The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Are there any plans to put in sidewalks on 31st between Harvard to Riverside?

I drive this stretch regularly and there's always people/people with dogs/runners, etc. either in the street or trying to maneuver the adjacent terrain, which is difficult in some places, like over crow creek at Zink Park. 

With the Gathering Place using 31st as a major entry point, are there any plans to upgrade the infrastructure leading to it?   

31 St... Just Past John Knox going west needs to be widened to Peoria...That would be time to start and bring side walks back west....

It would be nice to see sidewalks added before the Gathering Place opens.  After all it is the main east gateway to the park. 

What's the status of the planned Crow Creek trail to connect Zink Park to Brookside and the Gathering Place/river trails?

As someone who runs through those areas on occasion, I prefer to stay off the main roads. Even with a sidewalk, 31st is not an exciting walk while those neighborhoods have some beautiful homes to go by. The path along Crow Creek, at least from the river to Brookside, should help and be a big draw. And it should take pressure off of people walking along 31st there. If there were neighborhood sidewalks from Brookside to Zink Park that would connect quite a bit.

Otherwise, not sure once you go east of Peoria that it would be worth the cost and effort. I guess 31st makes as much sense as any other route, but I really doubt we have people walking from Harvard (or even Lewis) all the way to the gathering place.

Why, in your opinion, does 31st need to be widened?  Would you be opposed to re-striping the lanes?  According to INCOG, the traffic counts are relatively low compared to other arterials.  Seems to me a center turn lane with one traffic lane in each direction would suffice.

All of Tulsa's arterials ought to have sidewalks, preferably on both sides of the street, and especially in Midtown.  Many Tulsans do not drive and/or do not have easy access to cars.  I agree that not many would walk all the way from Harvard or Lewis to Riverside (and that the side streets are more pleasant for pedestrians), but more people would walk the 31st Street corridor if sidewalks were in place.

It would be better to narrow 31st from Zink Park to Riverside to 3 lanes with sidewalks on one side and a bike path/lane on the other.

No it wouldn't....

It’s always felt too narrow even at a 35 MPH speed limit until it widens east of Columbia or Delaware.  I’ve driven it for 35 years and have always that way.  Same thing with Lewis from 21st south until they re-worked it a few years ago.  I do find it curious that there wasn’t a sidewalk west of Harvard all these years when there were along Lewis. 

I thought that discouraging automobile traffic was the ultimate goal.  Get automobile speeds to 20 mph or less.

I am not being totally sarcastic.  In some areas, that should be the goal.  I don't know if 31st street is one of those areas.

That is why bypass roads are legitimate.  When I was (a lot) younger, our family would travel along US 301/ I95 to visit my grandparents in FL.  We would go through the business district when it was close to dinner time to buy some food to cook on the grill at a roadside rest.  Otherwise we hit the highway.  Forcing us to go through a small town did NOT result in our spending money there.

It's a terrible mentality that we suggest people not walk on main roads because of years of bad planning.

Absolutely would.

I drive that stretch virtually daily, and I agree.  If it is going to stay four lane, it needs to be widened.  It is uncomfortable to drive on in the right lane.  And while I'm a bike/walking guy,  the major arterials in Tulsa need to stay four lane.

I believe a city ordinance or regulation requires installation of sidewalks on any arterial road or parkway when any major street rehabbing work is done.  Also, if you build or do any substantial modification on your property that is on an arterial or parkway, you have to build sidewalks on your property (or pay into the city sidewalk fund in lieu of building the sidewalk).

You're never going to win an argument with Breadburner.  He knows everything.

Yes, I agree:  There's a spot between Columbia Place and Delaware (near John Knox as Breadburner described) where the pavement widens noticeably.  I've driven 31st for about 25 years, and it feels uncomfortable to be in the outside lanes west of Delaware.

But I'm asking a few questions because I think this is a good topic, relevant to other ongoing discussions on this forum, to Jeff Speck's recent "Walkable City" presentation, and to the City's current fiscal pinch.

First, I'm questioning whether 31st needs to be four lanes.  From Harvard west to Riverside, 31st is classified as an Urban Arterial on Tulsa's Major Street and Highway Plan (http://www.incog.org/mapping/Major%20St%20Hwy/Major%20Street%20&%20Highway%20Plan%20Map.pdf).  The plan shows a trafficway standard width for an Urban Arterial, which is a whopping 46 feet!  Here's the point in 31st Street where the current pavement widens/narrows (https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1187804,-95.9489668,3a,60y,266.45h,75.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdfv-fOWJ_ghd0yg2mW6IdA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656).  For quick reference, the narrow side is about 36 feet wide between curbs.  To the east, the pavement is about 40 feet wide.  At the Lewis Avenue intersection, 31st is five lanes wide, 62 feet curb-to-curb.  For another quick reference, the pavement on the south leg of the IDL, in the canyon below Main Street and Boston Avenue, is 118 feet wide overall (four shoulders, six driving lanes, plus the center dividing wall).  

INCOG's traffic count map (https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=710c9600be594232870b64f1ed4d11e7) shows relatively low volumes on 31st west of Harvard, and especially low numbers between Peoria and Riverside.  That's why I think 31st could be three lanes wide, maybe four lanes at the intersections with Riverside, Peoria and Lewis.  The current five lanes at Lewis is overkill.

Second, if 31st remains as a four lane street, and the curbs remain where they are, couldn't the lanes be re-striped as four equal lanes (each about nine feet wide)?  It wouldn't be as uncomfortable to drive in the outside lanes if they were a bit wider.

Third, what's so magical about the current 35 mph speed limit?  Could it be 30 mph?  25?  It's about 2.5 miles from Riverside to Harvard, and 31st is essentially a residential street in that segment.  Driving at 30 miles per hour, straight through, with no stops, and with no slowing down for pedestrians or anything else, the trip would take five minutes.  By increasing the driving speed from 30 to 35 mph, 43 seconds could be saved (which is about 17 seconds for each mile traveled).  But is the time savings for drivers worth the costs in having a street that's more dangerous for pedestrians and bicycles?  Is it worth the costs of demolishing the existing curbs, re-working the utilities and drainage, and building new curbs and pavement?


That's known as the "Complete Streets (https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/353633/CompleteStreetsProceduralManual_11-26-13.pdf)" policy.


Yes, with a small correction in red.

The City's Complete Streets policy prompts a fourth question:  Why not try to work a more complete 31st Street within its existing right of way, without acquiring additional strips of land for wider, faster driving lanes?  There's enough space for three vehicle lanes, plus sidewalks on both sides of the street.  It wouldn't be too expensive to re-paint the lanes between the existing curbs.  What's the harm in trying?  M.B. Cherry Street carries more traffic than 31st, with only two driving lanes between Quaker and Troost, including parking and sidewalks on both sides of the street.  

 

A re-stripe with a center turn lane would be fine with me.  There’s never what I would consider heavy traffic west of Harvard.  There again, we don’t know what traffic will be like once The Gathering Place opens though.

As I recall, the eventual plan for 31st would be one lane in each direction with a center turn lane (more than adequate for the traffic counts), and a protected bike lane on each side. 

Whenever the road is scheduled to be rehabbed, it doesn't really cost anything extra to paint the stripes in different locations, so the bike lanes should be able to be incorporated in a street rehab project at little cost.  If you can't wait for the road to need resurfacing, you can mill the stripes off and repaint them, but someone has to pay for it.  And you'd need to add the flex posts to create the protected bike lanes.  I think that's about $30k / mile for the posts.

Any major street rehab would require a sidewalk on at least one side of the street per COT policy.  Not sure exactly how a "major" rehab is defined.

I’m highly skeptical we will see protected bike lanes anywhere in Tulsa in the near future.  I suspect 31st St. will get a “share the road” designation like 36th with the bicycle graphic on the pavement every 1/4 mile or so.

As far as a major re-hab, think of 51st to 61st & Harvard or 21st to 31st on Yale.  Re-doing the neighborhood entrances and utilities along with new pavement would qualify.  They put new sidewalks down both sides of Yale in that project.  That was quite ironic when Dewby was arguing the sidewalks on Riverside past his cronies, er, friends, er um, constituents houses wouldn’t be a safe distance from the road for pedestrians, therefore they should not be there.  The ones on Yale had a similar set back yet, he didn’t seem too concerned about those pedestrians.

I use 31st a lot between Lewis and Peoria.  My observation is that a substantial number of vehicles turn left from west 31st onto Peoria and the traffic on 31st between Peoria and Riverside is substantially less (before Riverside was closed for The Gathering Place construction).  The traffic counts support this.  The count at 31st & Quaker was 12,200 in 2015 and 2014, but drops by more than half at 31st & Woodward to 5,400 in 2015 and 2014.

Based on the traffic counts, it makes sense to turn the west bound inside land at Peoria into a left turn lane and convert 31st from Peoria to Riverside to 2-lanes.  Based on the counts, I don’t think it makes sense to make that change to 31st between Harvard and Peoria.

Is this "eventual plan" part of the Gathering Place plan, or a greater Tulsa streets plan?   This discussion thread is close to my heart because I live right in behind the Gathering Place.  North of 31st, and West of Peoria.   I bike down, or sometimes just across, 31st multiple times per week to go hit the riverside trails.   Also, I just put Panniers on one of my bikes so that I can make quick grocery runs down to Reasons on 41st and Peoria. (A bit of thread drift, but the logistics of getting basically a mile on a bike for a simple grocery run is ridiculous...)

Right now, I agree, there is very little traffic on 31st.  And even before the GPFT I suspect it wasn't extremely heavy traffic simply due to overall traffic patterns.   The question is what it will be like (and to a great extent, what "we" want it to be like) after the Gathering Place opens up.   According to the maps,  there will be GPFT parking on Riverside at 31th and Riverside, as well as (and I think this will have more affect on 31st traffic) a back entrance to the larger parking area coming in from 30th street off of Boston Pl.  Particularly if that back entrance stays, I think 31st is probably going to see more traffic in the future than it did prior to GPFT opening up.

Of course, that doesn't mean that dropping it to two-lane with bike lanes on each side is a bad thing.  In fact, I would love to see that happen and I think that it would preserve a relatively quiet street and open up biking/walking opportunities all along that corridor and eventually maybe all the way down to the Brookside area for groceries. (As a purely unselfish example).

For being so pedestrian-friendly, the section of Brookside from 31st to 41st is nowhere close to bike friendly. 

We love the new Reasor’s there, especially the meat and cheese departments, and it’s become part of our Saturday routine.

Yep.  I'm still working out the best route option. I either go down Cincinnati to 34th,  then over to Riverside and take the sidewalk to 35th.  (Because the developers back in the day didn't see fit to provide a through street from 34th to 35th West of Peoria...)  Then 35th back to Madison, and Madison South to 41st and then over to Reasons.   OR,  cross Crow Creek on the sidewalk along Peoria, hit 33rd and make my way across and over to Quincy a block east of Peoria and then South to Reasons.    It just shouldn't have to be that hard.  I'm going to make a run later this afternoon and check more traffic patterns, etc...

It always cracks me up when I see these, in a sad/tragic kind of way.  Paint a bike on the road and voila, bike lane!   Come on, not really guys.

https://twitter.com/ImproveOurTulsa/status/723188264425820162

That project includes sidewalk to Zink Park and buffered bike lanes to Peoria.

Thanks, buffalodan.  Is the project online?  I'd like to see the design (lane widths, sidewalk width(s) and placement, curb ramps, drainage, utilities, etc.).

Not online yet. I am finishing it up hopefully this Friday. Or I am taking it with me on vacation, WOOO! It is the same 36' pavement width. Just now with 5' sidewalk, 5' bike lane next to curb, 2' painted buffer, 11 travel lane. Mirrrored East/West. Not sure how bikes/cars will interface with Riverside, and the bike lanes are dropped around the Peoria intersection. Its funny to hear NACTO talk about a road diet. They always think there are these 4-12' lane roads that are just begging to get redone. But instead we have 4-9' lanes. That loss of 12' makes a typical road diet hard.

Curb ramps aren't perfect, still R/W limited. But they don't point out into the middle of the road and will be ADA compliant. There is an RRFB at Woodward where the north sidewalk gets dropped. Drainage wasn't fun, and power poles may still go through the sidewalk on the south.

It has been a fun project to work on, and be sure to let me know what I messed up after you walk/bike/drive it. It should be done by the time the Gathering Place is done.

I would like you to be more active on this forum.

Haha, I will try.

Also, I am going to say that the city has been amazing for this project. I really hope that we have hit a major turning point in getting bikes/sidewalks finally prioritized. Next up, I try to convince them to let me to put in a bioswale on a collector street!

That's good to know.  The reason I'm asking is because the design was changed for a street/sidewalk project in my neighborhood (Riverview) a few years ago.  What the City and the design engineers showed to the neighborhood isn't what got built.  What they showed us was better, and I don't know why the design was revised, so late in the process.  The new sidewalks and curb ramps are bizarre (non-compliant to ADA, sloped and angled in weird directions, etc.)   

Oh, I'm now seeing that you posted at least three times quickly, and I'm only now seeing this one just now. 

It sounds as though you have considered many factors.  But I do wish these types of plans could be made public before the projects are completed.  Once it's set in concrete, it's expensive and difficult to change.  It's easy and (relatively) cheap to revise when it's on paper.

You aren't wrong about that. Curb ramps are probably the thing in Tulsa that engineers/inspectors/contractors struggle the most with. Public input is going to be tough one to crack. All public projects create angry people, and I really hate going to meetings with angry people.

I'm definitely not wrong, and I'm not saying that curb ramps are easy to design, especially with some of the huge curb radii we have in Tulsa.

In my neighborhood, the meetings were announced and open to the public.  The City asked for the neighborhood's input.  Yes, there were some angry people there.  I wasn't angry myself, until I saw that the curb ramp/sidewalk/crosswalk designs had been changed from what we were shown in a previous public meeting, and that the revised design was inferior to the previous design.  That irked me.  I told the design engineers and the City public works employees at the meeting that the revised design would not be ADA compliant, and they seemed to know exactly what I meant.  They understood me.  Something else was going on behind the scenes, I think.

No sense in having public meetings and asking for public input if the City is going to ignore it...  That's a waste of time.  What's the point?    

31st St feels uncomfortable to drive because it is 4 lane and cars are trying to pass you on a narrow street while also trying to avoid pedestrians, pedogstrians, runners, and bikes. Making it 2 lane with protected bike lane and sidewalks could actually make it feel less claustrophobic to drive.