I-44’s Annoying Construction Ends with 80MPH Limits to Lawton

Every few weeks the local social media pages seem to fill up with people complaining about the turnpike from Lawton to OKC and vice versa.

If you've ever driven that route, most complaints are totally fair, however, the current first-world issues we're experiencing are for the greater good.

Contractors have been hard at work for the last couple of years retrofitting our interstate to extend the higher 80 MPH speed limit all the way to Lawton.

Those little rectangle patches in the road serve a very legitimate purpose, and it's not just to toss your alignment out of wack.

It's called "dowel bar retrofitting," and it will make for a stronger and smoother road allowing a higher speed limit overall.

I'm sure you can remember driving a road where the sections of concrete settled from each other in a way that left driving a steady, rhythmic, bouncing ride. It's a natural occurrence between highway panels caused by loads of vehicles driving across the concrete gaps.

Those kinds of roads, like old I-40 or Route 66, tend to make me want to nod off.

By cutting slots and reinforcing each panel gap with rebar and super-strong concrete, this repair method prevents, or at least vastly slows down the deterioration of the roadbed by tying sections of concrete together as one.

This process was a work in progress for years between Chickasha and OKC, and when the time came the speed limit on the turnpike turned up to 80 MPH... When crews finally finish the Chickasha to Lawton route, we can expect it to do the same even though I'm fairly sure most people already do at least 80 MPH between here and there.

Is it inconvenient? Sure... but all in all it's for the greater good and the promise of faster travel - about three and a half minutes faster from Lawton to OKC... Five and a half if you push it to 83 MPH hoping to catch a state trooper on a good day.