Olive widening project proceeding

City of Broken Arrow

12/09/2024

The City Council has given the green light to proceed with the final design for an intersection and three-lane street widening project on Olive Avenue between Albany and Kenosha streets.

"Traffic backs up, we hear that. It's important to me, it's important to you, and I know it is important to Mr. Spurgeon that we get it fixed," Director of Engineering and Construction Charlie Bright said to the Broken Arrow City Council on Dec. 3.

Bright and the Engineering and Construction Department sought the Council's guidance regarding how many traffic lanes they would like to see constructed on this final project from the 2014 general obligation bond.

Ten years ago, when the voters approved that bond, 12,000 vehicles traveled that section of the roadway daily. A June capacity analysis conducted by Traffic Engineering Consultants compared vehicular counts from 2014 to 2024. They found that the number of vehicles traveling on this roadway has stayed relatively the same over the last 10 years.

A standard two-lane roadway can handle 13,000 vehicles per day. Bright says traffic congestion on this stretch of roadway isn't caused by the number of cars on the road but by insufficient turn lanes at the Olive and Kenosha intersection.

"Whether we widen to three, four, or five lanes, the intersection will be five or six lanes," Bright said. "We will fix the backup because the intersection will be fixed."

View the full press release: BrokenArrowok.gov