Traffic flow is much improved at Skelly Drive and Yale Avenue following a major project in 2006-07 that rebuilt the interchange, including the I-44 bridges. Yale Avenue now is six lanes through the interchange and has dual left-turn lanes onto the I-44 frontage roads. There also are right-turn lanes for Yale Avenue traffic to access the frontage roads. The frontage roads have signals that indicate motorists can turn left from the left and center lanes. This configuration was in place in the previous design, but the signals make it more noticeable. A turn-around was installed under the bridges to allow frontage road traffic to make a U-turn under the bridges instead of utilizing the signals to do so. The bridges, which are four spans, have three lanes and full shoulders, plus concrete girders. The completion of this project now makes Yale Avenue officially six lanes from north of I-44 to 61st Street and eliminates a major traffic bottleneck in this area of Tulsa. Photo taken October 2007.
DEVELOPING TULSA: THE AUSTIN HELLWIG COLLECTION
