So very sad. I hate to see those beautiful old bridges go.

It is such an abomination to tear up that grand facility.

Very cool pictures! Thanks Steve

Are you trying to stir up the Elmore folks?

Thank you for sharing these.

Walter, by “grand facility” you are referring to the railroad tracks behind the station, right? Because no one is tearing up the actual building.

Ah, the mark of a “progressive” city, tearing up rail tracks to lay highway.

You can’t honestly think we shouldn’t put a new, wider, safer I-40 in place of rarely used and basically non-functional railroad tracks? Sometimes progress is actually progress.

Yeah, Bill, I can actually think that existing rail lines should be preserved for future use. I can think that a progressive city will do what it can to utilize and encourage non-automobile modes of transportation. The new I-40 didn’t have to displace these existing rail lines, that was a choice. And from my perspective it was a bad choice.

They could move the new I-40 alignment, but not without creating another raised highway or destroying the Little Flower Church, the cultural center for the Hispanic community in OKC.

This issue is not as black and white as one might think.

To portray the decision as either the rail yard or a church had to be sacrificed seems a tad too convenient.

Though the stop action wagon long ago rolled across the plains into the sunset, it is not unreasonable to feel regret over the decisions that were made.

Life goes on all the same.

the walnut street viaduct was thankfully saved. both it and the subject photos as well as the civic center itself were part of the very first OKC MAPS project back in the 1930s (putting an end to crosstown traffic jams and building a beautiful, functional civic center, courthouse, and city hall). there was a lot more money invested in bricktown to save the walnut overpass than in the hispanic community. ODOT is not evil, they are charged with maintaining a viable transportation system in the cheapest manner possible. they have done so, and nobody rallied to save it until it was too late. can you imagine the outcry if they had proposed tearing down the civic center? unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened, only to a part that had already been “bypassed” in the mind of the public.

on a more hopeful note, who among us has not been “wowed” by the new bridge over highway 102 on the turner turnpike? every time i pass it, i ask myself, “why don’t we demand that EVERY new bridge be a work of art like this one?” the cost of the additional decoration is frankly a bargain, especially considering that we have to look at it every time we pass it. if, and ONLY if, we let the government know that we not only support this kind of design but that we EXPECT it, we may enter a new era of public works. if we accept a poverty mindset, we will perpetuate poverty. if we demand excellence and beauty, we will truly build the kind of place where people want to live. the answer actually extends beyond public education (which i do not mean to denigrate in any way).

captcha= heartier battle