Section 106 Process Begins for Ribbon Road Rehabilitation Project
The 3.6 mile stretch of original US Highway 66 near Miami, Oklahoma called the Ribbon Road (or the Sidewalk Highway) has entered the Section 106 process, a review period required by the National Historic Preservation Act any time work is being done on or near historic properties. The Oklahoma Route 66 Association is one of the agencies that is notified when Historic Route 66 will be impacted by such work.
Ottawa County, in cooperation with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and the Federal Highways Administration, is proposing work on the nine-foot-wide roadbed. The intent is to “restore the original character of the historic road, improve poor roadway conditions, and reduce traffic on the original nine-foot-wide pavement section.”
When this project was first announced a few years back, several proposals were made. The alternative that is being recommended by the aforementioned parties at this time includes adding paved shoulders on either side of the original lane:
“The proposed improvements include restoring the original section of pavement; replacing the 6-inch-wide flush concrete curbing; widening the existing 5- to 8-foot-wide gravel shoulders to 10 feet on both sides of the roadway; and paving them to create a durable travel lane. The paved shoulders will eliminate future motor grader activity and therefore discontinue the damage it is causing to the original pavement section. The newly paved shoulders will be chip sealed with brown pea gravel to give the appearance and character of the original historic gravel shoulder. The slope beyond the paved 10-foot lane will be a 2’-9” wide aggregate base shoulder with a slope of 2:1. The project includes drainage structures, and roadside ditches will be graded to properly drain. Trees along the existing right-of-way fence line are being preserved where possible.”
ODOT has made their Historic Structure Report, Roadway Evaluation Report, and Alternatives Design Report available for public viewing at: http://www.odotculturalresources.info/ribbon-road.html. Alternative 5 (page 61-62 of the Historic Structures Report) is a more detailed version of the proposal mentioned above:
“In response to this community feedback and in consideration of Ottawa County’s maintenance practices, a fifth alternative was developed (Figure 23). As with Alternatives #1–4, Alternative #5 offers a different position for the new driving lanes and shoulders relative to the original roadbed, and includes distinctive materials. Alternative #5 configures the 11‐foot‐wide driving lanes to straddle both the original 9‐foot‐wide roadway section and its shoulders at a slight offset. Gravel would be removed from the roadway and the original 9‐foot‐wide section would be rehabilitated by patching or milling, and re‐laying new asphalt as close to possible to the Topeka mix. The original shoulders would be reconstructed as an asphalt section topped with a gravel and oil mix. The new lanes’ shoulder areas would consist of small brown pea gravel consistent with early roadway materials. This treatment would provide a harder and smoother surface, and mimic the roadway’s original look. A chip seal surface would eliminate the requirement to occasionally grade the roadway surface, preventing maintenance from causing destruction since road grading equipment has previously damaged and worn parts of the original concrete curbs and asphalt. Finally, as part of the chip seal treatment, removing the non‐historic gravel overlay surface would remove a major source of abrasion that has also caused damage.”
The entire 597-page document has a lot of information, including a comprehensive history of the Sidewalk Highway itself. If you have the time and inclination, there’s a lot of information for detail-oriented road warriors.
The Oklahoma Route 66 Association has a Ribbon Road Committee dedicated to following this project and making recommendations to all parties involved. It consists of President Rhys Martin and Association members Rich Dinkela and Kristy Chance. If Rich’s name sounds familiar, he is the President of the Route 66 Association of Missouri and has operated his own paving business for decades. Kristy has been a long-time local advocate for preservation in Ottawa County.
We will keep the Association in the loop as the Section 106 process goes forward and, eventually, as construction commences. The Section 106 process includes multiple meetings and a public comment period. For reference, the Bridgeport Pony Bridge project entered the Section 106 process in December of 2020 and construction just commenced in November 2022.
