Roundabout recommended to ease new OKC convention center traffic challenges

Consultants are recommending a roundabout to keep traffic flowing in the vicinity of the new convention center complex and the MAPS 3 downtown park.

The roundabout would be on Robinson Avenue at SW 7 Street, adjacent to the convention center’s south parking lot. The design would accommodate trucks, buses, cars and bicycles.

The roundabout is viewed as the best way to provide a U-turn for drivers on Robinson Avenue approaching the convention center from the downtown.

The convention center complex is to include the $288 million convention center, a high-rise luxury hotel and a $35.2 million, 865-space parking garage.

A traffic study by consultant Kimley-Horn and Associates considered three options:

• Modify the intersections of Robinson and SW 6 or SW 7 to accommodate U-turns.

• Encourage drivers to circle the convention center’s south parking lot to, in effect, make a U-turn.

• Put in a roundabout at SW 7, producing options for drivers to reverse direction or turn on SW 7.

Consultants said their preferred option was the roundabout, which would function somewhat like the roundabout at NW 10 Street and Walker Avenue, in Midtown near St. Anthony Hospital.

Drawings show the roundabout and realignment of SW 7 would cut into the south lot’s parking. It is described as the “best long-term solution” to convention center access.

Consultants

recommended that streets surrounding the convention center be designed and maintained for two-day traffic for long-term flexibility in the area bounded by the Oklahoma City Boulevard, E.K. Gaylord Boulevard, Interstate 40 and Robinson Avenue.

The Robinson Avenue “cross-section” should include, as planned, parking, bicycle lanes and traffic lanes. Plans are for parking that could accommodate food trucks along Robinson, alongside the downtown park and across the street from the convention center.

The convention center design includes areas for buses to pull up out front and for valet parking. The hotel next door to the convention likely also would offer valet parking.

Architects last week also showed the convention center volunteer advisory panel drawings of three options for a pedestrian bridge or skyway.

The skyway would link the convention center and yet-to-be-designed hotel and is an amenity that is seen as a necessity by convention planners.

Options for the structure spanning SW 4 Street ranged in price from $1.5 million to $3 million. It would link to the meeting room level of the convention center.

How it would tie into the planned headquarters hotel is undetermined.

Plans are to finish convention center designs this year and seek bids on construction in January.

Architects plan to return next month with an update on how designs are lining up with the construction budget of about $215 million.

The convention center is financed by the voterapproved 1-cent MAPS 3 sales tax and will open debt-free.