that area.) The main sticking point to getting around town tends to run through the older part of town, and the unwillingness to change those areas. There's a reason Jonathan Cook keeps getting reelected to the council, and its exactly what you targeted, knapp: as long as he's on the council, he's made the pledge to the neighborhood associations within the 27th and Sheridan Blvd. area that as long as he's on the council, 27th South of South street and, basically, North of Hgwy. 2 will not be widened. It should have been done a long time ago, but the influence within the community from that area is so strong, it likely never will.

[ZRod]

Antelope Valley Parkway and Salt Creek Roadway are two shinning example of the most recent idiotic planing in my opinion. Salt Creek Roadway was a really great idea in theory but someone overlooked some serious issue like the fact that there is no way to merge with 27th street or Cornhusker fluidly. Instead you have round about ways to get on 27th and you have to wait at a light to get onto Cornhusker. Sounds like minor issues until you consider those are the two main arteries that the Roadway services and using another way to get to them takes at least 5 more minutes. And with the traffic volume they were projecting things could get pretty backed up, but I don't think they will ever see near the volume they were projecting except for big events.

 

Antelope Valley seems absolutely pointless once you cross R street because there's about 7 lights in a half mile section and it crosses the busiest street in O, then dead ends at K street with the final light. K street of all places probably would have been the most ideal for a roundabout. What really needed to be done was some type of underpass so that you wouldn't need to cross O street, traffic could flow smoothly without stopping, and you wouldn't clutter the skyline. I've never been to Chicago but I feel if this town had something like Wacker Drive it would be so much easier to get across the most congested parts of town. I know there's not a river to run along but any kind of an elevated or subterranean express way would be huge!

[Stu]

Lincoln has probably close to the worst possible infrastructure for a city of this size. There's no good way to get across town.

 

<--- Chief of Town Road Design, Lincoln, NE

[HSKR]

I hate to be crude, well ok maybe I don't but you all sound like a bunch of hayseed hicks if you think Lincoln has traffic problems even at its worst (excluding game day of course since that is to be expected). I do agree there are a lot of the older parts of town that are impossible to fix unless you start tearing down houses and businesses but at least the newer areas even if they haven't four laned them yet on the square miles, they have at least left the room to do it in the future. Sure a beltway or two would be nice but where the heck is that money going to come from in this economy?

[ZRod]

I hate to be crude, well ok maybe I don't but you all sound like a bunch of hayseed hicks if you think Lincoln has traffic problems even at its worst (excluding game day of course since that is to be expected). I do agree there are a lot of the older parts of town that are impossible to fix unless you start tearing down houses and businesses but at least the newer areas even if they haven't four laned them yet on the square miles, they have at least left the room to do it in the future. Sure a beltway or two would be nice but where the heck is that money going to come from in this economy?

Where did it come from for Antelope Valley and the arena? Money has never seemed to be an issue for Lincoln's projects.