The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Does anyone know if removing one or more legs of the IDL has been submitted for the Vision extension? 

Replacing highways with boulevards has been done in many other cities (San Francisco, Milwaukee, Chattanooga, and Portland to name some) with positive results. 

I'd think the east leg would be the best from a financial, connectivity, and political point of view, but the north leg would also be great to get rid of.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? 

Maybe in 5-10 years this would be a good idea. But with all of the empty parking lots in south/east downtown still, there are plenty of other places which need to be developed first. Lots of projects are underway which might help boost this idea in the future.

I'm all for this eventually. It sounds like a good long-term goal, to get downtown where real estate is in such high demand that a multi-million dollar demolition of part of the IDL would make sense.

Additionally, currently the IDL allows people to get downtown much faster. If it is removed now, it will make the drive take longer for many people and will overall reduce traffic to downtown. I looked at 31st & Harvard to 2nd & Elgin for example. Removing the IDL would change the drive from 8 to 12 minutes. Doesn't sound like a huge deal, but that adds 8 minutes to a commute for an already congested stretch. Hopefully the Pearl District (which I think should be more of a priority) and east downtown will develop enough so that this could eventually make sense, but it looks like Tulsa will need the entire IDL for the foreseeable future.

Kind of an apples and oranges comparison, not only on city sizes, but the reasons for the removal.

Harbor Drive in Portland was an outdated and underused being surpassed by newer highways when it was remove in 1974

The Embarcadero in San Francisco was being discussed for removal when the Loma Prieta earthquake damage it in 1989. Removal started in 1991 and was a 10 year process.

Alaskan Way in Seattle is also being removed, and moved underground because of damage from an earthquake in 2001.

Milwaukee was a project started in the 1960's and then halted before completion and was left unfinished.

Only in Milwaukee was the removal done as part of a restructuring and redesign effort.

Seattle realized they could expand their waterfront area by placing the road underground instead of repairing the existing roadway.

http://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-demolitions-that-changed-their-cities-forever-1548314937 (http://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-demolitions-that-changed-their-cities-forever-1548314937)

foot note: The Embarcadero was also never completed. It had approximately 1.5 miles of usable surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_480 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_480)

I doubt the IDL in its entirety would ever be removed, it's a key part of the metro highway system.  Burying it and/or capping it would be an alternative though a lot of money was just invested in the current infrastructure.  The section between the East End and Pearl would be a good eventual target for this, as well between OSU and Brady.

The north and west legs have just been completely reconstructed, so they aren’t going anywhere. You can’t kill both the south and east legs or you orphan the north end of the Broken Arrow Expressway from the city expressway system. Anyway, the south leg is already built below grade and is pretty busy so it makes sense to keep that side of the IDL. What about capping the south leg instead of removing it?

That leaves the east leg as the only real viable candidate for removal. The south and east legs are supposed to start reconstruction in the next year or two so if you were to remove a leg you could make a case for using the money set aside to repair that leg to remove it instead of using Vision 2025 cash. I’m all for it. Rejoin the Pearl District to downtown.

Remove the east leg and cap the south.

It's not just the metro highway system, it's ALL interstate highway, even if the east and south legs aren't signed as such, both are denoted in documentation as I-444.  The entire IDL is part of the Interstate Highway System so it's federally owned, is my understanding.

Good luck with that.

Agreed. I think the most practical idea would be to remove the east leg and cap the south leg from approximately Cheyenne to Boston/Baltimore. Ideally, the north leg could be removed, but it was recently rehabbed and is part of 244. 

All expressway right-of-way around downtown is owned by the State of Oklahoma.  That would be a hurdle, but less of one that federal ownership I think.

Removing the east leg practical? In what sense? You force traffic from the north into a four mile lap around downtown to get to the BA. Same for traffic from the south east on the BA. You get one accident on the west leg and you have traffic backed up for miles, then you overload the surface streets with traffic trying to avoid the delay.

You replace it with a boulevard that makes present connections. Granted, one couldn't blast down the highway at 70, but a consistent 35mph with timed, synchronized traffic lights would be  small price to pay to remove the noose of highways that cuts downtown off from the rest of the city.

A proposal like this  ;D

www.infrastructuretulsa.org

I'll add more details when I have the time this afternoon/evening hopefully.

Tulsans would riot in the streets if you tried to remove a highway.  I think that there is plenty of room inside the IDL for infill, especially south, so I don't think we are in any desparate need of space to extend.  Land bridges or capping were mentioned and that would probably be a better and more realistic discussion.  Near Boston to connect the 18th and Boston area to downtown might be nice if infill ever reaches south of the central business district (i.e., if the infamous parking crater ever disappears).

  I think of some places that I really love and it seems that for some reason or another they are "landlocked" or constrained in some respects (rivers, cliffs/mountains, lakes, green space, etc.).  This can force a place to become more dense and or help it create a unique identity.  If downtown were an island surrounded on several sides by rivers and was only connected to other parts of the city by bridges and a couple land areas, I doubt we would be having this conversation.  

  Perhaps it's not that the barrier the highway makes is entirely bad, for we can see examples where "barriers" can have positive consequences, perhaps it's more that the barrier in this case is not an attractive one.

Is that your web site or do you know who is behind it?  Some pretty good research.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Freeway (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Freeway)


JMO, the Central Freeway and Embarcadero are not valid comparisons.  They were proposed in the 50's and construction started in the early 60's and never completed do to the "Highway Revolt" and stood as incompleted roads until they were demolished in the years after the Loma Prieta quake as a result of being damaged and too expensive to repair. SF already had in place public transit infrastructure to take the place of the failed highways. Also it took the better part of 10 to 12 years for completion.

It is my website – I have not done much in terms of making it very public yet, but I’ve been meeting with varies groups in town to make people aware of it and get feedback.

I’ve been researching and working on this for several years, and will be submitting it to the Vision projects ideas. Even if it's not included - the economic viability of this project is real, and could be done without Vision funds. There's only a short time period in terms of getting the project off the ground because in 1-2 years the funds will be set in stone with ODOT and can't be reallocated - then we will be stuck with the IDL for another 20-30 years.

A few examples and takeaways:

Central Freeway and Embarcadero – the key takeaway that’s applicable to Tulsa for these is that removing freeways does not cause massive gridlock.  People find different routes and adapt – see Riverside Drive, there has been no massive traffic jams and it carries 20,000 commuters in and out of downtown everyday. Just so people know, the BA Expressway handles about the same amount of commuters per day into/out of downtown (the rest are non-downtown inner regional travelers or regional travels i.e. Arkansas to Kansas). Those non-downtown and regional travels would re-route to other routes if the south and east legs were changed to at-grade boulevards. They would take 169 to I-244 through downtown instead of the BA.

To note – traffic counts on the south leg of the IDL are only about 40,000 cars per day, that is the same traffic volume at parts of 71st, Riverside, Yale, Memorial see per day as well. So why are we paying for such over sized infrastructure? It’s a misconception that the IDL handles such a large amount of traffic that we can’t do anything with it. The Central Freeway and Embarcadero all handled over 100,000 cars per day – more than 2x the IDL – and they did not see any impact to traffic congestion.

West Side Highway – same issue, no added traffic congestion and it has helped the re-birth of the entire west side of NYC by connecting it to the waterfront.

Milwaukee Park East Freeway– This example I used for construction cost estimation as it’s the most recent example and Milwaukee construction costs are way more applicable to Tulsa than San Francisco. Again, this section handled more traffic per day than any section of the IDL currently sees – yet no increase in traffic congestion was experienced when it was removed.

Economic Development

We can open up very valuable land for infill development by simply slimming down our infrastructure.

I did a return on investment calculation for this to see if this was even a good investment for the city. The assumptions are: $45 million per mile for demolition and reconstruction of the street-grid for a total of $142 million. We reallot the $79 million in ODOT funds from repaving the IDL to this project. The city then bonds the rest or $63 million. What’s the return on that $63 million? Well we assume a 3 year construction period (which likely could be 1-2 years). Land sales to developers would begin occurring in Year 3. We would infill each new city block with 300 units, first development delivers Year 5. The income from land sales and ad valorem taxes from the multi-family units would give the city of Tulsa a 8-9% return on their $63 million investment at Year 30. If we add into the equation that these would be mixed-use (retail on the ground floor) then this number goes up significantly.

I agree. Tulsa is nowhere near SF in terms of public transportation. Plus this kind of thing would only make sense in Tulsa if the land taken up by the highway was worth more than the highway plus the cost of removal plus the economic hit from losing that highway. I  highly doubt that. Tulsa isn't even remotely close to needing that land that badly downtown yet.

I like the idea and the website infrastructuretulsa.org is well done with good points. I think at this point the economic benefit of having that as a shortcut through Tulsa outweighs the potential value of the land. It could also lower real estate values in downtown and surrounding areas if suddenly there were many new blocks of open land.

We can't even get the city leaders to keep from turning a popular public park into a massive parking crater!
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/tulsa-city-council-approves-amendment-clearing-the-way-for-rei/article_b2c26a75-1af6-5f59-83b3-376b5eabcced.html (http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/tulsa-city-council-approves-amendment-clearing-the-way-for-rei/article_b2c26a75-1af6-5f59-83b3-376b5eabcced.html)

I'm not sure I agree with it being economically beneficial to have a shortcut through downtown. It's very bad for the City to do this - we shouldn't be in the game of getting people through as fast as possible, we want people to say in the city and encourage them to stop and spend money. Placing time over economic development and tax revenues is never a good thing. We're allowing tax dollar to fly out of the City of Tulsa in exchange for letting people get from Broken Arrow to Stillwater or Ft. Smith to Wichita 5 minutes faster.

The land which I've "valued" at $1 million per city block. Just to note, the site the Hampton Inn is being built was sold for close to $2 million. So land sales could potentially pay for all of the extra cost needed to bridge the gap between ODOT funds and what's needed to finish the project if they were sold for higher than $1 million per block.

Dumping this much land on to the market would have to be done in a thoughtful way. This could be done through only allowing 2-3 city blocks to be sold per year. Even if you did put them all on the market at the same time - there is almost no land for sale in downtown now. Just because we have tons of parking lots - doesn't mean they are developable. We have very little developable land because a lot of the entities that own them are not sellers.

This project would take several years to even put land on the market as well. Just think about how much new development has been announced in the last 2 years. How much will be announced in the next 3? We need to think about do we need this land in the next 10-15 years for new developments? The answer is yes - to me at least.

You can then create a value capture area (BID and TIF districts) and capture all the new taxes for 30 years and pay for other projects as well like say a streetcar connecting downtown to surrounding neighborhoods?

My point is, that you are proposing removing at least one portion of a highway interchange on the potential development that might happen along that corridor. The cities that you are using for a comparison already had development in the areas discussed, China Town in SF was there before the Embarcadero and Central Expressway, and it was the same for Seattle, Portland an Milwaukee. They were not one of the Kevin Costner "If you build it, they will come" areas.

How many developers are proposing residential and commercial along the east leg? Is there enough existing employers to support those living there? How many businesses are proposing moving to downtown, let alone how many businesses not already in Tulsa are willing to relocate to downtown?

The demise of downtown started before the IDL was built and completed in the late 70's early 80's an stagnated for close to 30 years. I'm not saying that there is no potential there, but it seems like the cart before the horse. I also think that your estimate of $142 million is way off, an getting the Fed, ODOT, and other funding realigned won't be easy if not damned near impossible.

East side needs to go so Downtown connects to the Pearl District.

I just don't think its time yet. Nor will it be in 10 or 15 years.  30 years from now, perhaps.  But again, I don't mind the psychological barriers that are created by the IDL.  Also, just as they get people past and out of downtown from neighboring communities and further abroad, they get people into downtown easily as well.  Again, I liken them to rivers that transport people and goods into and past downtown.   I like it when development runs into an impediment, like a river or in this instance a highway and piles up, versus when there is no delineating factor and everything just sprawls outward.  Especially in Tulsa's current situation, it helps people visualize "we can develop and fix up this small run-down area within this boundary" versus, "omg, the desolation just sprawls out forever, what can I do to have an impact" lol.  Perhaps 30 years or so from now, fine, but not now.

As for areas like 6th street and connecting downtown with the Pearl.  I would rather see creative art/park type projects that make the overpass and such an interesting asset/gateway and attraction.

I think sometimes we tell ourselves "stories" about something, carry it around as though its truth.  "Not enough parking." (I would say thats wrong per downtown) "Needs more light to be safer and more attractive" (I believe too much light can make an area unattractive and not add to safety), etc. etc. I think "The IDL needs to be removed." is another one of those stories that is easy to jump on and believe, and you can come up with things that make it sound logical at first glance, but is not really true. I think we are so used to automatically assuming that this story is true "that the IDL and it breaking up areas is bad"(and it does appear that building it hurt some areas in the past, but the situation we have now, is different. We unfortunately can't go back to that time and place. But the thought of it's past harm fools us into perhaps wrongly thinking that it now must be a current harm.  But that in itself is not logical. ), and we come up with notions that support the idea that the IDL is now bad, that we have not also explored the idea that there may be positives ideas to explore.

dbacksfan 2.0 – I appreciate the feedback. In terms of SF being developed – yes it was, but it was in a state of rapid decline at that point. SF lost population from 1950 – 1980, in fact it went from 775,357 in 1950 to 678,974 in 1980. The Embarcadero was damaged in 1989 and was finished constructing in its current format in 2002. The Central Freeway was essentially the same timeline. BART (SF’s subway lines) began operating in 1972 (a very small segment). It was the combination of investments to rid the city center of freeways to open up developable land and reconnect neighborhoods and the re-investment in it’s rail/bus systems that helped bring SF back to where it is today. They did these projects because they knew in the long run it was good for the city, most of the land that the Embarcadero Freeway used to occupy is know being developed into the Transbay Center. That would not have been possible without a future looking vision by citizens and community leaders.

Developers aren’t proposing anything there 99% of people are going to say that’s a highway, it will always be a highway. I’ll post this map again though.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/909/9yuvFg.jpg)

This is all very recent developments and planned developments – the way of infill and flowing towards the east leg of the IDL and you’ve seen property values shoot up in the Pearl especially along the 3rd Street area adjacent to the IDL/East Village area. All this that has happened in these last 2-3 years I don’t see how a developer if offered the land the IDL now occupies – especially the east leg – would not want to develop the land. Where is there other land to develop around here that hasn’t already been accounted for? Where are there mass blocks of land for sale to develop downtown? There isn’t any…

The parking lots help create a façade that there is an immense amount of land just immediately available to develop, but that’s not true. They have to be willing sellers first, many of which are not.

Here’s a few businesses moving downtown: Hogan Assessment, Compression Solutions, Ross Group – all building new HQ’s downtown = 100,000 sq. ft. of new office space, all in the East Village area too. Downtown is our largest employment center in the region too – so in terms of people wanting to live close to work this will drive demand downtown for a long time. There’s a reason buildings like the Vanderver and Harrington lofts have waitlists of nearly 100 people. I tried to move downtown when I came back to Tulsa and it took me 10 months to get a place.

You are correct about it not being simple to realign the ODOT funds – I’ve been trying to research more into how to do this. It would really take a collection of citizen, local leadership, and the willingness of our state reps to work with us to do this. This is why I think if it were to be included as a project in Vision2025 – there’s no stronger way to show support for something than a community wide vote and to have it pass. That sends a very loud and clear message to ODOT and the Fed’s this is what the local citizens want and demand. If it were to end up not being included in Vision20205 renewal – it would likely make the road harder, but not impossible.

The $142 million might be “way off”. I will admit I am not an engineer or a construction genius. I’m looking into way to help raise money to do some construction estimation and engineering studies to help determine a better number than that. I used to Milwaukee example to base construction costs based off the fact they were tearing down and elevated structure and re-built the entire street-grid surrounding it which would make it very similar to what I’m proposing to do with the IDL.

Also – Milwaukee where they did their program had no development going on remotely close to it at that time. They have seen a significant amount of infill and new construction around it since. The Milwaukee area had significantly less potential than the East Village/Pearl area in Tulsa does currently.

Artist – I always respect your opinions and thoughts on here. I am a bit surprised; I figured you would be one of the people on here that would be excited by something like this.

I have heard that several times that it’s a benefit to downtown to get people through as fast as possible or to have the exposure of regional travelers coming through downtown. How many of those people really stop downtown? None of them. There’s no gas stations, no fast food places for them to stop.  They’re going to stop and spend money in Sand Springs at QT and McDonald’s.

Plus – the proposal doesn’t get rid of this corridor either. I’m not simply saying let’s removing everything and they can find another route. I’m just saying we need to take the infrastructure from a grade-separated freeway down to an at-grade complete street. Now people would be able to bike from Cherry Street into the heart of downtown or walk instead of trying to navigate around these freeways. It would make the infrastructure human scale and friendly.

Also another valuable thing about this proposal is we would improve our local connectors. Right now 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. they have all been severed from the surrounding neighborhoods and downtown. This is bad for retail, restaurants and downtown businesses that would benefit from having better infrastructure connections to customers who are within minutes of them.

Being able to reintegrate and connect Cherry Street and Maple Ridge into downtown would be a huge benefit – right now it’s cut off by the SE interchange which is the biggest barrier into downtown.

The IDL construction removed thousands of households – imagine if we had all of those back? How much money would the city be seeing now or over the course of 30 years if all those structures hadn’t been removed? Well it amounts to about $300 million or more that the City of Tulsa has lost out on revenue wise since the IDL was built – enough to pay for The Gathering Place. That’s from property taxes alone. That doesn’t even take into account all the retail businesses that picked up and moved when people stopped using 15th, 11th, Admiral and others as their drive and diverted to I-244 and the BA.

DOWNTOWN BEFORE THE IDL

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/540/18r7Cp.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/f018r7Cpp)

AREA'S DEMOED FOR THE IDL

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/YpavmN.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/idYpavmNp)


These maps illustrate that point. You can see the structures that were removed for the freeways and all the former street grid and local connectors that were destroyed for the IDL.

I just don’t see the positives in the IDL. I also am one who see’s this as a large swatch of land that can be developed (as I’ve said before I’m in the RE industry) so I know my perspective is skewed in that direction – I’m open to hearing about positives things about the IDL, but from a planning, development, property value, economic situation the only thing I’ve seen has been negative.

_______

In the end – that’s why I posted the link to my website – I want to vet the idea. Have people pick it apart. Tell me what they think is wrong, answer questions, and open a dialogue between people. I think the idea will evolve – as it has since I’ve started on the idea years ago – and at the end of the day I’m hopefully that something impactful will come of it that will help move Tulsa forward into a more innovatively thinking city in terms of infrastructure and economic development.

The area destroyed was much larger than your map indicates.

1.  For the southeast interchange which was never completed as designed;
2.  For the on/off ramps; and,
3.  To make the south leg less of a canyon (lower costs of retaining walls, probably).  Anyway, there are more grass slopes and fewer retaining walls than originally planned.

Those downtown before the IDL images are about as sad/depressing as the picture of Boston Ave before urban renewal/TCC decimated the south part of downtown. 

I would love to see your plan become a reality.  I also would like to see the BA rebuilt below-grade from Harvard to Peoria moving the rail line to one of the sides like what Denver did when they rebuilt I-25.

You are right - that was a pretty quick sketch of the area. Here is a more accurate look that shows the other sections as well:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/911/r0O1gF.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/pbr0O1gFp)

I added these maps to my website as well. The southeast interchange definitely took out the largest chunk of real estate out of all the areas of the IDL.

The southeast interchange ended up being larger than originally designed. I'm guessing this is because it was built last and land values had already started to drop.  My understanding is there were some doubts the Broken Arrow Expressway would get built when it was proposed because of right-of-way costs.

Vince Sposato that lived in the path of the BA between Lewis and what would become the SE corner of the IDL, was involved in the delay of construction, but he did it for the right reasons so that citizens received fair compensation for their homes.


http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/vincent-sposato-rites-today/article_aa4447d4-0695-5c65-b4ce-8c2bc203fa30.html (http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/vincent-sposato-rites-today/article_aa4447d4-0695-5c65-b4ce-8c2bc203fa30.html)

When I was a toddler I lived in that area (SE area of the IDL).  We were moved in 1973.  1430 S Elgin Ave.  Just north of 15th across from what I reckon is Maple Park.  I have vivid memories of that house.  The railroad track was behind our backyard.

Here's is another project that really hasn't got much publicity - Houston is likely to remove one section of it's downtown freeway loop:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/dybJxE.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/eydybJxEp)

This was a recommendation from TxDot as well. If Houston can do it - Tulsa can do it.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/transportation/article/Massive-I-45-project-would-remove-Pierce-6217572.php#photo-7867328

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/houstons-urban-interstate-debate-transform-or-tear-down/392546/

http://www.planetizen.com/node/76079

Wow., that's a big segment.  As a former resident, and as someone who used that segment daily for about a year, that is a little surprising.  That's going to take some work, obviously as that whole Pierce Elevated segment has paralleling roads.  Traffic will be a nightmare (as if it already isn't in Houston anyway).

They want to cap over I-45/69 as well - so it would reconnect the east, west and south sides of downtown to surrounding neighborhoods. Some citizen groups are lobbying to keep the Pierce structure intact to turn it into an elevated park (i.e. Houston's High Line Park).

"Plus – the proposal doesn’t get rid of this corridor either. I’m not simply saying let’s removing everything and they can find another route. I’m just saying we need to take the infrastructure from a grade-separated freeway down to an at-grade complete street. Now people would be able to bike from Cherry Street into the heart of downtown or walk instead of trying to navigate around these freeways. It would make the infrastructure human scale and friendly.

Also another valuable thing about this proposal is we would improve our local connectors. Right now 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. they have all been severed from the surrounding neighborhoods and downtown. This is bad for retail, restaurants and downtown businesses that would benefit from having better infrastructure connections to customers who are within minutes of them. "

I got ya.  I am starting to like the idea.  Would like to see sketches of what it could be like.

The Pierce elevated was the original BA segment of the Creek for me.  The undulating rhythm of the road surface almost put you to sleep.  Of course, that was back in the early 90s.  I know they corrected it later.

Yep -
Look what happened when a cattle transport truck overturned on a ramp entering the east leg  - chaos in downtown and peoria because commuters could not get back to Owasso.

Or this weekend with the potential jumper at Peoria...no east or west bound traffic on the south leg caused traffic flooding in downtown and Riverview and Cherry street.

I'm all for capping the south leg and burying or removing the east leg to reconnect the Pearl to the East Village but we need alternate transportation choices first.

Good grief...just imagine if we still had all of that housing and apartment stock. I bet they were comparable to Mapleridge and Tracy park homes with lots of Craftsman bugalows.

I think you could make the argument that all of the cars that came in on these highways also caused the destruction of even more homes and small buildings in favor of surface parking.

I think highway capping would be a whole lot more realistic for Tulsa, and I would get behind capping 100%!

The south side of downtown and the east village would both be good candidates.

Either parks like in Dallas:

(http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/dallas_highway_park_01.jpg)

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--RI5er2k8--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18zbxmsm9ul1cjpg.jpg)

or retail like in Columbus:

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X_udYZnlx6M/UUDDB0p1u0I/AAAAAAAAADA/_sUOxZpLzqk/s1600/ColumbusAfter.jpg)

(http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/29791/577200/1165284410957/columbus+0806_-1.JPG?token=GnGJA1s47yT%2BtJpUzT6l00uuL3s%3D)

If you've been around downtown the past few years, we have lived with exactly this scenario due to construction/bridge repair.  I used to drive to Stillwater almost every week from midtown Tulsa and experienced it both ways.  Depending on what bridge was closed, sometimes, you had to circle around on the east and north of downtown, and other times, you had to swing around on the south and west side.  It makes absolutely no difference in time.  And it basically just proved how redundant the IDL is. We could lose half of it, and it wouldn't make a difference to through-drivers.  Replacing the highway with boulevards would satisfy the needs of those who are actually GOING downtown.  Everyone else could just circle around.

takemeback - These are both very good example - particularly the Columbus one. I've tried to look up financials on that project for some time to get a cost estimate on what they spent.

In terms of if Tulsa did something similar to Dallas. This was the first scenario I looked into, because it would be the easiest in terms of people's comfort levels of changing a freeway to a boulevard. However, the costs are rather astronomical which is why in the end I ruled out capping the freeways and decided to rebuild them entirely.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/537/pq8rua.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/expq8ruaj)

The above image shows where we could cap the freeways on the South leg of the IDL - total cost $528.07 million based on per acre cost of Klyde Warren Park in Dallas.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/913/FuBPDb.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/pdFuBPDbj)

Above is where we could create caps over the SE interchange - total cost for this is an additional $690.17 million

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/8MvJFg.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/ip8MvJFgj)

Here is where we could cap sections of the east leg - total cost for the East Village/Pear section is an additional $117.45 million - total cost for the FinTube/Crutchfield area is an additional $234.44 million

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/913/c1bEaz.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/pdc1bEazj)

Above I've highlighted a very small portion - you could call phase 1 - total cost is $51.64 million

If the City/State were to pursue capping the IDL with a series of parks the total cost would be approximately $1.57 billion. That's the reason why I didn't propose this particular solution, I don't feel it would create enough economic return to justify the price tag.

This is a very great point - the BA was essentially closed in terms of through traffic during the reconstruction of the west leg of the IDL. We did not see any panic, nor unbearable traffic congestion as a result. People found other routes. I was in school at OSU during that time and when I came home to Tulsa I usually just took 169 to I-244 and avoided the BA through downtown.


This is the problem with limited access freeways. When you close them for "events" like crashes or jumpers - you force everyone off at one point which will overload any intersection. That's the beauty of a street-grid is that if an intersection is closed you just go 1 block over and continue on your way.

Say the jumper or crash scenario happened at 6th and Boston and they closed 6th Street between Main and Boston. You simple go 1 block north or south and then divert back to your original route. Limited access infrastructure doesn't allow you that option so when they fail - they are big events. If the scenario happened this weekend and the BA was at-grade and connected into the street-grid it would have been a non-event in terms of congestion and traffic re-routing.

That does seem a little steep for a park...

From what I've read, the columbus capping cost a little less the $10 million (Which I find pretty amazing!). source:http://www.columbusunderground.com/chicago-studies-the-innovative-i-670-highway-cap-in-columbus (http://www.columbusunderground.com/chicago-studies-the-innovative-i-670-highway-cap-in-columbus) source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-27/news/ct-met-kamin-highway-caps-20111027_1_cap-union-station-interstate-highway (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-27/news/ct-met-kamin-highway-caps-20111027_1_cap-union-station-interstate-highway)

I would much prefer retail because it has a higher ROI. And if if retail caps could indeed be built for $10 million, one could put cap on either side almost every street you shaded in green for $80 million. Even if it costs twice that, I think it would be a much better investment than water in the river...

Aren't the bridges going to need maintenance or replacement at some point?  I'm thinking specifically about the south leg where the highway is already below grade.  Why not just widen the bridges at replacement time to include room for retail like the Columbus picture?  We're still a long way off from this being viable anyway and maybe by then we can argue for funding to replace certain bridges and widen them in the process.  I don't see wholesale capping like the Dallas example ever being economically viable.

Work on the south leg starts in 2016 I believe. It's on ODOTs 8 year plan to redo basically the entire south and east legs.

Thanks for finding that, here's a breakdown of the Development cap scenario:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/912/yWNQ0D.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/pcyWNQ0Dj)

Above are the areas that we could essentially fill in with development. Red = retail only | Orange = mixed-use | Black outline = area that would need decking/structural support.

Columbus project cost $10 million

-   28,800 sq. ft. of retail
-   Cost per sq. ft. = $347
-   Approximate retail building cost = $147 per sq. ft.
-   Decking and structural costs = $200 per sq. ft.

4 Areas capable of air rights development

-   Denver Ave | $10.8 million decking/structural cost
-   Cheyenne Ave to Boston Ave | $64.82 million decking/structural cost
-   East Village | $46.61 million decking/structural cost
-   Peoria Ave | $16.55 million decking/structural cost

Total decking/structural costs = $138.78 million

Development Potential Breakdown

2.16 million sq. ft. of mixed-use (likely multifamily, ground floor retail)
0.30 million sq. ft. of retail

Ad Valorem Taxes

2.46 million sq. ft. of new real estate
Construction value of $150 per sq. ft. = $369 million of new real estate
Property tax estimate via Tulsa County Assessor site = $5.41 million per year
25 year capture rate = $135.2 million

Sales Taxes * Note that the Return on Investment analysis I did for the removal of the IDL was using Ad Valorem/Property Taxes ONLY. I did not include revenues from any potential retail that would be in the developments.

Retail sq. ft. total = 568,000 sq. ft.
-   Sales per sq. ft. @ $250 = $142 million in sales
-   8.517% sales tax rate = $12.09 million in new tax revenue
-   Capture rate for 15 years = $302.4 million
-   Capture rate for City of Tulsa for 15 years = $110.05 million in new tax revenues

Total New Revenues

Sales - $12.1 million per year
Ad Valorem - $5.41 million per year
= $17.42 million per year

Conclusion - the removal of the south/east sections of IDL and reconstruction of them into at-grade boulevards would provide a higher return. The development capping scenario you would essentially break even at year 25-26 capturing property taxes. Adding retail sales taxes into the revenue equation would give a nice return, however. I would need to add some retail projections for the reconstruction scenario as well to properly compare the two - which I will try to do some point shortly.

Is the discussion of doing something with the north leg of the IDL completely off the table because of its recent reconstruction?

That leg as a raised highway is an absolute barrier between near north and downtown.  Would be great to see that sight lines and street grid improved to allow downtown to connected directly into Brady Heights and Emerson Elementary TPS is expanding.

I wouldn't say the discussion is completely off the table in the long term.  The north leg is a visual barrier, but it can be crossed at Denver Ave, Cheyenne Ave, Boulder Ave, Main St, Boston Ave, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Detroit Ave, Elgin Ave, Greenwood Ave, and Archer St.

The north leg mostly preserved Tulsa's street grid, except for Frankfort Ave and tiny portions of Davenport St and Easton St.

I wish the IDL had not been built at all.  And I wish the north leg had not been repaired recently.  That was a waste of money on a bad design.  It would be better if it had been constructed as a depressed highway between Cheyenne/Boulder and Elgin/Greenwood.  And it would have been better if a new block of Easton St had been built as designed, connecting Detroit and Elgin.  Now, Easton is a dead end at Elgin, and it's a long way around, just to go one block. 

If only we had a time machine...the loss of all of that housing stock and those little parks and the creation of the surface parking in their place is a crime. I guess even with a time machine we could not affect white flight to the suburbs.

It is more than a visual barrier.  All of I-244 is a true boundary line for many people.  When I moved to Tulsa nearly fifteen years ago I was told by my co-workers and the gal helping me get settled to never drive north of I-244.  Thankfully I chose to ignore her advice, otherwise I would have never discovered many great places to eat and the wonderful neighborhood, Reservoir Hill, we call home.

The barrier the IDL represents also blocks development of the Brady District north.  Combine the physical barrier with the political barrier that is the UCAT/OSU land and it will be very hard pressed for near north Tulsa to ever see any of the energy downtown cross over for real change and development.  Assuming the IDL will never have a Gipper-eque, "Tear down this wall" moment it would be great to see those places where the street grid connects to be beautified.  For those underpasses to be seen as welcoming entry points for those on the north side and the downtown side.  How great would it be to look north up Main St, past Cain's, and see a welcoming entry to a mixed-use development rather than a dark underpass to muddy parking lots.  Or, for the Denver access to Brady Heights have a nice retail and multi-family building where the Tulsa County Election Board building sits.

Yes, it's more than a visual barrier. 

I don't disagree with your points, rdj.  And if there were more buildings constructed close to the north leg, on both sides, it would be less of a visual barrier, because it would be less noticeable.  The Elgin underpass has been improved.  Some of the others could be spruced up, too.

I think that our discussion here is still hampered by an auto centric mindset.  Which is perfectly understandable considering where we live and our history.  

How about this for a change of perspective...

Imagine we are growing another Tulsa from downtown out. The auto centric city is still there, but lets just ignore it and start fresh by regrowing a new city (really a classical, old world style city) based on Transit.

How about transit connecting say downtown to north Tulsa, and to the Pearl, Cherry Street, Brookside, Whittier Square, etc.?  Imagine nodes along a transit line heading north having zoning for transit and pedestrian lively development.  Essentially begin to regrow the city from the downtown out using a classical model via transit instead of highways.  Those nodes become small towns/cities in which the central roads, no, lets call them Streets for there is I think a difference, are used mainly by pedestrians or cyclists.   Sure you could get from one area to another via a car using roads and highways, but I think in the core of the city it's time to think of evolving away from that.  You will only need a few transit routes in and out of downtown.

 The larger road grid and the IDL become unimportant to those living in this new "other city" that will begin to grow, the transit lines and the "block grid" of Streets in and around the nodes is whats then important. The IDL from the viewpoint of someone living in this new city, essentially vanishes from our perspective.  We don't use them, we don't need them, they are in no way a barrier to where I want to go, etc.  When I am in a big city and looking at a transit map, it doesn't show any roads or highways, it shows the transit routes and stops, and that's all I care about and all that matters.  Who knows whats in between the stops? Highways? Rivers? Parks, neighborhoods, pasture? I don't care.  What matters is each transit station/node/town center and the pedestrian friendly development/streets/neighborhoods radiating a decent walk/bike out from it.    

Lets move on from discussion about Highways and Roads for I fear we will get lost and lose sight of talking about Transit and Streets.

 If we had to make a choice between getting rid of the IDL and developing there, or spending money on transit and developing that way. I would spend money on transit lines and calculate the development potential around the TOD nodes.  If we could do both, fine. But I think the priority, the time and thought should be to not lose sight of a more important picture which imho would be to get transit going and let the people who use the roads and highways with cars go about their business, and in the meantime begin to create a city with people who use transit, and care more about streets instead of roads, and who don't even see the highways.

 

Artist brings up a point similar to what I was saying earlier about the cities that had done some form of highway removal, and that is those cities already hadd good public transportation in place. And before the whole high speed light rail discussion happens, there really needs to be a change to the basic system to begin with, which usually means more routes and more buses. The other thing along with that is adding transfer stations throughout the metro area, not bus stops, but places where routes cross, three routes at least. It appears that too many buses run downtown instead of doing grid routes along arterial's and increasing the number of buses to reduce wait times, and it seems like so much of town south o I-44 is under served. I think that's a better place to start and money better spent than removing and reconstructing highway sections.

This is a yes and no. Obviously San Francisco and New York both have excellent transit systems - that helps to absorb some of the impact when you remove a corridor that handles 100,000+ cars per day. The Embarcadero removal/reconstruction did involve them constructing a light rail line along this corridor. However, this light rail corridor did not reach into the suburbs where most of the commuters who used the former freeway came from - so mass transit really did not have much of a play in terms of changing the impact to commuters.

Portland when they removed Harbour Drive (waterfront freeway) was in the 1972 - Portland's light-rail system opened in 1986.
Milwaukee's project did not incorporate any form of rail transit, and they do not have any rail transit metro wide.
Chattanooga's reconstruction of Riverfront Parkway also did not incorporate any form of rail transit, and they do not have any rail transit metro wide.

http://www.cnu.org/highways

Here's some traffic count information from INCOG for reference - I think there's misconceptions on how much traffic actually travels these two sections of the IDL. The intersection of 31st & Harvard handles almost as many cars per day as the South Leg of the IDL @ Denver/Cheyenne. Tell me which costs more to maintain and reconstruct? We are on the verge of spending $40/mile just to repave these two sections. That's enough to pay for a mile of Streetcar. If we don't start getting serious about what infrastructure we need to pay for and don't change our thought philosophy nothing will ever change - I believe it starts with the reconstruction of the IDL.

South Leg

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/tdh6Y0.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/eytdh6Y0p)

East Leg

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/lbtRuh.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/eylbtRuhp)

Riverside/71st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/QL2Yps.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/exQL2Ypsp)

Lewis/71st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/911/NKX3Bs.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/pbNKX3Bsp)

Woodland Hills

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/f5oEEO.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/idf5oEEOp)

Memorial/61st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/JkcfSy.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/exJkcfSyp)

169/71st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/633/L9TLTj.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/hlL9TLTjp)

Memorial/101st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/r2SCR9.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/idr2SCR9p)

Yale/I-44

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/673/0bW3Mj.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/ip0bW3Mjp)

Harvard/31st

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/J8YttP.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/exJ8YttPp)

In follow up to what I just posted as well - I'd like to say I really don't want this to be a one or the other. I want this to be the first step in a serious of changes in the way Tulsa invests and develops infrastructure.

In my ideal/perfect world - we would negotiate with the State of Oklahoma to create a value capture district around the land the IDL's east and south legs occupy currently. We capture all new sales and property taxes for a 25-year period. Once the reconstruction efforts are paid back we then take the extra revenues to invest in BRT, Streetcar, and Light Rail starter lines. (Odd's are the State would not give up their 4% in sales taxes so it would limit revenue capture potential, but one can dream right?)

As you are building the new lines out from Downtown you create further value capture zones around transit stops. The additional tax revenues from infill development then goes into a fund to help extend, maintain, and pay for the operations of the transit system and infrastructure. Essentially creates a waterfall effect that allows you to keep expanding the system.

In total - the IDL corridor has the potential to create well over $500 million in property and sales taxes if you develop 1 block per year (~40,000 sq. ft. of retail and 300 residential units per block) for the next 25 years. Imagine if we could create that much new revenue to invest in mass transit over the next 25 years without having to raise taxes. Win - Win in my book. We just can't look at it as a this or that scenario - we have to look at it as a series of strategic investments and events to get Tulsa where Tulsa should be.

Based on what ODOT did with the I-40 Reconstruction and the way the fought OKC on the new boulevard tells me those negotiations can happen, but it will take a lot of people willing to stand up and hammer this for a long time.

That's why I submitted the idea for Vision funding. The proposal and economic returns are more than enough that it could be done without Vision money - but in terms of political pressure being put on ODOT to do what is right for the City of Tulsa and it's citizens there's not a better way to do it then having this as a part of Vision2025 where it's a collaborative community voice saying we choose economic development and responsible infrastructure investments versus throwing another $80 million in the drain.

I might be misunderstanding your statement, but we don't have 25 years to wait for transit.  Tulsa should have started seriously funding and building transit 25 years ago (including changing our urban design practices to allow transit to function).  Since we don't have a time machine, our only option is to start TODAY.

In my humble opinion, mass transit is a higher priority than water in the river.

Oh yes - no. I am not saying in 25 years. 25 years is from what I've seen the "limit" to a TIF/BID district.

We would form TIF/BID districts on the ODOT Right of Way and capture the value for 25 years, and dedicate all of that value to building transit projects; Light rail, Streetcars, BRT, etc.

We would be able to capture in the neighborhood of $500 million - depending on whether the State would allow us to capture their portion of sales taxes and the total sales per sq. ft. the retail would see, anything over $200 per sq. ft. would increase that capture value significantly. This money would be available to spend over the next 25 years without having to ask citizens to raise taxes to pay for transit investments. If you put $500 million into projects, you'd get money back from the fed's as well.

Say this project costs the city $63 million that I have said (the $80 million from ODOT is reallocated to offset the additional cost). That leaves "bonding" costs, but you'd have in the neighborhood of $375-400 million you could then funnel into a starter streetcar line.

As you plan where the streetcar line goes, you form value capture around transit stations - so when new infill is built, you capture the value you added through the infrastructure. You then take those extra funds to help expand the system one neighborhood at a time. No city in the U.S. has ever taken this strategy.

I'll add this map below to give everyone an idea in terms of a starter system we could pay for using value capture from new developments built on the IDL east/south leg land. The dots are where stations/stop could potentially be located

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/540/os0XRx.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/f0os0XRxp)

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z-k23V4vIJCY.kN_OTzQzWZTA&usp=sharing

This is based off a cost of $30 million per mile - this total starter system would cost $309.3 million and extend a total of 10.31 miles. Now imagine how much development potential this could unlock? .

You may wish to consider a loop to the TU area.  Not every trolley would need to go there.

Wanted to post an update to the website/proposal (www.infrastructuretulsa.org)

I have redone several sections of the website along with creating a GoFundMe account and a Change.org petition to help build support for this project. Please share and sign the petition if this is something you'd like to see in the upcoming Vision2025 or to see this project happen in general. Also, any funds raised will go directly into engineering studies to help better estimate the costs of this project.

https://www.change.org/p/city-of-tulsa-state-of-oklahoma-rebuild-the-idl
http://www.gofundme.com/letsrebuildtheIDL

We now have a Facebook and Twitter page as well, so feel free to like and share with friends.

https://www.facebook.com/infrastructuretulsa
https://twitter.com/Infra_Tulsa

Here are a few pictures of the revamped proposal. It includes a 1.1 million sq. ft. urban retail center on the former location of the Southeast Interchange, Un-capping of Elm Creek, and a new Soccer Stadium/mixed-used development on the land by Home Depot/East Leg of the IDL.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/rsv03H.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/eyrsv03Hj)

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/910/IWFZ0h.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/paIWFZ0hj)

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/pRb5co.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/expRb5coj)

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/633/YCQBki.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/hlYCQBkij)

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/540/x5K7zv.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/f0x5K7zvj)

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/IykwCy.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/exIykwCyj)

The last picture shows how the transition would go from Freeway to at-grade complete streets. The BA would be split and exit to 14th Street and 13th Place which would be reconstructed as 2-way streets with 3 lanes each direction (total of 6). During rush hours the in-bound (morning rush) or out-bound lanes (evening rush) would be no parking zones, which during non-rush hour times the outside lanes would be used for on-street parking. This would actually increase the capacity of the corridor into and out of downtown from 3 freeway lanes to 6 at-grade lanes during peak travel periods.

I am working on more exciting details of the proposal to hopefully release soon. Feel free to post questions, reach out to me directly on here, or through the website. And share with friends to get the word out!

Good start.  Better investment than similar amount to put water in the river - if we insist on both, then do this one first, so the new activity can help pay for the river boondoggle...

Go back about eight years in the TNF archives.  We had a really spirited discussion about the potential in uncapping Elm Creek in the run up to the 2007 river tax package vote.  There was also discussion about other canals we could have taken advantage of such as Crow Creek and Cherry Creek.

Good stuff!  Keep it coming!

Canals through the watersheds are a concept that could be a huge game changer for Tulsa.  Done properly, this would leapfrog over the Oklahoma River and Austin combined!!  Think Paris, Venice (Italy AND California), etc.  Small scale river "cruises" around town.  Small scale barge traffic.  I would love to lease a docking space for a river houseboat!!

Digging a big ditch/trench can't be that much more than laying a slab of a$$fault!!

https://www.google.com/search?q=parisian+canals&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDcQsARqFQoTCPzzrofxjccCFZUQkgodgVYAjA&biw=1308&bih=651

LandArchPoke, these are the game changing ideas that Blake Ewing has requested.  Bravo sir.  Obviously we can't do all of them but at least one should be a good start.  Streetcar would be my vote, but connect to TU down 11th as part of the starter line (and with major streetscape improvements/implementation of the Route 66 OU Urban Design plan).

I don't think there is going to be barges or anything but I like the idea of small creek or canal type water features around downtown like the Pearl and this plan could have. 

I think this type of "water in the river" is a better investment than the dams along the Arkansas.  As the architect for the Channels noted, the Arkasas is really "too wide" to be an intimate urban water feature used to stimulate "active" development alongside it (which is why he proposed the island to in effect cut the river down to size so to speak).  It's great as nature/park and perhaps living.  But what would be far more attractive and thus lively would be smaller creeks running down avenues, sprinkled with water features, sculptures, trees and plantings, with sidewalks and development on either side as I have seen done in many cities.  Those are the more lively places where people walk and congregate, even in most river cities.  It's the smaller tributaries that lead into the main river which are more attractive because the scale feels right.  Sure the big river can offer a view if there is something to see on the other side, but people still move on and then linger in the smaller cozy areas.   

That’s what the charm of the river walk in San Antonio, and to a lesser extent, in Bricktown is.  As you alluded to, canals are more of a “human scale”.

I have been holding back my comments and visions of the Tulsa I would like to see because at my age, 63 hard fought years, it doesn't really matter. We had our visions 30 years ago and got some of them accomplished and screwed up a bunch too. The next generations have to offer up their plans and suffer similar outcomes. However, since our tax dollars are also going into the bucket we still have some say.

LAP has had the best, and the most defendable proposals. We need big ideas, not necessarily big construction projects. I dearly hope he/she pulls up the old discussions we had about tearing out the dispersal loop and Elm Creek type development. There were detractors then of limited vision and experience who see all taxpayer funded development as boondoggles. That put us way behind other cities and states.

If my proposal for building canals along the Arkansas as it passes through the metro is still archived here I would love to see your comments regarding feasibility. It avoided the problematic concept of building a holding pond upstream of Sand Springs and instead spread out that pond into navigable, easily managed canals adjacent to the banks that would accommodate light development and water users all year long. When water releases are high the canals offer little resistance as the gates on both ends are flattened. Yet when water recedes the gates partially close and hold the water and a small current. They are built one at a time about a mile long and on opposite sides of the river as demand dictates. That way you include West side involvement. Easily scoured of sand and no ecological damage.  The remarks about perspective made me remember.

Make one dam on the Arkansas - or better yet, put a pipeline to route water from Keystone to a series of canals...there should be almost enough elevation change to supplement what naturally occurs in the creeks mentioned.  Maybe take it from behind Zink dam...?


Barges - not like at Port Catoosa - more like a gondola or small houseboat that might be found in the cities mentioned.  An excursion "boat bus" to haul people around...like OKC, but big enough to become viable public transport mechanism around town....30 to 40 people maybe?

Was that proposal here?

Yes. My head was still swimming with ideas relating to the river from my four years of hands on experience running airboats, patio boats and canoes from the dam down to Tulsa. I even paid for a watercolor depiction that I uploaded here. Alas, my timing was off and my ideas and reputation were being panned. Probably around 2006/07. Momentum was shifting away from grandiose ideas like the Channels and more dams towards downtown.

It was later we took up the subject of Elm Creek. Using those creeks to help fill the canals didn't occur to me. I hope Blake's request is real and not a distraction.

Someone on Facebook mentioned that this plan has the old Art Deco Warehouse Market torn down?  If thats true I am gonna find out who you are and you will not like it.  >:(

That would be 110% incorrect. See below. Only thing being Demoed is the Home Depot - which would be rebuilt as one of their urban concept stores on one of the other blocks opened for development.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/qdmb6c.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/idqdmb6cp)

I think that's a fantastic building, and you could incorporate it into a mixed-use stadium site (preferably done in a similar architecture style) and infill around this building and create a really cool retail/entertainment area. You could flank retail all the way up Elgin underneath the stadium seats and create an interactive street level that would connect into this building.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/909/e4TMUR.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/p9e4TMURp)

I have not seen this comment on Facebook - would you might sharing with me where this is at so I can address it? Or at least share that picture.

Tearing down buildings is kind of the complete opposite of this proposal if you look at it - as I'm trying to repair the damage of tearing down all the housing and commercial structures that the IDL caused.

Thanks - I appreciate that. Part of the development plan would be a major retail center on the SE Interchange (I'm very confident there is demand for it). This would replace Promenade Mall as the region's additional "mall/regional center". A new urban walkable retail center would bring in a lot of new tenants that can't or won't locate in Tulsa currently because there isn't anything that fits their product type they will locate in. There are a lot of tenants who refuse to locate in malls now, and will only open locations in lifestyle centers or urban areas.

With the new retail - what I'd suggest is forming a TIF and BID district that would capture the new sales taxes. Use these to pay for a street car system. Especially with a connection to Expo Square where there is over 7,000 parking spaces not used 99% of the year which would act as a commuter or overflow lot for downtown. This would open up millions of sq. ft. for additional development and reduce a lot of parking costs for developers downtown.

I don't think all the sales taxes need to be captured - but even $100 per sq. ft. of sales from this new retail center could raise about $300 million for infrastructure improvements - like a streetcar - over a 25-year period.

Forming a TIF/BID District around the rest of the land the IDL currently occupies and diverting some of those funds into further infrastructure projects like commuter rail, BRT, or more streetcar lines is very plausible and is a way to shift the burden off tax payers and using one strategic infrastructure investment/project that unlocks a lot of land that is not currently creating any value (ODOT does not pay taxes).


I haven't been able to track down that old discussion yet - I'm going to try to look through the archive's tonight.

I would at least like to provide the ability for people to rent a paddle board or canoe and go back and forth between the pond by 15th and the pond by 6th. If the other Pearl pond projects could be built with canal connections in a way that provides further access for people via water I think that would be fantastic as well. I don't know if it could be connected to the Arkansas or not - you'd have to find some route from 15th to Veterans Park most likely.

Good to know, I think Shane Hood is the one who made the comment.  It was also mentioned that the Boston Avenue appeared top be turned into park space. 

Just FYI, I am not sure how much traction you would get in moving the Home Depot.  I believe it is one of the highest grossing of their stores in the area and definitely the largest retail tax base generator in downtown. Just be careful in how you word all that. 

Big Box retailers are not easy to deal with in terms of negotiations. These are just concepts, and when thinking big - that location offers in my opinion the best site for a soccer stadium and is one of the few places downtown you could locate a stadium large enough for an MLS stadium without tearing down a bunch of properties and closing off streets. Now would Home Depot go along with it? No idea. It's worth exploring though. Likely the best chance would be to do a land swap with them. Have a developer who builds something like these in exchange for that land:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/FWVJPS.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/eyFWVJPSj)
(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/CYceVY.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/idCYceVYj)
(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/661/5I5oQN.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/i/id5I5oQNj)

There would be 2 sites for something like this on the north and south side of 11th Street which would mean that could stay in the same location, but just going from a suburban style store to one of their mixed-use urban style stores next to a new stadium.

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/909/Fm16Jx.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/p9Fm16Jxp)

The Boston Ave. Church was never covered over with parks either - I even state on the website this:

(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/537/hT3UeR.png) (https://imageshack.com/i/exhT3UeRp)

There seems to be so much excitement about dams on the river - a canal system could provide enough dams (and locks) to satisfy anyone's desires!!

Water from Keystone could supplement to 'drive' the movement up and down around town.

Interesting part of the Vision request process is you must address benefits to economic growth, health, education, etc.

With dams being the biggest outlay in the package thus far, I’ve never seen an estimate of the economic impact they would have.  Maybe I’ve simply over-looked this.  Feel free to correct me.

Based on Land Arch’s concept, there appears to be a far better opportunity to improve ad valorem receipts and sales tax with his plan than what I can personally envision the dams would do.

The earliest posts I can find relating to my canal proposal was in March of 2005 under the name of Waterboy. Many later posts make references to it and the Elm creek discussions but not the original post. Have we lost posts prior to march 2005?

LAP's plan is much better than "water in the river" concepts. This plan actually creates land that can be developed that no one other than ODOT has any stake or claim on. Un-capping Elm creek would be a game changer for Tulsa.

Blake!!! Look here please.

No telling.  I do know that some of my posts have been deleted in the past - not by me - I was censored.  Maybe someone doesn't like you..??

Not likely. My political views and charming disposition ensure huge support from friends and foe alike.
Anyway it's a fairly straightforward uncomplicated idea.

Have you pitched this to Blake yet? 

Yeah...me too!!  I am just a big ole' cuddly teddy bear....


I guess I'm not really all that sure I would want Tulsa to do this type of forward thinking, interesting, exciting BHAG*.... it might mean too big a change requirement in my life's paradigm - would have to find another windmill to tilt against!!

*BHAG - Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  Collins and Porras.

I have to say no. I would be embarrassed by my lack of presentation skills and supporting economic analysis. In fact I am not even sure of the process without reading this whole thread. Which I better do or sneak back into the corner of the garage with all my other unfinished projects.
Like Heiro it would change my whole view of the community should any of these great ideas actually be taken seriously by established leadership.

Doesn't he spend some time here every once in a while?? 

He could get the whole set of comments by reading a couple of these threads....

Blake has been very generous in taking time out of his schedule to listen to me. I've submitted the proposal to the city for Vision funds - so it will at least be considered. I've been reaching out to other community stakeholders as well to get feedback and make them aware of the project as well. I've very hopefully it moves forward. In terms of having the right people in the right places to make something like this happen, we have it. Jim Inhofe is the Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Gary Stanislawski is the Transportation Chair for the State of Oklahoma Senate (District 35 - which encompasses the south section of the IDL).

Sounds like you have his ear, at least some - tell him to check out this thread....



Inhofe...Wow...how sad is that...?

I've been reading the thread.

I like this kind of thing and continue to be impressed with LAP's work.

B

Took me a while, but I have been convinced.  I like the idea as well.  We might want to work on a 3 sentence soundbite ( I think that is one of those speaking/writing rules)  that encapsulates the positives of the concept.



Lets get rid of part of the IDL.  

It will free up desirable developable land while increasing connectivity.

We can do this in a way that will both pay for itself and additional future transit, while still carrying the same amount of traffic.


Or something like that.

It doesnt seem like that long ago voters were turning down Vision-like proposals because they were tied to "public safety" slush funds, but now that is being touted as a feature.

I always understood V2025 was for quality-of-life and capitol improvements, and not to prop up city departments that cant stay within their budgets.
Has the tide turned?

My understanding as well. But welcome to Tulsa politics.

I'll go on record that I don't think the police department is under funded. There are more than enough police on the streets. If there is a crime problem, then maybe the city should look into other options instead of funding more police. If you have more police, your crime rate will go up naturally. The problem in Tulsa could be a host of other issues which likely starts with education.

Agreed. Seems like deja vu all over again. The same thing happened with Vision2025 in the first place, several politicians tried to cram the Arena idea down voters throats what, 3 times or so? All of which were voted down until Vision2025. I'm afraid this next go around might meet the same fate as the previous votes.

This needs to be solely focused of capital improvements projects that make an impact on the community. The idea that we can just use more and more sales taxes to pay for roads, police, and fire are dangerous in my opinion. If we don't make investments in our community that are going to spur growth - such as the BOK Center which has brought downtown back to life - we are just going to go down the road of Detroit. We can't bail ourselves out this way, the only way to fix our revenue problems is to spur growth. Well how do we do that? We do it through investing in light rail, streetcars, commuter rail, bus rapid transit, trails, bike lanes, or the IDL project I've proposed. Projects that make a developer go "I want to build a new development in Tulsa" - a public safety tax isn't going to do that and never will. The public safety tax proposal is doubling down, and it seems like pretty all of the council outside of Gilbert gets this. The public safety tax would be putting us in fast lane for the City of Tulsa to go bankrupt - if we can't live within our means, don't dip into sales taxes like this - figure out a way to spur growth and revenue to fix the problem (hint > it's density).

I'm not convinced damns on the river will spur must economic development either because right now with the REI and Outlet Mall two of the most prime develop-able pieces on the river are being converted to typical suburban shopping center you can find anywhere else in the US - not what waterfront property deserves. Bynum did say they are working on a ROI in terms of what the damns would spur in new tax dollars, but that won't be released for a few months so once I see that I would be more willing to vote one way or the other.

If it was public safety tax or water in the river - I would vote for water in the river in a heartbeat.

Thanks - Glad you are finally convinced. My advise, and to anyone else that is supportive of the idea. Like the Facebook page and sign the change.org petition. Share it with your friends as well if you haven't already. The more word get's out the better.

https://www.change.org/p/city-of-tulsa-state-of-oklahoma-rebuild-the-idl

https://www.facebook.com/infrastructuretulsa

I'm a fan!, I've been talking this up to every one that wants to hear about it.

It's quibbling I know but just quickly edit the impact page for diction please.

http://www.infrastructuretulsa.org/the-impact.html (http://www.infrastructuretulsa.org/the-impact.html)

Example:
The impacts of traffic flow through downtown if the IDL were reconstructed were significantly more impactful than what this proposal as sections were completely closed off

This additional expensive will open the opportunity

From your site:

All new development would be built with an approximate $250 per sq. ft. value.
With current costs at near $100/sqft what will drive people to spend 2.5x that?

All retail assumes $200 per sq. ft. in sales per year. For reference, Woodland Hills Mall attains approximately $450-500 per sq. ft. in sales per year.
I am not a retailer, but will these numbers keep a place in business?   Half the sales of Woodland Hills?  Especially with the rent being what it must to pay off a $250 per sq. ft. building.

Historically, adding more police to the ranks has resulted in fewer police on patrol, because the leadership has used the fresh fish to replace patrolmen that are promised off-street assignments like vice and narcotics.  The Tulsa Whirled had the numbers a while back.

I will have to reword that, thanks for pointing that out.


$200-250 per sq. ft. is about what the Edge at East Village and the View are being constructed. $100 sq. ft. is what you'd see a cheaper suburban house constructed at. In reality, most of the new development built here would be over the $250 per sq. ft. mark - I just don't want to assume they will all be higher than that when trying to calculate an ROI figure.

Same thing with the sales taxes. If you figure the development will attain $200 per sq. ft. and calculate the ROI based off that, anything extra is just icing on the cake in terms of revenue to the city and state. $200-250 in sales per sq. ft. is enough to keep businesses in operation, but also depends on how expensive the rents are per sq. ft. Many malls in the U.S. have sales in the range of $250-300 per sq. ft., and most malls charge rents in the range of $20-30 per sq. ft. However, Woodland Hills charges many tenants over $50 or 60 per sq. ft. because the sales per sq. ft. are so high. I would imagine if you built a new retail center here the sales would be comparable to Utica Square and Woodland Hills so the potential revenues are much higher than I've estimated, but better to assume low when assessing the viability of this project and it's returns. I wouldn't want to assume $500 in sales per sq. ft. and then it really get $350-400 and then the project not pay for itself - but the project still provides a great return in 10 years using a relatively low development value and sales per sq. ft.

I travel that portion of 75 everyday. I'll gladly go around the west side of the IDL to get that kind of development.

Taking a good look at it, I’m pretty certain we could live without the east leg of the IDL.

If you could get rid of only the south leg or east leg of the IDL, what would be your preference?

Since I live on the south side of the south leg, for personal reasons I'd want to get rid of S64/51 but from a development and flow and ease perspective the east leg makes the most sense.

1. The East leg is elevated and with lots of bridges and over passes, it doesn't need to be filled in like the south leg does.
2. Removing the east leg creates a natural transition between the East Village and the Pearl
3. There is an alternate H75 route on the west side of downtown.

And there again, the south could always be capped as a tunnel.

Elm Creek runs in a big tunnel from the river (the outlet is just south of the 23rd St Bridge) up through Veterans Park and north along/near Baltimore.  You can tell you're in the former creek valley when you go down 18th between Cincinnati and Cheyenne.  My thoughts regarding Elm Creek have been creating a small lake and wetlands in Veterans Park that helps treat the stormwater before going into the river, and creating a canal down Baltimore with urban rowhouses along each side.  Austin is working on a ambitious project with a stormwater tunnel that has a lot of similarities to what we could do with Elm Creek:
(http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/03/15/37/image_1009737153.jpg)

Would we even need the tunneling that Austin is planning? Couldn't our needs be met with a resevoir and canal system?

That's just it, we already have the storm tunnel.  We would just need to create the surface part in the natural basin the creek used to run in, like what we've already done successfully with Centennial Park. 

Let’s hope we get some visionary leadership at the very top who might help shepherd this along.  We are turning the tide with a council which is becoming more thoughtful and educated on smart and attractive development.

That's more hope than I have left with the grey cloud the current "leader" has floating over my head.

Don't despair!  A seed has been planted.  Maybe not in your lifetime, or mine, but there may be hope in the distant future!


I have been inspired - even if Tulsa doesn't do canals, I have a perfect bed of very flat clay and am in process of finding a bulldozer to dig around in it.  Am going to build a canal.  Not enough elevation for locks/dams, but will make a very nice floating channel.  Now I gotta find a barge....!

“I will continue to call out my frustration with the fact that we’re talking about how many tenths of a percent should go to public safety first instead of talking about what outcomes we’d like to achieve first,” Ewing said.
Ewing...said he’s not against increasing the number of police, but he said he has been adamantly opposed to increasing the ranks of officers with no strategy in place on how to use them.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/city-leaders-discuss-role-of-public-safety-in-economic-development/article_2bafc281-cba1-5b18-8f9e-afc855cf70b8.html


As long as capital improvement projects were tied to what voters saw as police slush funds they failed, again and again.  Some leaders understand, some dont.

If people have the time I'd suggest watching some of the webinars on CNU:

http://cnu.org/our-projects/highways-boulevards/webinars

The Vancouver one has an interesting perspective and something I think is very beneficial is that congestion can be a good thing. Traffic and visibility drive commerce. After spending a considerable amount of time in Vancouver over the years too I can say their traffic without any freeways is considerably less than Austin.

I'd be curious what type of lease arrangement Home Depot has at that location.  The more I think about it the more this site makes the most sense for a future stadium.  If Home Depot were open to a land swap and didn't want to build an urban store where would they go? 

Home Depot owns the land for this site - except for the old Warehouse Market building.

If they didn't want to build an urban format store, their options are rather limited if they wanted to relocate within a mile of that store. There's two plots of land along Utica Avenue on the north and south side of the BA Expressway they could locate, the sites are small so you'd have to do something creative like rooftop parking if they were going to do a non urban format store. Other than that, their options would be to go north and I'm not sure you could get them to do that. If they did an urban format store their site options multiple significantly.

I agree in that I think this site is the best option for a soccer stadium. It's the only site within the IDL that you could build on that would not require the closure of any streets. It also creates a triangle between the BOK and OneOk Field. This site would be a huge boost to the south side of downtown, Gunboat Park, and 11th Street.

If it was a choice between tearing out the East leg of the IDL, or dams on the river... I'd go with tearing out the IDL for sure. As Conan pointed out months ago, the economic analysis has been shown for the IDL project, not so much for the dams (I know the numbers are just assumptions, but better than nothing). Plus, it benefits TULSA - not Jenks and the Creek Nation.  [I'm all for the Zink lake proposal, but I don't get the south dam at all]

BUT --- after re-reading this entire thread I revert back to the fact that there IS a ton of land available downtown. Particularly in areas close to the east leg of the IDL.  Yes, I know they are not commercially listed... but if we freed up twenty acres of land along the former path of the IDL - buying a parking lot is a competitor to buying newly created land. Parking lots are almost always for sale, at some price it makes sense to build a ramp, shuttle employees, or move away. Particularly when many of those lots are usually at 50%.  Add to that available land that Nordam's downtown activity has been declining for years and years. Then add all the property in the Pearl that is available for redevelopment (ironically, even more of a competitor if the new land is opened up).

Now, looking at the map we are making amazing strides. Hodges bend has seen about a block and a half of empty land built on. The Blue Dome has not only seen a ton of redevelopment, but Hogan occupied a quarter of a block and if the Nelson group has their way - another entire block gets occupied. Following the IDL east leg to the south, another block is slated to be the new Unitarian Church.  The GunBoat park area is just waiting for something awesome to happen. And, of course, the 6th and Peoria area has become very cool in the last decade.

BUT --- if you extend in from the IDL just three blocks, only looking west. There are 9 empty lots and probably nine blocks of surface parking (1/4 block here, full block there).  Safely 20 acres of land available for development if the demand pressure was there (downtown blocks are about 2 acres each). And that isn't counting the lots available within three blocks to the east (there's a lot!). The downtown areas that have been discussed on here removed their highways and saw awesome redevelopment when land pressure was high.  I hope we get there.

With that in mind, this proposal is great. I think it would be wise to slate it as a long-term plan and stick to it. I'm not expert city planner... but I played Sim City enough to know if you are going to do a massive project like this you need to plan ahead or you end up paying for infrastructure you plan on tearing out.  The south leg of the IDL desperately needs repair. We would need to understand how traffic flow would be altered and plan accordingly on the surface streets as well as the remaining IDL legs. We would need to develop the areas near the to-be removed leg with the eventually removal in mind (if something is going to become a through street, you don't want to build there now only to have to buy and demolish a new building when you want it to go through!).

Also, the cost estimates for removal look very accurate. Milwaukee removed their elevated highway for $28mil/mile. Add some inflation to that plus the rebuilding infrastructure cost and I think your fairly close --- with the exception of adding in any cost to redesign existing interchanges for the remaining legs of the IDL. Your ROI numbers are probably decently accurate - while an 8% ROI after 30 years is abysmal, it at least shows an economic return!

Other random thoughts on re-reading the thread:

- If the land was freed up, I'd only sell it to someone who had a development plan and funding approved. If we sold it to whomever wanted it we would have a ton of speculators sitting on vacant land for thirty years. Better to sell it for a little less and have it built upon.

- I missed the boat, but it occurred to me with all this highway talk that someone should have proposed making the BA not crappy. Another thread, another time.

I'd like to see some kind of streetcar proposal with a multi-modal downtown transit hub included with this next round of capital projects (which it sounds like we'll hear more about from Blake Ewing on 9/17), along with the Zink Dam rehab and whitewater chute.  I think some kind of riverwalk along Crow Creek or unearthing Elm Creek would be worthwhile projects as well.  Build the Jenks dam in a later phase or have the Creeks/Jenks foot the majority of the bill.  Removing the east leg of the IDL could be part of a larger project to rebuild the BA and add commuter rail, which has been discussed for years.  It actually makes sense if there is a downtown transit hub for it to connect to and the intermediate stations between downtown and BA are planned properly.  

I also agree that if the east leg is removed and the street grid is restored with Madison becoming the boulevard it used to be through that area then you would need a "master developer" for all or parts of it to ensure that a bunch of people don't just sit on the land.  This is how Austin did it with Mueller and Denver with Stapleton, both redevelopments of old airports.  I'd be interested to see how other cities that removed highways handled it.  OKC relocated I-40 to the south and doesn't have a master developer involved which is probably why development there has been so slow, although they are probably waiting for the central park project to be completed to kick off projects around it.

This is where Tulsa is stuck in between a rock and a hard place right now is because we do have a significant amount of parking lots - however, these parking lots are owned by a VERY small group of owners that have not been willing to sell. 3/4th of the surface parking lots are owned by TCC, PSO, and the churches.

You do have a few key plays such as the Nordam site and the Blue Dome parking lot, but if you think about all the development that is currently underway and if we keep the pace we are going at there will be a significant land shortage for development in only a few years. This plan really is a long term vision of helping the downtown core grow and feed into surrounding neighborhoods.

Today I don't think there is a need for 100 acres of land to be available downtown, but in 5 - 10 years yes there will be a need. Do we plan for this now? Or let ODOT keep control of this land for another 30 - 40 years?


I agree with this point, and I have though deeply about how to handle this. There are ways of putting restrictions on the land when it is sold to avoid this, similar to how the land around the ballpark has been managed.

Milwaukee did this successfully with the land they had under their control when they removed the freeway in their downtown. There is a large swatch of land that remains available for purchase, but it was put into an authorities control I think that is similar to TDA. They however, put so many restrictions on the land - like the project has to be built providing minority contractors work and low income household work and other restrictions that has made it impossible for a developer to make any project work.


I think the transit hub could play very well into this proposal as well. I think a streetcar route could be constructed on these corridors connecting back into downtown and to other neighborhoods like Cherry St, Utica Square, Expo Square, Pearl, TU, etc. It would provide an opportunity to lay the tracks cheaper as the street-grid is rebuilt. I'm excited to see what Blake will be proposing in terms of the location of the multimodal station and if he will talk about any plans for streetcars, brt, or commuter rail in the near future.

As for a master developer, I think it would be important to bring in one big company like Trammel Crow who did Union Station in Denver for this project. I don't think they should have control over all the land, but something like 50% I don't think is unreasonable and would provide a high credentialed developer with proven ability to execute projects. Granted, this would depend on wether we did the full scale version of what I've proposed or a slimmed down proposal of just removing the East leg of the IDL. If just the East leg was removed, 1 master developer could be a viable option for the entire land area. 

I'm all for removing the IDL as well.  In addition we should look at getting rid of the LL Tisdale parkway.  It was originally billed as a highway to Skiatook but was abandoned as a state project.  In a world of Rose colored glasses we could take the credit from removing the LL Tisdale and adding those miles to the western extension of the Gilcrease Expressway. That would connect with HWY 412 West of downtown.  To get some more Credit, we then remove the section of 412 from downtown going west where it connects to the Gilcrease Expressway.  We then use the credit for those miles to get over the Arkansas river and connect with the section of the Gilcrease Expressway just south of  41st st. And that is how we get the loop around west Tulsa.

IIRC, you can't build the Gilcrease the direction you suggest because aside from being Osage county, it's also Osage Tribal land, and that is the reason that Sand Springs and Tulsa did not grow north and west.

Honest question, does owning property in Osage County have any special requirements because it is "tribal land"?  How is it different than Creek or Cherokee land?  Just curious if that really is an impediment to development of the section of Tulsa in Osage Co.

I always thought it was because large parts of that area were controlled by the Gilcrease family who didn't want to develop it.  Plus the infrastructure was never very good there due to the hilly terrain.  Add in the "north side" stigma and not much has happened.  I am curious though with downtown development at its current pace and with the eventual construction of the Gilcrease loop if it becomes more attractive.  It's a beautiful area, I would almost hate to see it paved over.

I you look at maps it says Osage Reservation, not Osage County. The Osage own the land, not the state, and not the feds, they got the land before statehood. They own all mineral rights as well. The land owned by non Osage were probably negotiated with the tribe for oil, with royalties being paid to the tribe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Nation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Nation)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_County,_Oklahoma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_County,_Oklahoma)

Whatever the maps say, Osage County not an Indian reservation. It's my recollection that when Oklahoma was admitted to statehood, one of the conditions was that the tribal lands had to be allotted to individual tribal members. All of the tribes complied including the Osages, but the Osage tribe retained the mineral rights to the tribal lands. Those mineral rights are held by the tribe itself rather than being divided up as in the remainder of the state. I doubt that there are any Indian law issues wrt to placement of a highway in Osage County, though there may be arguments with the tribe should the construction company try to use any building materials such as crushed rock "harvested" from Osage County.

The status of surface and mineral rights in Osage County were the key issue in two recent lawsuits. One involved the status of the Osage casinos. I don't remember many of the details, but about five years ago the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the tribe's argument that Osage County was a reservation, holding that the Osage Allotment Act of 1906 dissolved the reservation. I recall the chief at the time not bothering to place the casino locations in trust because of his mistaken belief that the tribe still had its reservation. I think he was removed from office by the tribal council.

The tribe's mineral rights were involved in recent efforts to halt the spread of wind farms in Osage County. The tribe by that time knew better than to argue that it had anything to argue about regarding surface rights, but argued that the construction crews had violated the tribes mineral rights by using gravel dug up from the wind farm sites to construct the pads on which the turbines were installed, hence my statement about crushed rock above.

John Red Eagle was the chief and you are correct.

 In fact, large parcels of land abutting Osage oil lands across from Central High School at 33rd west avenue and Edison were sold off last year by Tulsa Public Schools. Nor did Osage ownership hinder growth of Tulsa in that direction. The land directly north of the river includes some of the oldest homes in Tulsa yet it was among the areas apportioned to tribes forced into the state. Gilcrease Hills is a large sprawling development on the north end of Osage land. The real hindrance to growth in that direction was the oil industry barons choosing to locate south of downtown nearer to their refineries. Later, the fear of racism and crime came into play.

I was surprised to hear that any of the lands were designated "reservation". Interesting history. Especially the recent events.

Osage County represents a Mineral Reservation (what would now likely be called a minerals trust), administered by the BIA. 

According to my Dad who was here then, most chose to develop where there was easier transportation (flatter land, no river crossings) and also away from the predominant N/S wind direction with respect to where the refineries were located along the river.

My Dad was also here then and was in the construction trades (a painter). He was born in North Tulsa, grew up along the Sand Springs line (Charles Page), Red Fork and near downtown. There were trolleys moving people to the suburbs by the early twenties (Sand Springs via Charles Page, Whittier Square and Kendall College) and a railroad line out to Sapulpa to bring in refinery workers. There were bridges in place as well. Lots of transportation available by bus, train and trolley in those areas. There were large homes just north and west of downtown that rivaled the ones along south Boulder and in Riverview. Once Skelly moved to 21st and the reality of the race riots sunk in, the demand for housing by and near oil wealth changed the direction of growth. It was a good thing to be near the movers and shakers. Big dollar development to the north and west slowed. Development north tended to be more modest and labor oriented.

No doubt the prevailing N/S winds played a big part as well and flooding issues still abound out north, but when the refineries are stinkin'....the whole dang down is stinkin'!

I've actually researched the question of why Osage County is a gap in development:

1) The Osage were seen as more hostile to white settlement, even into the 1900s.

Purportedly intentionally so - to the extent that they sought out land that was unsuitable for white farming techniques (250k/1.5mil arable land in Osage County). They'd been moved too many times, and wanted to avoid it again. From their perspective, more white people = more chance of the tribe being removed . So get land they don't want and discourage development. (or so the story goes, this is more legend than fact)

The real difference is highlighted by the fact that the Osage Nation purchased the land in 1870, they were not residents on land held in trust for them by Uncle Sam (like everyone else).  So for a long time the tribe controlled the land outright with few areas set aside for platted cities, they had leeway under the Dawes Act. Allotment of tribal land did not happen in Osage County until 1906 and wasn't finished until 1909. The allotments were 660 acres (as opposed to 160) and many allotments were not homesteaded, so ranchers were able to grab huge tracks of land much easier than other parts of the state.

That control was central to their identity and certainly contributed to development difficulties early on (or helped, depending on ones perspective). Control of their land remains a strong belief among the Osage today, even though most has been transferred out of the families in fee long ago (hence the belief they maintained their reservation rights, a lawsuit that came down more to "status quo" and practicality than legality as I understand it. Legally, the Osage may have been right, but it would have undone 140 years of land transactions and development).

As mentioned, the tribe retained all mineral rights, all leasing had to go through the tribe - as a result, things got ugly as wildcaters extorted, blackmailed, and murdered tribal members to gain access - leading to even more hesitancy to develop during the boom of the 1920s (it got so ugly that Congress passed a law saying headrights couldn't be inherited by a non Osage).  

The effect of these factors is easily demonstrated by a looking at a map even today. Tulsa, Bartlesville, and Ponca City all ring Osage County, yet the County remains without a strong economic center. The major roads all avoid Osage County. Even the rural road network in Osage isn't up to par with most other Oklahoma Counties. Development avoided the political uncertainty of Osage County.

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OS004


2) The terrain is not as friendly to development. South represented the Glenpool, flat open territory, and easy river crossings. North was hilly, had bluffs along the river, and had less easily accessible oil early in the development of the area (particularly with the Nation holding rights), oil didn't boom outright in Osage County until the 1930s (which is when the population peaked at 47k, and has never reached that level again). Even the transportation networks were designed to ferry people east and west, and south... another factor discouraging development in Osage County.

3) POLITICS. According to the Tulsa City Council's "A History of Annexation" development outside of Tulsa County was avoided by the City of Tulsa for a long time to avoid having other County Commissioners interfere with tax rates, budgeting, roads, etc. The City of Tulsa didn't annex anything outside of Tulsa County until 1973. Keep in mind, suburbs barely a thing in Tulsa even in 1973 --- Broken Arrow had a population under 15,000 people. NOT being part of Tulsa really hindered development.

http://www.tulsacouncil.org/media/79331/Annexation%20History.pdf

4) Race. In 1973 when the city began annexing sections and developments started to grow in Osage County, the trend was well underway of white people moving away from the core of the city. North Tulsa, Turley, and Gilcrease Hills remain overwhelmingly black to this day. Once that trend got started in those areas, development stalled and hasn't really started back up since.

http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/  (an amazing map)

Happy to be corrected on anything, but that is what my research and the cited sources taught me...


/tangent

Very interesting. I would think #3 was the largest hindrance. Without support for infrastructure provided by the city of Tulsa whose water system, judicial system and police and fire departments would be necessary for growth, the area wasn't as attractive as others.

The Osage are still wary of non tribal members from my personal experience. No matter how wealthy they are you aren't going to find any money with pictures of Jackson in their wallets.

What in the world are you babbling about now? Andrew Jackson isn't popular with any natives but I've never met anyone that refuses to use a particular bill. Maybe there are a few AIM people that won't but it's very, very far from common. As for the comment on the Osage being wary, you are just making crap up.

Frickin' moron.

Jim Gray. Shared office space with him. Osage Indian. Ran for tribal chief. Published Osage newspaper. Receives monthly checks for Osage Indian headrights. Shared that very information with me. Practically quoted him. Look him up.

Jim was Chief. The Gray family is an important Osage family and I know a few of them. I like his older brother Andrew a lot, he has been very kind to my kids over the years.

I'm not going to get into Osage tribal politics here and in print, this cuts too close to home for me. But trust me you remain wrong.

Why would I trust someone who speaks to me in such a disrespectful and demeaning manner?

Jim is a friend of mine as well. His wife cared for our youngest along with his. I care not for the politics you fear. Jim and his brother Louis were very forthcoming as to the mindset of Native Americans in general towards non tribals and even the animosity the tribes have towards each other. Thus his remarks about Jackson. I was surprised at the time since I had never known it existed to such an extent. Even though I was in publishing and advertising at the time, we shared an office and services and my great grandmother was full blood Cherokee, I was politely refused participation in his publication because of the negative impact my white status would bring. I understood though.

I still hold him and his wife in high regard though I haven't seen him since the mid 2000's.

I know Louis as well. And Margo.

Every white guy claims he has a full blood Cherokee great grandmother. Usually a princess.

I sort of have to agree with AM here.  No reason to get pissy IMO.

And I did have a full-blood Cherokee 3rd great grandmother. I also have Lakota Sioux in there.  Guess what?  I don't have a roll card.  I'm likely more Indian than many in this state that do have one given the quorum requirement the Cherokees use to have it (1/512...are you kidding me)?.

Swake what kind of proof would you consider adequate? I have photos, my mother's decade long ancestry research and my memories of her. She was a Chilcoat. Not exactly a white man's name. She had a wonderful Cherokee face and was quite clever. She refused to sign the rolls since she noticed her fellow tribal members tended to disappear after signing.

Yeah, I'm old, 64. Yes, I rely on stories to make my points and because I am old I have lots of them. No, that does not reduce their veracity or importance. Yes, I should reduce them to simple phrases in caps to make them more digestible for 35 year olds. Yes, inferences of no credibility and ageist remarks about babbling do piss me off.

I digress to others with obviously more knowledge. I apologize for any offense.

Anyway, what do I know? I’m just a white guy and I have no Cherokee grandmother.

White guys have their place. We are soon to be the new minority led by our dear leader Trump.

Whatever happened to the IDL removal/demolition proposal anyway. I thought it had merit.

Fixed it.  When we are a minority, we can get freebies from the Government with all the rest of the minorities.  ;D

Some of my best friends are black Native Americans.   ;D

No measurable N.A. blood in me.  My sister had her DNA checked by one of those ancestry places.  We are about as European as possible.

This is a cool project showing 60 years of change in Urban Oklahoma and Texas.

http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/09/60years/ (http://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/09/60years/)

"60 years has made a big difference in the urban form of American cities. The most rapid change occurred during the mid-century urban renewal period that cleared large tracts of urban land for new highways, parking, and public facilities or housing projects. Fine-grained networks of streets and buildings on small lots were replaced with superblocks and megastructures. While the period did make way for impressive new projects in many cities, many of the scars are still unhealed."

I still say we need canals!! 

As one of the players said to me when I suggested that and a few other ideas back during the last V discussions, "you know...nobody has requested that."
No kidding? At least one did. Its like insisting on the low bidder regardless of any other criteria.

Ever watch the movie back in the seventies about the ship sinking and everyone who lived followed the guy who made sense instead of the guy with the stewards uniform?

Very interesting.

Thanks for posting!

That player is lying.  But then, the truth just wouldn't quite fit within the confines of the agenda.  Maybe they don't see a clear path to fiscal enrichment for them and theirs...?

(http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Ih5H9GgEnqE/TkoH4vDsSwI/AAAAAAAANtA/4QCWWduyF18/Poseidon-Adventure-Clyde-Stuff-Capti%25255B8%25255D.jpg)

What surprises me is what I interpret as the watchdogs on the council coming to a "compromise" that keeps the slush finds intact, or am I just reading it wrong?

They did the best they could with what they knew, who was informing them and what their motives were. Like a chef once commented about a fellow chef's cooking, "You'll never get any better than this".

Now we just need to do the voting thing on raising taxes that aren't really being raised by folks who were elected to cut them. My mind is swimming.

Before moving to Tulsa I lived in Austin and Chicago.  Both of these cities have highways slicing through their downtowns.

In Chicago the highways block off downtown from the neighborhoods in three directions - the north, however, is not cut off.  With time, that area became River North, the Magnificent Mile, and all the most desirable real estate in the city.  The North Side neighborhoods slowly grow denser as you get closer to downtown and seemlessly goes from houses to apartments to skyscrapers.  To the west and south, you get skyscrapers, a wall of interstate, then nothing beyond it.  There is no spillover effect.  Downtown Chicago is growing at an extraordinary pace while the neighborhoods on the near South Side, cut off by I-55 and I-90, languish. 

The same thing in Austin.  Austin's downtown seemlessly blends in to the north, west, and south.  There it gets gradually denser as you transition from the neighborhoods to downtown.  I-35 cuts through the east side of downtown, and for a half century it was a wall.  Downtown development stopped like a wall at I-35.  It's taken the extreme, almost extraordinary development pressures Austin currently faces for development to jump I-35 to the east, and even then that's only in the last few years. 

As for Tulsa, I still can't decide if the "island" effect created by the IDL helps or hurts us.  We need to create an artificial land scarcity to encourage urban format develpoment downtown.  That said we don't have a single area where you get the gradual transition of houses to apartments to downtown that are usually the most desired real estate in any city. 

BTW that original picture of what was taken down to build the IDL is horribly depressing.  Apparently Riverside Drive was also slated to become an interstate and connect to the IDL through Maple Ridge.  The residents rebelled and stopped construction.  It's the only successful highway revolt in Oklahoma history. 

The south side where the IDL is buried is the best example we have.  The problem lies in that the growing infill districts like Brady and Blue Dome/East Village are on the opposite sides of downtown. 

LandArchPoke, have you thought about sending this proposal to GT Bynum?  Per a recent TW article he is researching "best practices" and ideas for moving Tulsa forward.  This is maybe something he could get behind.

Something else I've been thinking about is if you are already rebuilding and putting the BA Expressway below grade between Peoria and Lewis in this scenario why not also do the same all the way to Harvard?  That would help reconnect midtown neighborhoods.  You could also transfer the rail ROW in the center of the highway to the side allowing for a double track instead of the current single track and also make it better for future stations.  Just look at I-25 in south Denver where they did this as part of the TREX projects in the mid 2000's.

We can't even properly maintain the BA, and you're talking about spending $xy,000,000 to bury it?   That's a pipe dream.

Instead of burying, how much cheaper is to convert to a boulevard?  If you converted either the southern or eastern leg and left the other intact anyone coming in on the BA could still easily loop around to anywhere they need to go. 

I was watching the Tour de France lat night (yes, I'm a nerd). Coverage includes amazing helicopter shots of the surrounding countryside, forests, rivers, chateaus, castles and towns. Really beautiful.

As they pulled into a town last night they were showing a brick arched bridged going over a river about half the width of the Arkansas riverbed. A two lane bridge with regular traffic flowing over it. Which was built nearly 700 years ago.

But we can't maintain a road in Tulsa for 10 years without it falling apart...

/tangent

Well, we can. The railroad bridge just north of the 66 bridge dates back to the late 1800's and has carried constant heavy loads. Made from stone. But what's the economic value of that? the railroad had to pay for that bridge themselves whereas the IDL was taxpayer money. It would mean fewer public works contracts, less concrete, less asphalt...fewer jobs and less money passed around. What are you, some kind of anti-business person?

While shoddy work may be a problem, the real difference is the railroad (or any private entity) better understands the importance of routine maintenance in preserving and extending the life of its track and bridges.  Politicians don’t attract many votes for preventing pot holes, but can sing their own praises for building new roads or rebuilding those that have crumbled due to a lack of routine maintenance.

You're correct.  The mindset is so stupid that it hurts my brain just to think about it.

Now that the concrete work appears to be done on the BA southeast of downtown, are they going to also do asphalt?  Even after the repairs, the road is still very bumpy.  Not "damage your car bumpy" like before, but still bumpy. 

That is the absolute truth. Though in fact since the 1980's shoddy workmanship and materials exacerbate the problems. Always choosing the low bidder, insisting that its our freeze/thaw that is causing the problems and ignoring routine maintenance while budgets stagnated due to lower tax collections makes a toxic witches brew.

I am really surprised at how rough the new concrete is - better than the gaping pot holes that were replaced, but still rough.  Also, the exit ramp on North 75 and entrance lane off of Cincinnati still have a lot of pot holes.  Hopefully they are not done.

With all the bridge work being done and ll the clearly visible mistakes it won't be long before it's back to being just as bad as it was. Who engineered the patch work? There are thin patches of concrete that will crack and chip especially with all the heavy equipment for all the bridge work.

It's depressing we are wasting so much money on a fix that barely makes it better and is short term. Anyway apologies for thread drift.

Sounds like a Communist plot - actual public works to the benefit of the public..!!  At the very least, it is Un-American!!

They intend to cover the repaired concrete sub with the asphalt developed by the former SemMaterials unit now called Road Science.

Rochester, NY (about the same size metro as Tulsa) is dismantling and burying part of their inner loop.  So it can be done...

https://www.google.com/amp/www.citylab.com/amp/article/498203/?client=safari (https://www.google.com/amp/www.citylab.com/amp/article/498203/?client=safari)

(http://www.cityofrochester.gov/assets/0/78/123/8589934937/8589935044/8589936037/2eee8e9d-fd74-47af-b6f9-cee2fc1c7570.jpg)

I got an easy way to pay for it, have the OTA bury it and make it a toll tunnel. They can lump it together with the Gilcrease Turnpike and Tulsa will have something more than OKC has, connection to go anywhere out of town will all be toll roads. Cimarron, Cherokee, Creek, Turner, Muskogee, Will Rogers, Indian Nations and The Dick Crawford Memorial Toll Tunnel.

Read more on that project:  Rochester is spending $31mil to remove 2/3rds of a mile of a sunken stretch of roadway that is not designated a federal highway or interstate and replacing it with a grade level boulevard. It would cost ~$40mil to rebuild the section due to the numerous bridge replacements and other maintenance they are way, way behind on.  It would be similar to removing 444 if it wasn't an interstate, didn't have complex connections are both ends as well as off ramp, was sunken instead of raised, and hadn't just had money spent on it.  However, 444 has major infrastructure simply to support this leg. To get on from or off from the BA, to get on and off or go under 244. Not to mention the street in the east end designed to accommodate it.

https://www.dot.ny.gov/recovery/sponsors/tiger/repository/74CDA1D23A0D90B2E0430A3DFC0390B2

It works well because they don't need to change any interchanges and fixing it would be more expensive than changing it around. Plus, central Rochester is really choked in... about a 6x6 block square surrounded by the river and the loop.

It could work well in Tulsa too, if it was a 20 year plan. When it comes time to redo those interchanges again - do something different and divert traffic around downtown. I don't think it would be too difficult or cause too many traffic problems. It would be more expensive because it requires redoing interchanges, but if it was long term and cut the cost of redoing them in the future it could work.

All they are doing is burying it. The street, and yes it's a city street, and the bridges are worn as badly as the bridges over it from the rough northern NY winters. It's a zero sum gain, other than saving the money from having to replace the bridges. When the project is done with the new roadway, it looks like they will gain maybe 50 feet of land.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.155947,-77.5971547,3a,75y,151.18h,78.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sg_e_YYqbaWubIgcrQ0rPPw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1?hl=en (https://www.google.com/maps/@43.155947,-77.5971547,3a,75y,151.18h,78.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sg_e_YYqbaWubIgcrQ0rPPw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1?hl=en)

It is an important 50 feet. Just think of the safety of keeping cars and people apart.

It would be prime real estate in Tulsa as proposed. The land value would almost equal anything in Tulsa County.

I think it is an interesting idea. It could be a blend of built and new green space together in a great spot for both.

I’d settle for covering up and building a park over the east leg of the IDL between 3rd & 6th.

How about we wait until a few more of the hundreds of empty lots inside the IDL are developed? So many are just big empty parking lots with no foreseeable plans to use those and no one lining up with high offers to buy them. There is no reason to spend millions for a small strip of land in Tulsa! This idea is ludicrous at this stage of Tulsa downtown. If it is not economically feasible to turn a parking lot into a building, it makes no sense to spend tens of millions to bury highways or cover the IDL.

Of all of the issues for making Tulsa more walkable and downtown more lively, the IDL is the least of those right now. Stuff is happening and the Brady and Blue Dome are being developed. Give it 10-20 years and maybe some of that will move to the southern part of the IDL. Until that area is full of buildings and more density (and not the largest parking crater in the US), an ambitious buried highway doesn't make sense. That would be awesome if we were anywhere near that but we aren't.

There is some momentum building toward removing 244 through Greenwood.  At-grade boulevard along the current highway path next to ONEOK Field to Elgin then restore the street grid from Elgin to Denver.  The second phase should be removing the east leg of the IDL and restoring Madison Ave as an at-grade boulevard.

 https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/i-244-through-greenwood-listed-national-freeways-without-futures-report#stream/0 (https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/i-244-through-greenwood-listed-national-freeways-without-futures-report#stream/0)

TYPROS Urbanist Crew hosted a presentation on potential partial IDL removal, complete with maps and some data. Definitely very preliminary, but will be interesting to see where it goes:

NPR article on presentation: https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/typros-urbanists-recommend-plan-tearing-down-i-244-through-greenwood?fbclid=IwAR07FSSv6itPuTrZeXgTH8U4KEFbG1Z9zc5Qm9SMm7_iy4u_sucPAxO9vro#stream/0

Zoom presentation itself: https://www.facebook.com/TulsaUrbanists/videos/304242648068883

Very cool. 

The presenters at the TYPROS Urbanist meeting on IDL removal now have a website up and a FB page for anyone wanting to follow along or offer support.

http://www.transformtulsa.org/

https://www.facebook.com/transformtulsa

I'd be curious to see an actual traffic model be built around this suggestion. See what it looks like when 20,000 people are trying to get in and out of downtown for Tulsa Tough or a major concert or something. This plan goes way beyond lowering the greenwood 244 segment to basically removing the vast majority of highways serving the downtown area. I know urbanists hate highways, but they do actually serve a purpose and can make areas more attractive by making them easier to get in and out of. Getting rid of 444/75 is probably going too far. That seems like a pretty major trucking and commuting route.

Agree - I would rather focus on first removing 244 in the IDL then work toward removing 244 entirely all the way to Hwy 11.  It's completely redundant with the Hwy 11/Gilcrease Expressway Loop especially once it's entirely completed where you can go all the way around across the river and connect to I-44.  If you take out the 244 leg though you have to keep the 444 leg on the east side of the IDL as there would not be any access to Hwy 75. 

Based on the length of time it took to extend 169 from 21st to 51st and to extend the Gilcrease from Sheridan to Peoria, none of this will happen for the next 20 some years.

I would support removing the north leg of the IDL, or even better, rebuilding it underground. Cost wise, I am sure the only option is removal. Removing I-244 east of the IDL is dumb and won't happen. Gilcrease isn't a viable alternative for I-244, in either efficiency or capacity.

One thing to be very careful of, if the north leg is removed, keep ODOT away from the replacement. Don't replace it with any kind of "boulevard" or anything like that. Just restore the original grid.

Agree, just go to OKC and see what ODOT did with the boulevard that replaced I-40.  They should've just restored the street grid.

Wow, the logistics and surface losses required to accomplish such a re-configuration, would be epic.  I can see easily need full-width transitions to and from 75 then have to widen 75 and then there's the transition onto the 244 River bridge and back to 412 from the BA (nothing but a major public hospital in the way).  

Might be a challenge for the route to keep it's interstate highway designation and related funding, realistically a below grade section appears to me to be the only viable highway methodology.

IIRC 244 was built as a spur of I-44 with the "2" designating that it routed through town. This was built as a transportation corridor from Sand Springs (and north central OK from I-35) to the Port Of Catoosa.

After State Highway 33 was decommissioned and Highway 412 was completed to NW Arkansas, it made the transportation corridor viable from what is now I-49 to i-35. I know people that nicknamed it the Walmart Highway because it gave Bentonville better access to the west and north once the trucks get to I-35.

It gives NW Arkansas a connection to I-70 in Salina KS without having to go through Kansas City.

You have to believe Wal-Mart, Tyson and JB Hunt are likely behind the push to upgrade 412 to an interstate as it significantly improves transportation connections to NW Arkansas.  Oklahoma benefits but not as much as Arkansas, and Tulsa being in the middle benefits as well.  I like the outdoor recreational opportunities in far NE Oklahoma and NW Arkansas so any way you can access them easier and faster is great for me.  412 is like Denver's I-70 for people in Tulsa, our highway to the mountains, lakes and rivers in the Ozarks.

Agreed. Turn 412 into an interstate and NW Arkansas will have short access times with I-49 to I-44, I-35 and I-40. Transportation has changed so much that the old hub and spoke system is pretty much gone and businesses are building distribution centers everywhere. Walmart built the model years ago, and everybody is moving that way. From 2011 to 2018 I made a bunch of trips through central California between Redding and Bakersfield and in the towns along CA-99 and I-5 while still being major agriculture centers have diversified with Amazon, Walmart, Cabela's/Bass Pro, and most other major businesses.

I still can't believe they managed to get an interstate completely re-routed to accommodate a basketball arena while we've been asking for years to have a smaller portion of an interstate demolished or moved to correct a historical injustice. I agree, restore the street grid, and officially make everything to the north of the IDL part of downtown, at least through OSU Tulsa and Langston.

It actually would have none to very little impact - definitely not epic. You have to consider that we have numerous regional corridors of high capacity highways that service essentially the same corridors. If the impact would be detrimental, we would have already figured that out given how many times entire sections of the IDL have been closed for construction in the past 5 years. People are smarter than we give them credit for sometimes, there are plenty of ways to get east-west regionally without 244 and north south without the Tisdale and 75 if they were all replaced with surface at-grade streets. 

Here's a few maps, similar to in that presentation. If you go to minute 30, that's where they discuss traffic and route alternatives. There's no reason why the Gilcrease, if the NW portion is finished to interstate standards, couldn't be designated as 244 instead and then eventually whatever Interstate they want to call it for the 412 corridor to I-35 and into NWA.

Current:

(https://i.ibb.co/5x0hP80/Regional-Route-Current-1.jpg)

Gilcrease North Route:

(https://i.ibb.co/wRT49Lg/Regional-Route-North.jpg)

This adds 3 miles to the drive - at 70 MPH it could possibly add 2 1/2 minutes to a drive east west. Why is 244 needed in that case? Keep in mind too given the curves and interchanges, you can't drive 70 MPH on the IDL, so in reality if you divert regional traffic to the Gilcrease and at a higher average speed your drive times are essentially the same. When the Gilcrease is done, 244 is 100% obsolete along with most of the IDL.

Current - Additional Route Option:

(https://i.ibb.co/sgpHrdx/Regional-Route-Current-2.jpg)

I-44/Gilcrease South Route:

(https://i.ibb.co/F4NvWZV/Regional-Route-South.jpg)

This adds 6 miles to a drive, at 70MPH you're talking about 5 minutes extra driving time. Just doesn't justify a need for duplicate corridors.

Now let's look at an example of the north south travel options too.

Current North-South Route:

(https://i.ibb.co/Q6RtJMS/Regional-Route-Current-3.jpg)

Gilcrease West Route:

(https://i.ibb.co/4gc40sR/Regional-Route-West.jpg)

This option also only adds 3 miles to a trip, so you're talking 2 1/2 minutes extra driving time.

Everyone freaked out over Riverside's closure, but between that and closing sections of the IDL non-stop for half a decade has proven that things like this don't create unmanageable traffic congestion. People adapt, they leave sooner/later to avoid peak times, find other routes, etc. Carmageddon doesn't exist. It time we right size infrastructure and stop building expensive redundant corridors. There's just little justification for keeping the IDL.

Also, some additional info from INCOG traffic counts to consider:

https://incog.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8f4d62c5aecc4629a019f9cbe0076b89

75 only carries 35,000 cars per day in this area north of 244. Drops to 26,000 between the BA and 244.
Tisdale carries around 25,000 per day.

Why do we need highways for these areas with so few cars, especially when there's multiple other regional routes. The on/off ramp traffic counts suggest that only around 10% of these cars are actually accessing downtown too. So reducing these corridors to boulevards would not create massive traffic problems getting into and out of downtown either once the regional travels use other routes.

Riverside, Yale, Memorial, 71st, etc. all carry similar and/or more cars per day. Highway 97 between Pratville and 412 carries 30,000+ cars per day and it's far from congested.

The infrastructure bill has a highways to boulevard program in it, otherwise you're right that given how slow most big infrastructure projects take for review and to get federal funding allocated we'd be looking out a decade at least probably.

So there will be funding available for projects like this all over the US in the next year or two if the bill is passed. It's just a matter of does Tulsa want to get it's act together and pursue this. Biden even talked about 244 being a prime candidate for that program while he was in Tulsa. It's actually very realistic that this could be completed within the next five years.

Redundant corridors serve a very necessary purpose to travelers, commuters and commercial traffic when there are accidents and especially when with major construction closures and provide capacity.  The idea of stuffing all 8 lanes of 244 capacity onto other roadways and not expecting a significant increase in peak transit times in my opinion is wishful thinking.

Don't get me wrong I support fixing the barrier of the North IDL but that fix has to work for the entire community, including those who are passing thru on the highway system.  I like the thought process but show me it works with a properly calibrated dynamic traffic model and I'll listen otherwise we get the Hwy 75 Dallas mess.    

Given the location and audience for his speech, no surprise.

There was also the need to accommodate traffic which has significantly increased since 1966.  See near the bottom for the project overview: https://oklahoma.gov/odot/citizen/major-projects/completed-projects/i-40crosstown.html

Where would you move the north leg to? 

I might agree somewhat with you if the alternative corridors were at or over capacity. They are not though. I-44 given it's recent expansion can handle a lot of additional traffic. Like I said too earlier, Highway 75 and the Tisdale carry a similar amount of traffic as Memorial, Yale, Riverside, Highway 97 in Sand Springs, etc on those portions they mentioned to remove/rebuild. Yet the cost to build and maintain limited access highways is astronomically more expensive than to build a road and maintain something like Memorial... it makes no sense financially to have a highway when an at-grade option could carry the same amount of vehicles, they just might have to stop at a few more stop lights (that's not the end of the world). Not counting the fact that a highway and ODOT does not contribute anything to our tax base, it erodes it. What is a more economically prosperous corridor, Memorial between the Creek and 111th or the entire portion of I-244. Memorial is, and if it was a limited access highway like 244 you'd severely limit it's productivity and Memorial is a pretty auto centric area but you can still build more in that area given the width of right of way in comparison to a full highway and the ability to have numerous ingress/egress access points which limited access highways do not. The IDL takes up as much land mass as the entire portion inside the IDL (was mentioned in that presentation) that's pretty astounding. Downtown is the single most productive area in our MSA given the density in its contribution of tax revenues. Having some much of that area dedicated to regional travelers, in the highest value area of town, makes no financial sense. Why are we prioritizing someone from NWA getting to I-35 2-3 minutes faster or someone from Bartlesville to get to Glenpool 2-3 minutes faster over the economic health of our city or out of the fear that an accident might cause traffic to back up half a mile once or twice a month? It's completely backwards, sorry.  

The Gilcrease currently is one of the least traveled corridors, it can easily handle all or most of the traffic from 244. 244 is not a huge commuting corridor during rush hour like the BA or 169, which means you don't have a huge crush of vehicles at once in comparison to other corridors in town. Most of the traffic is regional traffic that is more consistent throughout the day, we way over expanded 244 years ago. There is less than 10,000 cars that exit 244 to access downtown in a day in comparison to the BA which has closer to 25,000+ cars per day exit to downtown. I've traveled that corridor over decades during rush hour and rarely if ever is it bumper to bumper traffic between Sand Springs and 169, outside of trying to exit the highway to get on 169. The only congestion points on I-44 are highway interchanges during rush hour (BA, 169).

Fiscally speaking, this is the reason why we can't pay our bills or maintain anything. We have corridor after corridor of redundancies that are not needed and we have prioritized people who don't live here to get through town a few minutes faster over our own economic sustainability. Even on the off chance we increased congestion slightly on other corridors our economy is not going to collapse. If it takes someone 3-4 extra minutes to get somewhere because they might have to drive on the Gilcrease loop or stop at a few more stop lights on the new boulevards to get to or through downtown isn't the end of the world. If congestion was that big of an issue how are places like Austin, Nashville, LA, San Fran, Seattle, NYC, DC, etc. some of the most desirable urban places for businesses and people to move to? People may complain about it, but we can't spend billions upon billions to try to solve it, because we can't. Induced demand is a pretty commonly accepted theory now and has been proven over and over. We can't let the irrational fear of congestion get in the way of the economic and social health of our cities. Being able to build thousands of new housing units, retail, and businesses is more important than being able to make sure someone from NWA can get to I-35 a couple minutes fasters or to preserve one of the 3 options for them to get there in the off chance there's an accident someone one day that might close the highway for 30 mins. Why should they take priority over people who live here? We put way to much priority in urban freeways that are nothing but a black hole for cities.    

I invite you to visit S Memorial between 121st and 91st pretty much any time but especially during the rush periods and during the lunch crowd.  It's not too bad between maybe 8 PM and 6:15 AM.  By 6:30 AM, northbound gets busy.  Construction north of the Turnpike to 91st has made it even worse.  Traffic diverts to Sheridan which can also back up about a half mile.

I unfortunately live in this area now (I wasn't able to find a house in midtown in the time frame I needed to be able to move and had to settle for a house I like, but in a less desirable location for me personally). I am on Memorial almost daily at all times of day. It's really over blown how 'congested' it is... especially after living in other major cities where I could walk faster than most cars could drive. I don't think people here really grasp how lucky we are in terms of traffic.

The construction currently north of the Creek doesn't mean we should widen every other corridor around Memorial though (which would be the same reasoning for keeping 244). You're proving the theory that people adapt, and they can easily figure out alternative routes (given the increased traffic on Sheridan in particular). If I have to go north beyond 101st or coming back south, I actually take Yale or Riverside usually now versus Memorial or Sheridan. I'll drive to Mingo or Garnett if I need to be further east and double back at 81st if needed to get back to Memorial or Sheridan. Does it add a few minutes to my drive? Yes, but hardly discourages me from living my life and getting things done that need to be done, I just leave a few minutes earlier. The same thing would happen if 244, Tisdale, and 75 were converted to at grade boulevards. Some will still take the same corridors, just a bit slower. Most others will adjust and adapt to the alternative routes.

LandArchPoke,

You stated that various alternate routes are just a few miles further with above speed limit speeds and that simply won't hold up, congest a corridor it dramatically slows all traffic and greatly increases accident risk.

I'm sorry but I see removing 244 as taking us back to the issues 44 and 244 had before this last round of widenings.  

I wouldn't move to one of those other major cities.  Many, however, have useable public transportation.  NYC, Phila, Boston, DC, San Francisco, some areas of LA (I think), Toronto.  Comparing Tulsa traffic to those cities' traffic is kind of like comparing a nasty cold to pneumonia.  (I was going to say flu vs. Covid but thought that might be a bit much.)  My opinion is that if drive time more than doubles, congestion is not insignificant.


Road rehab on Memorial is temporary and is much needed all the way to near 71st.  The quality of initial and rehab road construction in OK is probably a topic for another thread.  A lot of the congestion on the east-west streets out here could be handled by a center turn lane.  I haven't diverted to Garnett lately but traffic on Mingo can get nasty.  Diverting to Yale to get to the Creek is an option I sometimes use to go to Riverside Airport.  The traffic lights at Riverside & 101st seem to take forever to change so I rarely go that way. Getting off 169 Southbound to Memorial can be dangerous with drivers cutting in line or waiting in the thru lane for someone to let them in.  Same thing on I-244 eastbound to go south on 169.  There are 11 traffic lights Memorial starting at 111th to and including 91st. With a few more accidents at 106th PL (by 1st Pryority Bank) there will probably be one there too.  With all the housing/apartments being built south 111th, I believe in a few years there will be a need to widen either Yale or Sheridan and maybe Mingo.  Traffic is only going to get worse.  When my family moved here in 1971, Memorial was 2 lanes south of the RR tracks at 41st and it didn't matter.  The likelihood of usable public transit out here anytime soon, or maybe ever, is minimal. No one is going to stop development and cars will be the only transportation option.  Large lots like where I am are a thing of the past so there will be thousands of cars per square mile.  Cars sitting at traffic lights, especially in the summer, contribute to the ozone situation.  Electric cars will help but not eliminate the pollution since most of the electricity around here is still fossil fuel based.

How close do you believe other routes in town are at or above capacity? They are not even close - pretty much every freeway in our city operates below 50% of capacity outside of 30 minutes during the AM and PM rush hour. Also, why should we sacrifice the most valuable land in the region so someone from out of town can drive through town 2-3 minutes faster? You didn't answer that question. You haven't even offered up any evidence or reason behind why you think this will create unreasonable congestion - I've offered up a lot of points that show the reasoning why that would not happen and the concerns about traffic are way overblown.  

If other corridors couldn't handle it, how do you explain the fact we haven't had massive traffic jams over the past five years as entire sections of the IDL closed - not just narrowed for construction - completed closed (including 244 - the north leg of the IDL) for months at a time. Our city didn't fall apart, nor did we even have a semblance of traffic chaos/congestion anywhere because of that. It's a doom and gloom scenario that plays out all of the time by people everywhere and it has never happened once when a freeway closes and it's planned. People adapt.  

We're talking about diverting 30,000 to 40,000 cars a day throughout a system of highways in the metro area that are already well below capacity limits. Not a single freeway in town has moderate congestion that would cause you to not at least be able to drive the speed limit, most not even in rush hour, outside of a hand full of highway interchanges like BA/169, BA/I-44, and I-44/169 that can moderately back up traffic for 30-45 mins during the AM & PM rush hour.

I really don't understand what's concerning about that? Say those extra cars per day, not only added 3 minutes of drive time but also added 2-3 minutes additional because instead of driving 70, you had to drive 60 because the highway is somewhat full of car. How is that a catastrophe, even if it did happen (it wouldn't)? Why should we prioritize making sure someone who doesn't live here or care about our city gets through our city center as fast as possible when it causes us to lose out on millions (30, 40, 50 million a year in tax revenues at least - you should watch the feasibility portion). Our priorities should be to the growth and health of our city and not getting held up on the fact we might mildly inconvenience out of town drives by not allowing them to cut through downtown anymore. That pays for a lot of firefighters, police officers, schools, etc. that we miss out on year after year and have for decades now at this point. You're talking in a range of an economic loss of over $1 billion since the IDL was finished, just for the land the IDL sits on, not including the resulting destruction of 3,000+ homes/businesses in Greenwood for UCAT or the hundreds of parking lots created inside the IDL that's probably resulted in just as significant or more in terms of economic loss to the city. We wonder why we can't pay our teachers or pay for the upkeep on roads... maybe we should just raise the sales tax to 20% I guess instead of figuring out ways to remove unneeded over scaled infrastructure and rebuild neighborhoods that will increase our tax base and economic sustainability of our city.

Again, traffic and congestion concerns in this town are so ridiculously over blown - people's homes and businesses didn't deserve to be destroyed so someone's drive is slightly less traffic-y and 2 minutes shorter and we certainly shouldn't allow that reasoning to be behind why it's not the right thing to go back and correct the wrongs of destroying Greenwood and countless other neighborhoods for the sake of thinking we need to have 3-4 options that get us to the same place within a few minutes difference.    

Definitely wasn't trying to directly compare Tulsa traffic to those cities, but what I am trying to address is a lot of people have always said and still do that congestion will ruin our city. It doesn't, and it won't. If congestion resulted in economic decline there's no reason why all of those other cities with horrendous traffic are so desirable to so many people and businesses. I'd be curious if anyone could point to a single example of a vibrant neighborhood that has no congestion - you can't. When you try to un-congest an area, you remove it's vibrancy. 

I know traffic sucks and I'm not saying it doesn't - we just can't make that reasoning our number one thing behind every decision on how our city is shaped and built. If we do, we end up where we are today in a city that does struggle to properly maintain infrastructure and also staff city services appropriately. I'm also not saying highways should be removed everywhere, they can be appropriate in suburban areas and it's reasonable to expand them in some cases. However, I feel it is never the right option to dedicate so much space in the core of the city to something as unproductive as a highway. I'm a firm believer in the village development concept and the 15-minute city. The results of PlaniTulsa sowed that was how most people in Tulsa wanted our city to develop (our city leaders just decided to ignore it for the most part still). In general, that concept is not compatible with making sure people can cut through village centers as fast as possible. If we developed the city appropriately we would resolve some of the issues of not being able to afford upkeep but also things like having to drive so far if the proper nodes are developed in various parts of town. Downtown will always be the primary village center for the region, but to have a health/functioning/sustainable city it is not going to happen by trying to build our way out of traffic, it's just a reality of life. If we don't come to realize that, it won't be many more decades before our city is bankrupt or we're paying taxes twice the rate we are now because we don't have the right scale of development to support the infrastructure we've built.   

When traveling cross country, I don't mind a few extra miles or minutes to avoid a downtown.  If the IDL is removed, just make the signage obvious to out-of-towners which way and which lane to be in well before the choice is required.  I still have to be careful not to wind up going to Sand Springs instead of going south on 75 from I-244.  And, don't do like St Louis did in the early 70s with "TO I-44" signs that dumped my family on surface streets when expressway options around town were available.  We were a caravan of 3 cars, 2 pulling trailers.  We were not happy.  

Other legs of the IDL were still open.  Redundancy works.  That doesn't mean that redundancy has to cut through the heart of downtown.

The INCOG traffic count you linked shows 70,000+ cars on I-244 through downtown.  You claim less than 10% exit somewhere downtown.  That leaves more like 60,000+ to divert.  Gilcrease is only 4 lanes (2 each direction) and 60 MPH west of 75 to the Tisdale. And, of course, the Gilcrease is not yet complete.

Urban Renewal didn't really renew much of anything.  Why was so much land set aside for UCAT rather than rebuilding neighborhoods?  Parking lots are probably not  a direct result only of building the IDL.


Agreed that traffic here isn't as bad as Boston, NYC etc but anyone that still thinks you can get anywhere in Tulsa under 20 minutes is only fooling themselves.

St. Louis is confusing in many places with signage, I've had several times I've randomly exited a highway and ended up in East St Louis versus staying on highways. Rebuilding the interchange of the Gilcrease and 244 where most of the lanes divert north to where the flow of traffic feels normal would solve that. Also renaming the Gilcrease as 412/I-244 would help regional travels recognize how to navigate around. Having clear signage that says highway ends in 2 miles if you stay in these lanes for the other 2 lanes would signify anyone who wants to stay on the highway needs to get in the other 2 lanes and follow on to the Gilcrease versus continuing due west. Same for the west side, you'd have to likely reconfigure the interchange a bit where 412 and the Gilcrease meet to make it feel more nature to divert traffic north or south instead of due east and have clear signage that says highway ends in X miles for the excess lanes.

In terms of the traffic count I mentioned, you'd likely still have some people take the same corridors beyond the 10% that exit downtown, you'd probably still have to account for some additional local traffic, like on 75 south someone might want to go to Utica Square, so that'd still be the faster corridor to take even though downtown isn't the destination. A percentage of travelers trying to go east west are probably still not going to divert and go straight through downtown, it's just going to take them a bit longer. There is also a percentage of trips that just disappear too and it's been documented in studies in other cities.

For 75, that plan proposes to rebuild Lansing and Madison. You'd likely have 2 lanes north south for each of those so 8 lanes north south total (versus 4/6 now as a highway). So you'd have two north south surface streets to absorb traffic and that could still easily service 30,000 to 40,000 cars per day between the two (just at 35-40 MPH instead of 60 MPH). Right now the 75 and Tisdale corridor don't have more than 35,000 cars per day using it in the busiest spots in/near downtown. So for 75 & the Tisdale the street grid that would be rebuilt could carry 100% of the current needs of traffic. Now some will divert to the west corridor I outline in the previous maps, just because they can drive faster speeds if their end destination is not local. The traffic studies on the Gilcrease from OTA suggest that less than 10,000 cars per day will be using that southeast portion they are completing now. So even if 10,000 or 20,000 cars divert to that corridor it's still probably going to be less than 50% of capacity.  

244 is the only route that would require the redistribution of some cars as 70,000-80,000 cars per day just aren't going to take a city street. You'd still have multiple new east west routes on this corridor that could carry 30,000 to 40,000 cars each once the street grid is finished though. Admiral for example would be rebuilt and would go all the way through, 1st Street, etc. would all be able to absorb traffic too and would all have through access now. A percentage of trips would just go away, so only 30,000 to 40,000 at max might have to be absorbed onto other regional highway routes and would be distributed out along the north or south options in the maps I posted. I-44 for example could easily handle 125,000 to 150,000 cars per day or more and is not even close to that capacity. Gilcrease might eventually need to be expanded to 3 lanes each along the northern loop, but even in it's current capacity it only has 30,000 cars per day using it in the busiest spot by the airport. It can easily service 70,000 cars per day in it's current form. It's important to remember that given it's regional traffic it will be distributed out through the day versus a significant amount of it added to rush hour traffic.

We forget how much traffic a properly functioning street grid can handle. Really what we did is when we cut off access of streets like Madison and Lansing and others, we just forced that traffic onto a highway when 244 cut off many north south streets. The highway was never needed in the first place. It's still not needed now if the street grid is rebuilt. 75 did the same thing by cutting off east west flow of Admiral and other, all that traffic was then funneled onto 244 and that's why a lot of businesses died in this area.

UCAT is a complicated issue, frankly I think the urban renewal authority really just wanted to get rid of the rest of Greenwood and used the cover of we're going to build a big university as the reason to justify it to the public. Ultimately most universities built in other locations so then all the land set aside just sat vacant because OSU wasn't that interested in building out a big campus in Tulsa for a long time.

The parking lot growth wasn't directly because of the IDL, but the IDL facilitated the commuting and car culture of Tulsa which is what resulted in many owners downtown thinking it was more valuable to knock over buildings for surface parking than it was to preserve buildings. So they're all intertwined a bit. If we hadn't built the IDL and decided that we shouldn't sacrifice buildings and homes for regional travelers and the suburban commuter I do wonder how different the city would be today.  

When I went back east after the family moved here, I tried the south route around St Louis.  I followed a "To Illinois" sign and wound up on a 2 lane road leading to East St Louis.  Not a happy camper.

People would still take the same corridors one time if the IDL is removed until they learned the alternate routes.  I would not anticipate through traffic choosing a non-express route more than once.  Folks going to Utica Square etc will just have to accept the delays. But... those are not the through traffic.  For them, downtown, Utica Square etc is the destination.

Again, depends on your mission.  Going through or somewhere within "downtown" or nearby places. 35-40 MPH speed limits with traffic lights results in a lot slower speeds, ref: S Memorial. I would definitely avoid Tulsa in those conditions if I only wanted to get through.

Southeast portion of the Gilcrease?  SW maybe?  If we get rid of the IDL, the Gilcrease will experience a lot more traffic than if we keep the IDL. 

I disagree that ONLY 244 would require redistribution. While the Tisdale and 75 don't carry tons of traffic, combined they carry a lot. What new multiple east-west routes?  I-44 already exists. The Creek Turnpike already exists.  Completing the Gilcrease is the only new route.  If you are only talking about highways to downtown, OK. Some trips would just go away because people don't want to put up with traffic unless the trip is necessary. The Maps you posted seemed to ignore traffic going south on 75 south of I-244. I don't know the capacity of 1-44 after the construction is finished. I am willing to ignore transients. Gilcrease around the airport at 30,000/day plus diverted traffic... hummm.

I don't think we forget, we choose to take a different route.  Again, is the mission to go downtown or go around. If I have no interest in stopping downtown (or even a small town), give me a way around.  I am not going to spend any money just because you slow me down to "appreciate" your downtown. If you are a small town and I want lunch, or whatever, I'll take the Business Route. Do you really want me beating up your streets when I have no intention of spending any money in your town?  Let the Feds pay for the bypass.

Have to agree there.

City taxes probably were an influence too.  Tulsa wasn't going to stop suburbia any more than any other city.  I believe that if the Gilcrease and other big by-passes had been built before I-244, the result to downtown would have been the same.  Downtown cities are experiencing a resurgence  but in the 60s and 70s no one was going to stop suburbia.

Some congestion is acceptable.  I cannot understand the mentality of folks that endure multiple hour commutes to work in LA just because they cannot afford a home closer in.  Time to find a new job in a place like Tulsa.

I'm going to be really blunt here. I-244 and the IDL were not built as a racist dividing Tulsa freeway program to separate North Tulsa/Greenwood from the rest of the city move.

If you are under the age of 40 you have no idea of the manufacturing that was going on in north downtown and along Charles Page Boulevard that related to the oil industry, as well as the area along SW Boulevard to where the Turner Turnpike gate was. From where Crane Carrier Corp was near the original Tulsa Airport terminal, and for that fact McDonnell/Douglas and Rockwell on the south end of the airport was the major manufacturing areas of Tulsa.

You had Sheffield Steel at Hwy 97 and Charles Page to the airport that was the major employment corridor other than SunRay DX and at the time Texaco Refineries. At the turnpike gate you had Unit Rig and others. You also had the Port of Catoosa that was the gateway to the Mississippi River and the Gulf Of Mexico.

244 wasn't built just to decrease some ones travel time to downtown for work. The whole of the IDL was built to support the manufacturing that Tulsa had in the 60's and 70's as well as the number of people that worked there.

The same can be said for Highway 75 running next to the rail yard, and 244 running through Redfork to the Turner entrance.

The area north of 244 through downtown was a war zone during the late 60's until the late 90's and it had nothing to do with 244, and Haskell and Main was ground zero.

Calling highways racist is BS. And to be honest, I was reading info about the 1921 Riot in 1980 when I started looking into it at the Central Library on the micro films of old Tulsa World and Tribune newspapers.

This whole "OMG LOOK WHAT HAPPENED" media crush is BS because it's been there for decades but nobody looked.

Thanks for the perspective.  I am well over 40 but am an import from the mid 70s (after my time in the Navy).

I'm an old timer so to speak. My parents and paternal grand parents as well as an aunt moved to Tulsa in the mid 50's to work at what became McDonnell/Douglas or Air Force Plant 3.

Back in 1967 I actually got on to a Santa Fe train with my parents and we took the train to Kansas City and back to visit family. During that trip the kids that lived across the street set fire to the field that was part of the MA-HU mansion and burned the barn to the ground.

The other exciting thing was before I was born and the house I grew up in was that the nose section of a B-47 Bomber landed in the back yard in 1958.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/history/throwback-tulsa-b-47-jet-broke-apart-raining-debris-on-east-tulsa-in-58/article_4ff393dd-d055-5446-acd1-cd1c7184ae20.html (https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/history/throwback-tulsa-b-47-jet-broke-apart-raining-debris-on-east-tulsa-in-58/article_4ff393dd-d055-5446-acd1-cd1c7184ae20.html)

A Boulevard conversion for 244 would interesting with the Burlington Northern crossing who, as I recall, has the authority to say no thank you. 

Overall, downtown is no where near fully redeveloped and there is significant space much of which has been essentially vacant for decades that is ripe to be redeveloped and that extends to both sides of 244 where no doubt, better access without the visual barrier of the elevated 244 would definitely help but not at the cost of trashing the efficiency of a good highway system.

I would definitely support depressing 244 and bridging over it with quality public spaces.

That's great history, my parents met in Plant 3 during the war, building bombers.

What flooding problems would a depressed 244 experience?

Steam or Diesel locomotive?

Interesting and scary too.  Any idea if the defect was a design problem or a manufacturing problem?

Diesel. My dad told me on the trip that you can't use the restroom while the train was stopped at a station because it would leave a mess on the ground, but while it was moving it spread it out over a wider area.

It was a result of metal fatigue and over stressing of the wing. At the time, one of the tactics that the USAF was working on was to fly low towards the target with a nuclear weapon, then as they approached the target to pull up at a steep angle and launch the weapon, then roll the aircraft over while climbing. They didn't really understand the loads they put on the wings, and as that one climbed it essentially ripped the wing off and the plane broke up as it climbed at near full throttle.

Kind of a long video, but this shows how hard they pushed the planes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cIgTAtj4E4&t=502s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cIgTAtj4E4&t=502s)

It looked like this

(https://www.wattflyer.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=169721&d=1373028571)

None if properly done and ventilated. 

Aerobatics are fun in an airplane designed to do them.

In that presentation it's one of the options that the community can give feedback on. That group gave some pretty good reasoning as to why it would be a difficult solution.

The chamber as had a study done on doing a tunnel version of 244 that would start just east of 75 and go to the Tisdale. The terrain is slopped just enough downward going into downtown right there that it makes it nearly impossible and they found it would also be very difficult to accomplish without harming the remaining portion of Greenwood. So in order to do a tunnel, you'd have to start well past Utica. You're talking costs in the $2 to $3 billion range in that case just to do that. I personally think that would be a dumb financial move. You also have to think of the costs of how are we going to pay to maintain that down the road in 50-75 years when the tunnels start leaking and need to be redone? Also, the ventilation systems required to operate tunnels like that are not cheap and you're talking about an ongoing maintenance/operating costs that ODOT or the city can already not afford. Just my opinion. Maybe the infrastructure bill will have $2 - 3 billion we can ask for and that would be a legitimate option. Also, think about how any on and off ramps would work from a tunnel to access downtown? You're still creating issues with large swaths of right away for those that would complicate development above and also not really improve connectivity between the neighborhoods in many areas. The option could be like in Seattle where the tunnel was only for through traffic (no on and off ramps) and if you wanted to go to downtown you'd have to exit at Utica maybe and just take the access road/boulevard into downtown above the tunnel.

You kind of lost credibility there by all that gaslighting... no one is saying a piece of infrastructure is racist. Those dang young kids need to get off your lawn! Right? Get a grip on reality.

The decisions of where to place infrastructure were due to a compilation of issues, many of which were results of racist policies (redlining for example) if you actual chose to see beyond your own nose (open your mind a bit). Redlining destroyed property values in areas like Greenwood. You can't possibly with a straight face tell me that redlining was not racist. That creates a vacuum, and yes in fact many of the crime issues and housing issues are a direct result of a combination of all these issues and that happens when you've had people actively working to destabilize that community for decades - wake up.   

Which in turn made those neighborhoods easy targets when highways were being built because they could acquire the land cheaply (same with "urban renewal" programs). Look at the Riverside Expressway as an example. If redlining and other things hadn't eroded wealth in Greenwood they would have had the money to fight 244 and possibly reroute it away from the neighborhood or get it canceled outright like residents in Maple Ridge were able to do with the Riverside Expressway.

There was no reason why 244 needed to go right through the middle of the commercial district of Greenwood. You can't with a straight face tell me that wasn't intentional either. Why couldn't it have gone a few blocks north? Or south along the railroad line. There were other routes it could have taken that would have been less impactful to Greenwood. Yet, they chose to build it where it is.. because they knew that neighborhood had very little ability to fight it and to many white planners of that time black neighborhoods were nothing but 'blight' that needed to be paved over to make it all go away. There were also plenty of poor white neighborhoods in town with crime issues (still are today too) yet none of them were ever a target of mass clearing like Greenwood was for highways, UCAT, etc.

There's nothing about that which was ok and you can bury your head in the sand if you'd like to not acknowledge what is right in front of your face. This same scenario played out everywhere in America. It's not a coincidence that wealthier (mostly white) neighborhoods like Maple Ridge were able to get freeway plans canceled while places like Greenwood were not.

Washington DC is a great example too. Most of the highways planned there that were cancelled all happened to be mostly white and more affluent areas (like NW DC up to Bethesda). Yet the only places in DC that has highways built were the SE and NE parts of DC (mostly minority neighborhoods that were redlined for decades prior). Open your eyes a bit, it doesn't make you a weak person to recognize things like that, which were mistakes our planners have made in the past, and want to try to fix those problems.

You're right in that suburban growth wasn't going to be stopped even if the IDL wasn't built. However, many cities that did not have as many highways cut through their downtown have a significantly higher amount of buildings that were not demoed for parking lots. An empty building still pays more in property taxes than a large parking lot does. I do believe that if the IDL had only lead to downtown and didn't connect all the way through, we'd have a lot more of our historic buildings left. It's also a lot easier to turn a vacant building into a coffee shop or something then it is to redevelop an entire block of parking lot into a mixed use development.

I'm not saying some traffic on 75/Tisdale wouldn't be relocated. You're right that the regional travels would not take the city center route if it's a boulevard with stop lights and travel speeds around 35 MPH. The point is that those corridors are overbuilt, in that the street grid if rebuilt could actually carry every single one of those cars today too. I'm also making the point that there would not be much of an impact to locals. You can still get to and from downtown, utica square, hospitals, etc. You're just going to not be able to blow through town. That's not a bad thing. Especially if we can redevelop these areas you're not going to notice it as much if the environment you're driving through is pleasant and interesting.

With 244 we have 4 east west routes. Gilcrease loop when finished, 244, I 44, and the Creek Turnpike. There is more than enough capacity to distribute out regional traffic during non peak travel periods. The map I posted does look at traffic going south on 75, if you are coming south from say Bville and are going to Dallas - you'd exit 75 at the Gilcrease and take the loop around west to 44 and then take 44 to 75 and then proceed south on 75. You'd be talking an extra 4-5 miles to your trip by taking the Gilcrease loop around the west side versus going straight down 75 through downtown.

Wouldn't be easy nor cheap, never said it would, but you can't ignore adverse impacts elsewhere in the system nor can you ignore the cost of modifications necessary for this plan to remotely have a chance.  Lastly, lets not forget the potential of the Federal Highway trust asking for significant monies back from the recent 244 improvements and the elephant in the room brought to you by Burlington Northern Rail Road.

I've driven that route in Seattle and the one in Dallas and see no issue here with reconfiguring downtown access likewise (I still remember when the BA stopped at Utica, my family lost property to it).

My mother was from Missouri, so "show me" a dynamic/calibrated traffic model (prepared by an independent traffic engineer) of the entire system  and we'll talk, especially after the modeler tosses in a two lane accident closure on 44 and a construction/maintenance on 11 during peak times.   

I'm curious - did you even watch that presentation? LOL. It seems like you just immediately went to no, never going to happen instead of just listening to the idea. They specifically mention doing traffic models. Every single thing you've mentioned was addressed there.

Also, the comp plan has identified a spur route for BNSF to help alleviate some of the train congestion through downtown. Creating a short under pass or over pass is completely realistic to avoid the rail track. I think there's probably a few examples of this downtown already but what do I know...

If there's a two lane accident at Harvard how is someone going to avoid that now, even with 244 being there? It's called life, you're just going to get stuck in traffic around accidents now and then. How does the Turner Turnpike or any other interstate function in real life if we need to have 2, 3, 4 alternatives just in case there's an accident that closes a lane temporarily? That argument makes no sense. Neither does your construction issue either. I guess we should plan to build duplicates of every corridor that exists now because heaven forbid we have to narrow a highway to repave it or something. We must have duplicate routes or the entire state will shut down. I'm pretty sure everyone manages to do alright when an interstate is under construction. You just might have to drive slower and plan to leave 10-15 minutes earlier. That doesn't justify over building redundant infrastructure. Especially for something like 244 that runs through the most valuable land in the region.

Why would you think we'd have to pay the highway trust fund back? That's ridiculous given that the money to do something like this is coming from the Federal government anyways within the highways to boulevard program - no one is going to be required to pay anything back to the same place we're getting the money from to do the project.

City Council has committed to doing community outreach meetings around the subject of 244 and what to do with it:

https://www.fox23.com/news/local/tulsa-city-leaders-discussing-solution-bridge-that-cuts-through-greenwood/IA5UXDE7SNFJZBCF3MFSH2VXKE/ (https://www.fox23.com/news/local/tulsa-city-leaders-discussing-solution-bridge-that-cuts-through-greenwood/IA5UXDE7SNFJZBCF3MFSH2VXKE/)

Assuming the I-244 part of the IDL is removed, what do "we" expect to connect to?  It looks like most of the vacant lots belong to the Tulsa Development Authority, OSU or Tulsa Public Schools.  Some of the R.O.W. could be reclaimed but I don't see it as enough land to create a business district or much housing.

https://www.assessor.tulsacounty.org/assessor-map-interactive.php

The portion of 244 between 75 and the Tisdale doesn't have to huge amount of ROW to reclaim outside of the part with the on/off ramps are at Cincinnati/Detroit. However, UCAT did give back all that area west of Detroit (or Cincinnati) to TDA. TDA does plan to RFP that in the next 12 months or so. You could do a pretty significant project in combination with that. Also, I think it'd be the right thing for OSU to give back the part of campus that is along Greenwood or work in conjunction with black developers and businesses to slowly rebuild the commercial district along Greenwood north of 244. There's no reason they need all that land. If they ever do decide to grow the campus they can do it vertically. It doesn't have to be low density 2 story buildings that take up 50 acres. They can get the same amount of space in a couple acres in 10-15 story buildings.

The scale of the proposal from the TYPROS group was about 150-200 acres of right of way when you include 244 all the way to Kendall Whittier along with 75 and the Tisdale. That type of scale you could do a lot with like thousands of housing units and a good amount of commercial space on the ground level. That's another reason why looking at more than just 244 would be a good thing too - to make a project worth while we might as well get the scale right. If the boulevard option and full removal (no tunnel of 244) ends up being the best options we might as well remove as much as possible. No reason not to go all the way out to Lewis or beyond and to at least Gilcrease Museum Road to the west. 

Rebuilding the 75 corridor as well would open up the Evans site for a much better development. That's one of the biggest reasons many of the other development proposals died there, retails hate that site because it has horrific accessibility from the highways around it. Sure the visibility is good, but visibility means nothing if no one can get to it either. The Nordam site would become that much more attractive for a large scale redevelopment too, you could extend the 3rd Street commercial corridor and connect it in with the Pearl District. You could also have a better connection on 11th/Route 66 and Home Depot site becomes desirable for redevelopment. Have the city work with Home Depot to build a mixed-use urban store format, there's several examples of this that have been successful in other cities. Possibly could then bring in other retailers like an urban Target, etc. Connecting downtown better with areas to the east and south would make retail in that portion of downtown more desirable given it's adjacent to Maple Ridge - I'm sure many people in Midtown would rather shop at a new Target downtown than they would going to Tulsa Hills or the ancient stores at 21st & Yale. Just needs to be urban format, no more big box suburban formats downtown.

Something like Metropolitan in Charlotte would go great at 11th and along the reclaimed ROW in that area.

https://www.metropolitanclt.com (https://www.metropolitanclt.com)

https://goo.gl/maps/YxbvXyrL1wcMR9LA8 (https://goo.gl/maps/YxbvXyrL1wcMR9LA8)

It seems pretty unlikely that removal of 244 East of US-75(I-444) would be approved. Such a change would cause a major change to the current flow of traffic in Tulsa. While I personally would love to have a city without highways and instead the same amount of money spent on mass transit and higher density, that's basically me saying I wish 1920's Tulsa had made better decisions. Its just not the status quo in Tulsa.

What I think is a reasonable and achievable near term project that could conceivably receive federal funding is:
1. Remove I-244 from US-412 to US-75
2. Rebuild and Cap US-75/I-444 from E 8th South to E Archer with a new highway entrance/exit at "new" Admiral Blvd. (could switch to Edison West of N. Main.)
3. Rebuild and Cap (if possible) the I-244 - US-75/I-444 interchange all the way to Peoria
4. Rebuild the US-412, I-244, L.L. Tisdale Pkwy interchange to shrink and simplify it, or:
5. (phase II) Convert the L.L. Tisdale Pkwy to an at grade boulevard, from Edison to Pine reconnect the street grid and introduce a mixed use zoning code for the recovered property
6. (phase III) Cap I-444/B.A. Expressway from S. Denver to S. Cincinnati and build a retail highway cap on both sides of S. Peoria
7. (phase IV) Build retail highway cap on both sides of N. Lewis at I-244

My back-of-the napkin, total-guess project cost estimate is $700 million - $1.2 billion based on the I-40 realignment in OKC ($360 million) and Klyde Warren Park in Dallas ($110 million.) This would include the costs of removal, construction of boulevards and streets as well as some redevelopment money, mostly spent on new public amenities (read: parks.)

Here's what I like about this proposal:

A. It maintains all the basic functionality of our current highway network. If people still want to loop through downtown they can. This is really good for someone going from say Sand Springs to Broken Arrow. Remember, "passthrough" traffic is not necessarily just a Semi going from St. Louis to Amarillo.
B. It provides for connecting 3 of the 4 outer downtown neighborhoods to inner downtown. Greenwood in particular would become the hottest development ready land in Oklahoma and would maintain excellent highway access.
C. It injects federal money to fix what federal money screwed up and does it in the areas that are already growing from local efforts rather than chasing a growth fantasy in a currently depressed area.



Here's what it doesn't do:
1. Build Mass Transit
2. Rebuild destroyed businesses
3. Resurrect communities that are largely dead

Remember throughout this debate what an highway infrastructure proposal, however well planned and intentioned, can and cannot do.

I'd love to hear thoughts and critiques, I have a lot of ideas about how individual areas could be developed to best build off this proposal.

Honestly at this point I'm putting the odds at more likely to see something happen than not. I really never thought I'd see the day, but there is a very real movement going on right now. The city council is fully on board to hold public hearings in the next few months to get feedback from descendants and community members on what shape the project should take. In the last council meeting when they announced they would be doing these meetings, the tone wasn't really a question of if it should be done - but what the project should look like (rebuild it in a tunnel, full removal and street grid rebuild, etc). Several council members (I've heard GKFF and others as well) have been in discussions with Pete Buttigieg and other federal officials. He will likely be making a visit at some point this year to tour 244 and surrounding areas.

The only thing that could possibly derail it is if the highways to boulevard initiative in the infrastructure bill is cut out. I haven't seen anything to suggest it will, because even in some of the debates Republicans haven't voiced much opposition to it. The only debate I've seen about it is who controls the money (Repubs want it to be state driven of course and Dems want the federal DOT to have control of the funds). I believe there will be in the range of $10-20 billion set aside for projects just like this (it will depend on which version of the bill is passed whether it's the scaled down 'bi-partisan' one of the Democrats one). Tulsa is at the very top of the list to receive funding given the race massacre centennial - doing something here would be something for the Biden administration to campaign over. Whether people like it or not, that's usually what anything political boils down to.

So, if the city leaders want this to happen it will, and there will be federal funding available dedicated specifically for projects like this soon which is the game changer. The road block to projects like this has always been funding and the federal DOT on board, that will no longer be an issue. I don't see any indication yet that anyone on the council is willing to say no and I don't think GT would go against the council on something like this. It would be a political disaster for him if he did.    

Tulsa had trolleys until the 1930s when the city was converted to buses. 

Michael Bates made a map of the trolley lines in 2009 in response to discussions on this forum.
http://www.batesline.com/archives/2009/12/tulsa-streetcar-and-interurban-l.html

LAP,  Yes I have watched the presentation (twice now) and it is well put together but admittedly it lacks any true traffic study data as confirmed in response to question asked during the original Zoom (not by me).  

At least put up I-444 signage to placate those arguing that we wont have a thru interstate when the Greenwod leg of 244 is tweaked.

Just a bit surprised at your reaction then if you actually watched the presentation. There's plenty of reasoning behind why this is a perfectly valid idea to look into. No where in that presentation did they claim to have traffic studies but there's evidence all over the place that point into the feasibility of this project from a traffic standpoint as well. Examples of other similar projects done elsewhere and examples of similar city streets in Tulsa that carry more traffic than several of the portions of the IDL. They even specifically said traffic studies should be completed.

The fact that even if it did happen to cause traffic congestion to increase just slightly - that isn't enough of a reason to not do a project like this either. It is way past time as a city (and country) start building cities economically sustainable and also look at ways to fix economic injustices of the past like building highways through black and other minority neighborhoods. I don't understand how anyone could see it as a bad idea to build back community wealth - I mean serious how can you legitimately oppose a proposal like that because your drive might take 10 minutes instead of 8 - maybe think beyond yourself and what is for the collective good of the city? That certainly isn't making sure we have 3-4 duplicated routes in the event we have a car crash on one of them... come on now. 

If we can increase income, health, education, home ownership, etc. in areas of the city like North Tulsa it will benefit everyone far, far beyond a minor negative of you (possibly) having to sit in traffic once or twice a year because an accident happened on I-44 and a handful of people couldn't divert to I-244 or some other ridiculous reasoning behind the 'traffic' argument. If we can do the above, we will significantly reduce crime for example, which means we'll need less police and less costs related to jails, courts, etc. and that is a net benefit to every person who pays taxes locally. It also would significantly increase density in our core which means more people paying for upkeep of roads, schools, etc. and again is a net benefit to every single person when we can more efficiently pay for vital services in our city. The irrational fear of 1 or 2 "traffic jams" a year is not a valid reason to oppose an idea like this given the wide ranging benefits of a project like this could have for many people. 

I rode Tulsa trolleys in 1957.  One went right in front of the house at 800 block of North Harvard.  The grassy area in middle of the street is where there were rails - and the electric lines were on poles running down that middle area.  Probably still buried under there.   We have old home movies of everyone getting onto the trolley.

That map link does not show all of the lines that used to be in place.

Like this?
https://goo.gl/maps/GWNV3uUwwKqrkyXu7

We have discussed this in the past. I wish you could find some pictures.

Exactly like that!  Only a couple doors away.   I have some old home movies that I am slowly scanning - one shows Mom and two kids getting onto the trolley one day.  Am also going through about 450 lbs of old family photos and I know there are some pics of the place in that, IIRC with the trolley hardware shown in the background.  I just took possession of the archives about 3 months ago or so.  Probably 15-20 thousand pics in all.!  Most loose, but about 60 large photo albums!  And one hanging family record "picture" started in about 1875.   Geez...  This takes way more time than I expected at the beginning - a 7" reel of 8mm film takes about 4 hours to digitize!   But they turn out as good as the film can possibly be, so very pleased with that!

And a 1950 Ford we had at the time.  Dad had gotten rid of the 47 Pontiac (yellow) by that time.   He circled back around in 1966 and bought another yellow Pontiac, though.

Couple of interesting highlights in film so far - several minutes of Air Force uncle who was killed a couple months later in test plane incident in San Diego.  He survived WWII and Korea as fighter pilot just to be brought down by some prototype guidance hardware on a test jet!   I met him, but don't really remember him.

And there is a drive by moment of trip through Louisiana at harvest season - showing people out in a cotton field picking cotton, dragging the long bags behind them.  Another showing sugar cane being cut by hand, and close to a field where it is being cut by one of those new-fangled harvesting machines!.   Some kind of combine mower.

If by some dumb luck you have any pics around the 11th and Yale area please lemme know.

Ok.  Will keep an eye out.   I spent lot of time in the area in high school.  Lots of friends went to Rogers, then lived in area for a while.   And I had one of those Polaroid Swinger cameras that I carried everywhere!   Moved up to regular Polaroid later.   Taking pics was almost a psychosis....most were crap, but there were a few that were great!

Miss this probably most of all....

Golden Drumstick;

https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=580772

Interim Study was yesterday for the IDL

https://www.kjrh.com/local-news/state-rep-goodwin-holds-study-looks-to-remove-idl-running-through-greenwood-district

It has some decent momentum building behind the idea. Strong support from the neighborhoods around the IDL and the infrastructure bill if it ever gets passed is going to have $1 billion set aside specifically for highways to boulevard projects like this. The spending bill is likely to supplement that with another $3-5 billion for the program called 'Reconnecting Communities'

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2833/all-info?r=2&s=1

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/house-democrats-aim-to-spend-4-billion-on-reconnecting-communities-severed-by-highways-11632407870

First time the feds are stepping up to be able to make projects like this actually feasible, not only from a funding prospective but also a policy standpoint too which was by far harder to overcome prior to this then finding funding for projects.

Are there any plans or renderings that show what an at-grade boulevard would look like between 75 and 412?  I would think the first at-grade intersection on the east side would want to be Archer (and would tie-in to redevelopment of the Evans-Fintube site).  On the west side it would make sense to continue Edison eastward roughly following Easton to OSU-Tulsa then going back southeast north of ONEOK Field to Archer.

(https://i.ibb.co/pnsVs3V/IDL-Map-3.jpg)

This is the map from the TYPROS presentation.

Red is the transition areas from highway to boulevard.
Orange is the new boulevards that replace the highway routes - shows you can still get east-west or north-south the same way you used to just on a boulevard instead (think something similar to Riverside through the Gathering Place or Peoria through Brookside with streetscaping, parking, etc.)
White is the new street grid connections

Essentially Admiral would replace 244 with 1st Street acting is a secondary back up for the same corridor too on the eastern portion of the project.

Admiral would go under the railroad around where the 244/75 interchange is now and then hook into Cameron near Greenwood then jog a bit north to Easton which would then follow that route west to around Gilcrease Museum Road or so. Through that area Edison would serve as a back up too and would be connected over to OSU Tulsa from where it ends now.

Madison would replace 75 from 11th Street to the south to the curve by Peoria to the north. Lansing would be the back up to that corridor. Highway 75 carries less than 40,000 cars per day so between Madison/Lansing expanded you can easily carry that many cars per day.

Same with the Tisdale, it carries even less than 75 and the part north of 244 is in pretty rough shape. There's really no reason for it to take up so much space and could easily be rebuilt as a boulevard and would have no impact to traffic north and south through that area.

This is assuming the Gilcrease Expressway Loop carries the east-west highway traffic, what about north-south on Hwy 75?  I think you have to keep the east leg of the IDL in place and if anything bury that section of highway similar to the south leg. 

In either scenario I think removing the north leg of IDL would be the most doable and highest priority

There's absolutely no way they completely remove the highways from downtown. I don't know what the TYPROS guys are smoking, but pretending that we don't need highways at all is dumb. I guess the hard issue to overcome is tying back in to what is existing, and it's hard to tie back into the current NE corner of the IDL without leveling everything for miles like they have shown.

I think the best they'll get is leveling the north portion for a few blocks. That will remove the "barrier" while still making it possible to move around downtown via highway on the southside.

US 75 is a vital shipping route with ever increasing truck traffic, so converting it to a "boulevard" is just out of the question, IMO.

I also think in 10 years everyone will be up in arms about all these "boulevards" that didn't solve any problems. They just bring the highway traffic down to street level and make everything more congested. So-called "stroads" aren't much better for urbanism than a highway. The boulevard they added in OKC to replace the old cross town expressway is what I imagine a lot of this would look like. It's nice not having the overpasses looming over downtown OKC anymore, but the actual road itself is still a busy thoroughfare with little street interaction. You can't make every street into an urban boutique main street.

244 is definitely the priority given it's impact to surrounding neighborhoods and that it's almost all elevated where you can do nothing to it like a park cap or development cap.

This is assuming the Gilcrease is fully complete on the NW portion too, then you'd designate that route from around the airport to out toward Sand Springs as I-244 and eventually whatever the new east-west Interstate will be called between NWA and I-35. The idea is that with the transportation bill not only could you get funding from the Reconnecting Communities program to decommission 244 through downtown you could likely have a really good chance to get funding to complete the NW part of the loop to interstate standard too. All of the regional east west traffic would be absorbed by either taking the north route of taking the SW part of the Gilcrease that's almost finished that hooks into I-44 and then taking it to 412 to continue east or vis versa. Taking either of those routes only adds a couple miles to a drive which is a pretty minor thing compared to what we'd gain back in redevelopable land in the urban core.

Highway 75 doesn't carry as much traffic as you think through downtown. It carries less cars per day than Riverside, 71st, Yale, Memorial, etc. so the question is do we really need the East leg either? Same with the Tisdale. Think about the redevelopment potential in the Home Depot site if 75 was brought down to a boulevard and you gained back 100-200 feet of land to the east of the site. Same thing with the land between Nordam and Pearl and East Village and Pearl. If Madison was rebuilt to at least 2 lanes each north and south similar to say Riverside or Peoria in Brookside it'd be able to handle every car that uses that portion of the IDL now, they'd just be driving 35-40 mph versus 55-60 mph and have to stop at a couple stop lights most likely. Think about how much easier it would be to redevelop the Evans site too with 75 being a boulevard versus the nightmare it is now that pretty much makes ingress and egress to that site ridiculously complicated.

The same goes for Highway 75 too, if say someone was driving from Bartlesville to I-40 as soon as they get to the Gilcrease they can take it around the west side of town and hook back into 75 at I-44 and continue south. It would add a couple miles to their trip and they'd have to pay a toll, but for what we'd gain back to me is worth it. Once the Gilcrease is complete, it makes the IDL relatively obsolete in needing to be there for multiple sections of it.

INCOG traffic count map link: https://incog.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8f4d62c5aecc4629a019f9cbe0076b89

#'s are cars per day:

244 @ Peoria: 65,100
244 @ Detroit: 73,797
412 @ Quanah (just west of the Tisdale): 56,787

Hwy 75 @ 11th: 24,421
Hwy 75 @ 6th: 26,342
Hwy 75 @ Archer: 38,089

Tisdale @ Edison (just north): 23,995

_______

City streets for reference:

Peoria @ 41st: 19,630-19,980
Riverside @ 31st: 20,604-20,958
Yale @ 21st: 20,883-24,420
Cherry Street @ Utica: 14,242-15,623 (Keep in mind this is 1 lane each way and it doesn't have a problem carrying 15,000 cars per day)

Just about every north/south road in Tulsa carries around 20k cars per day at various areas south of 11th Street, here's a few of the busier areas:

Riverside @ 71st: 33,020
Riverside @ Creek Turnpike: 36,125
71st @ Mingo: 33,978-34,713
71st @ Elwood: 30,782
Yale @ 51st: 28,968 - 30,866
Yale @ 71st: 25,187-26,740
Sheridan @ 51st: 26,073-28,392
Sheridan @  61st: 24,508-25,254
Memorial @ 51st: 31,992-32,960
Memorial @ Creek Turnpike: 51,249 (this street carries 2x as many cars as either the east or the west leg of the IDL)

With Memorial, even though people complain of the traffic here, you can't discount how valuable the traffic counts are to retailers & businesses in this area and how that has fostered economic growth on Memorial between the Creek and 121st - now imagine blowing through this area and widening Memorial to freeway standards and bulldozing businesses up and down the corridor. I don't think anyone would go for that, but that's what we did to downtown on an even bigger scale. 20,000-50,000 cars per day on a city street is 10x more valuable than the same amount of cars driving by on a highway. If you converted Memorial to a freeway that entire commercial area would die because 75% of the traffic that used to drive by at slower speeds now blow past the area at 65mp and you'd just see new development pop up further south. At the end of the day what is the benefit of that? To save someone 5 minutes in traffic? But in 10 years when you have 50k new people living further south, that freeway will be bumper to bumper too and you'll end up spending more time in traffic driving even further away. Induced demand does not get nearly the amount of attention it deserves and we'd be able to build better cities if we started considering that in our transportation planning.   

To the accessibility point, there's 31,159 cars per day that use the Creek Turnpike @ Aspen by Warren. That development struggled for years to convince retailers to move there because the traffic counts didn't support development (among a few other reasons too) yet 71st near Mingo along with other commercial areas that have built up have similar traffic counts. There's a huge difference when we're talking access and visibility to businesses. Traffic is actually a good thing to have and where and how that traffic has the potential to access your site is important too.

Say 100% of the cars that use 75 today took an expanded Madison, you'd instantly be able to market all that land that was given back from the old Hwy 75 right of way to retailers. You're talking about changing the game in trying to court retailers to downtown by changing the access from highways to city streets and drastically improving visibility too. A retailer can overlook rooftops if there is a road where they make up for a lack of rooftops from high traffic counts that can immediately access their property or you need enough rooftops in an area to convince retailers to locate somewhere that might not have decent traffic counts because there hasn't been commercial space built up yet.

Right now downtown has that exact issue, why would someone like an Urban Outfitters go downtown when they could locate along Peoria with more rooftops and direct frontage on a street with around 20k cars per day. They looked at several sites downtown years ago but that was the issue, eventhough the IDL like the north part that goes by the Arts District has 70k per day drive by that's irrelevant to businesses, they'd rather have the 20k cars per day going past on a direct frontage. The Evan's site and others would become 10x more valuable having 30k cars per day driving by on Lansing/Madison versus them being funneled on 75 with extremely limited ways to access the site/downtown.

They aren't smoking anything and at no point have they ever said we don't need any highways. Just stop for a second and actually read what I've said and what they are actually proposing every single thing you just said has been addressed already. See the last comment I just posted about traffic counts, etc.

The point about the OKC boulevard is a perfect example of what NOT to do when replacing a highway. ODOT really screwed that up. The only portion that was built appropriately was the small area by the Convention Center & Scissortail Park.

Can you honestly tell me where in the world do successful cities exist that don't have congestion? Seriously...

If congestion is the economic development killer everyone acts like, how the heck do places Austin, San Francisco, NYC, DC, London, and on and on and on become so successful? It's because they are building out urban centers that are people and business focused and traffic is just an after thought. We are never going to be able to build a city where thousands of people can easily enter and exit between 8-9 am and 5-6 pm and we need to stop with that mindset and actually build a city that is built for people who live in these neighborhoods.

There is plenty of room for highways to do what they need to do, like the Gilcrease loop, etc. we just don't need regional traffic to cut through the most valuable areas of our city - we can funnel all that around the city along other regional corridors and focus access to downtown for local traffic and develop the core in a way that is beneficial to people who actually live here and not sacrifice 100s of acres of valuable land for someone from Arkansas to drive through Tulsa 5 minutes faster to get to I-35. It's just dumb economically plain and simple. Everyone wonders why we can't afford to pay teachers, police, etc. well that's why because we have turn huge swaths of our cities into highways that have done nothing for us economically in the urban core beside remove thousands of properties from the tax base.  

This is definitely bold thinking which I like.  Start with 244 through Greenwood and see where it goes, you may find that people don’t really miss the Highway at all

I did some looking on Google Maps.

From I-244 and 145 E Ave to I-35 and 412 is 98.5 mi and 1:29 via the Gilcrease and Tisdale.
From I-244 and 145 E Ave to I-35 and 412 via current 412/244 and the north IDL is 94.3 mi and 1:24
Completion of the Gilcrease to 412 will make that better. 
However, tolls can be oppressive.  More later.

N-S on 75 from 36 N to 75/244 staying on 75 and the river is 6.1 mi and 6 min.
N-S on 75 from 36 N to 75/244 and the river via Gilcrease, Tisdale and the West IDL is 7.3 mi and 8 min.

Folks going from I-244 and 145 E Ave toward OKC should stay on I-44 (after construction).

People going from Midtown to Bartlesville will get screwed a bit by eliminating the East leg of the IDL.  Folks from BA/Muskogee etc can take 169 to 244 to 11 to 75.

The intersection of 11 and I-244 would need to be redesigned to make it "intuitively obvious to the most brain dead driver" that the main road is what is now 11, not the current I-244.  Dallas, TX had similar problems with 75 to I-35 E.   11 would maybe need to be expanded to 6 total lanes the whole way.  Sineage would need to be clear for non-local traffic.  I have previously related my story of "To I-44" in St Louis, MO in the early 70s.  NOT a pleasant experience.  Eliminating the north leg of the IDL would get rid of the poorly designed and signed exits to Sand Springs and destinations south.

Plate pay tolls are absurd.  I looked into a trip to the Phila, PA area to visit friends/relatives still there.  The PA TPK toll is $60 for non-EZ-Pass customers.  That is more than twice the inflation rate since 1972.  I can take free roads for the ~1300 mile/20 hr trip for an hour more.  Guess which route I would take.  No, I do not think my time is worth $60/hr.  The equivalent of the Pike Pass is about $30.  Still terrible but keeping in line with inflation.  OK TPKs are similar.  The plate pay at Peoria/Elm in Jenks is STUPID.  Although I hate Federal intervention, the electronic pay needs to be compatible across the entire USA.  If/when I go, I'll probably fly my personal plane. Avgas is expensive, currently as much as about $6/gallon (or more in some places) but I could make the trip in one day instead of two. Motels are expensive too, also about twice the inflation rate.

Summary:
I am not against the removal of the north and east legs of the IDL.  There needs to be some careful scrutiny of the effects to everyone, not just adding real estate to the city.  I do think the west and south legs of the IDL should remain in some form.  If "we" had planned better long ago, the express ways would have been farther out but changing that now is not feasible.

Remove the north leg, and cap the east since its already mostly well below grade. That would make a huge difference.

I know that there are too many highways in general, and I am on board with removing parts of the IDL, but what is shown in that graphic is so beyond what anyone has asked for that it just seems bizarre to me. The idea of funneling regional traffic around the edges of the city sounds appealing, but we already have the Creek Turnpike and I44... Gilcrease might help with the north-south truck traffic, but I'm mainly concerned about the ability for thousands of downtown workers to move in and out efficiently with no mass transport system. Not to mention the oft-mentioned concerts, conventions, events, and general downtown traffic from dummies like me who go there to hang out all the time. I don't think regional through-traffic is really the issue.

Congestion IS a killer. It's why we have such a suburb culture throughout the country. Many of those cities are painful to live in, with people spending much of their lives commuting and dealing with congestion headaches. At least they have mass transit systems though, not to mention much more density than we have. Highways may have been given too much precedent, but they serve people too and it's not always a binary choice between highways and "people". People do what they can in many of those cities because they have to. Don't have much choice in NYC or DC because those are international hubs of business and government. Tulsa is Tulsa. If we had that type of congestion people would leave this city so fast that congestion wouldn't be an issue for long.

It's also worth noting that this plan essentially still calls for building more highways, but just pushing them out into ever expansive "rings", which is where sprawl really explodes. Look at how BA has sprawled out to fill in the Creek Turnpike void. Soon East Tulsa will sprawl out there too, once they can build enough sewer and water lines to accommodate all the developments that have been proposed. I know of many developers just chomping at the bit to fill up every space that can be served by a highway.

I think lowering and capping large sections of the east side of the IDL would be a better solution. Still very expensive, but something that could be done iteratively. There are already proposals to cap some of the south side. Maybe someday we'll just have a whole network of underground car pipelines around the central part of the city.  ;D

I believe there are many on this forum that want those thousands of workers to move to downtown.  The problem with that would be that housing would still probably be farther from work than a lot of workers would want to walk.

US-412 is being upgraded to an interstate so through traffic downtown is going to have to be maintained for both the new interstate designation and I-244.

The north leg could be converted to a surface street, but because of the railroad on the east side of I-244 on the IDL and the 244/412/Tisdale interchange on the west side at best you could get an at level boulevard from Detroit to Boulder. You would get maybe four whole blocks of at at level street at a cost I am sure north of $100 million.  Anything more would take redoing the interchanges on the east and west of the north leg at $250-300 million each. If you really want to remove the whole north leg you are looking at a cost approaching a billion dollars in a state that can't maintain highways. And you would be removing a highway that was just completely rebuilt.

I get wanting to do this, I am sympathetic, but Greenwood's commercial district downtown is already completely gentrified and is not ever going to be a new version of Black Wall Street. Half a billion or so in development the last decade has killed that idea.

Also to me the I-244 bridge over Greenwood is an important monument/example of the 60s/70s era destruction of the second iteration of Black Wall Street.

Found a little 5 second movie clip of family getting off the N Harvard trolley in about 1954.  Ragged looking old trolley car.  City didn't do any better maintenance on infrastructure then, compared to now.  Trying to extract (I am very clumsy at video editing.)  Then gotta figure out how to post pics here.  Maybe will just take a still shot...

Also, have found nothing at 11th and Yale yet.   I can sympathize with Library of Congress people - but they get paid to do this!

Gaslighting my a$$. From the mouth of the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in April of this year:


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pete-buttigieg-claims-racism-physically-built-into-us-highways/ar-BB1fD8Bh (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pete-buttigieg-claims-racism-physically-built-into-us-highways/ar-BB1fD8Bh)

https://thegrio.com/2021/04/06/pete-buttigieg-racism-us-infrastructure/ (https://thegrio.com/2021/04/06/pete-buttigieg-racism-us-infrastructure/)

https://www.wxxinews.org/post/connections-discussing-racism-american-infrastructure (https://www.wxxinews.org/post/connections-discussing-racism-american-infrastructure)

When you say a piece of concrete, etc. is racist you are gaslighting just like your pal Matt Gaetz in those stories. Everyone knows a highway has no ability to think, etc. You are trying to demean and distract from the reality of what actual happened and is still occurring.

The placement of infrastructure by human decisions has been and still can be racist. If you can't figure out the difference between that I don't know what to tell you. That's exactly what Buttigieg is saying in all your links you just posted.

The fact that I-244 had to cut through the middle of Greenwood's business district was not by accident. Just like urban highway alignments all over other US cities that destroyed black business districts and neighborhoods wasn't a coincidence. Before highways, it was railroads. Redlining led up to highway construction that destroyed property values in these areas and allowed DOT's to use eminent domain to acquire land to do these projects well below what they should have been worth. There's decades and multiple things that led up to all of this and many of those things were issues of racism and wanting to destroy black neighborhoods that had any amount of success.   

The 412 upgrade could actually be beneficial to this project, what is being purposed is to make the Gilcrease loop the new interstate versus it be the current 244/412 through downtown. That would allow the NW portion of the Gilcrease to be completed to interstate standards.

The costs would not be nearly what you think. Yale between 81st & 91st is going to cost around $30 million for a mile of city street with significant right of way acquisitions and terrain issues. To rebuild the street grid would not be as expensive as you think. That's part of the problem with US infrastructure and highways in general is if we actually looked at the cost feasibility of them like we do mass transit we'd probably never build a highway again and would decommission many of the ones that exist now. 

I've actually hear other people say something about that bridge similar but people in Greenwood and north Tulsa do not agree with the bridge being an important monument keep... some monuments are just not worth keeping. It's a symbol of the destruction of a neighborhood and a more powerful symbol would be the decommissioning of the highway and returning the land back to the community to rebuild parts of the neighborhood that used to be there. There's ways to do this too without it being more gentrification too through land trusts, community development corporation, etc. We just need the political and community will to actually do it and there seems to be a lot of momentum behind it currently.

The Kirkpatrick Heights plan underway has the ability to set the example of how this could be done and there's a lot of discussions already underway about it:

https://www.ourlegacytulsa.org/

You'd be surprised how many of the downtown workers access downtown via the IDL - 11th Street for example has almost as many people access downtown daily as does the Cincinatti/Detroit on and off ramps. Together that Cincinatti/Detroit have a total of 13,256 with around 3,000 of those use the Cincinnati ramp to access Maple Ridge. So only 10,000 use that to get on and off the BA which is the biggest downtown commuter corridor that is a highway to downtown. 11th Street has 12,011 cars per day at the Gunboat Park/Home Depot intersection.

Another example is the Denver exit on the BA. There's only 5,253 that exit there daily based on INCOG traffic counts. Denver has 5,630 cars per day access downtown from 15th Street. Cheyenne at the BA has 4,513 cars enter/exit downtown daily. Boulder has 6,657 daily enter/exit downtown. Main has 8,039 daily. Boston has 8,852 daily. 13th Street has 3,558 daily enter/exit downtown.

So for our heaviest highway corridor for commuter traffic into downtown for workers, way more people still access downtown through our street grid from Midtown/South than the highway system.

You have somewhere around 30,000 cars per day enter/exit downtown via the BA whether it's at Houston, Denver, or Detroit/Cincinnati but you have around 35,000-40,000 cars per day access via Houston, Denver, Cheyenne, Boulder, Main, and Boston on city streets. That's the beauty and efficiency of a street grid because none of those street have any semblance of congestions going north/south.

For example on 244 you have 17,124 enter/exit on 1st & 2nd Street just west of the on/off ramps to 244 with around 6,000 of those accessing 1st & 2nd via Admiral/1st not from 244. Yet 3rd Street has 5,427 cars per day, 4th has 4,486 per day, and 4,406 via Archer. You have more people accessing downtown via city streets there than from 244. This is true of every highway in and out of downtown.

The impact on commuters would be far less than people think, especially when you are able to rebuild the street grid completely.
 

The Gilcrease south loop under construction now is 5.5 miles long and is costing $330 million dollars. That cost does include expensive river bridges that would not be needed for a NW loop, but, that NW loop would need TWO very expensive expressway interchanges (at Tisdale) and at US-412/Gilcrease. The US-75/I-44 interchange under construction now has a budget of $360 million as a comparison.

The NW loop would also be about five miles long so at that length with interchanges you are looking at the cost way over the $330 million being spent on the south loop now. You are probably looking at a cost of over half a billion dollars to upgrade that loop to interstate standards to reroute 412 alone. And that's on top of the needed spend downtown, whatever that may be.

To finish the NW portion you probably are talking $200-250 million. One advantage is all of the right-of-way exists which can be a significant cost hurdle. It's also essentially shovel ready which would make it a good candidate for funding in the infrastructure bill if it's ever passed. The Gilcrease loop will be completed at some point and the question is do we utilize it to benefit the region or have it built and let it be a highway that just rots and is rarely used? The city has been hellbent to build it for decades.

Finishing it and designating it the new interstate could be a huge win-win for everyone. The new boulevard would service the local traffic while opening a ton of land for redevelopment and suddenly you have 40-50k cars that's the regional traffic taking the Gilcrease with 244 rebuilt as a boulevard. You'd drive demand for more retail and service business in NW Tulsa that is non existent today and would remain that way if 244 stays and the NW loop is completed. The NW loop would have very little demand, just like the SW loop does, because it's still slightly more convenient for regional traffic to funnel through the IDL. That's the reason the turnpike authority would not pay for the SW portion of the Gilcrease, but was willing to use special federal financing to do it because the traffic studies showed the SW loop would not be able to service the debt needed to build it. All it would do is add a couple minutes to someone's drive from Arkansas to I-35 or Bartlesville to I-40 to not be able to take a freeway directly through our downtown area and instead take a loop around the city.

I’ve always thought the Gilcrease loop was more of a real estate ploy like Creek South Loop.  With the growth of downtown there is more demand for nearby residential neighborhoods. 

I am not holding my breath but I am still waiting for a light rail/(real) trolley to give me a way to downtown Tulsa from Bixby north of the river.  By the time I drive a car, pay for parking ..... a reasonable trolley cost would be attractive.  I don't want to ride no stinking diesel bus.   Exclusive ROW, maybe along the river, would be excellent.  As much as I prefer an electric street car over a bus, dedicated ROW is even better.  It's much like I grew up with in suburban Phila, PA.  Hop the trolley and you are there.

Eventually, you will run out of nearby residential neighborhoods. The city limits of Phila, PA cannot possibly hold the population of the metropolitan area.  Suburbs are inevitable.  Suburbs were originally for the really rich folks until public transit was available.  The difference is that places like Phila suburbs were developed before the automobile was readily available.  Tulsa grew up during the era of the automotible.  I don't know how to "fix" that without huge infusions of $.

I appreciate you checking. I'm kicking around starting a new thread that is old Tulsa pic from Beryl Ford or wherever compared to the current streetview. Comparisons where today it's just a parking lot should be the most fun!  ;D

Good idea, go for it.  I'd like to see the pictures too.

I wish I had some pictures to contribute.

Let me know when/if you do.  I also found an old pic of Golden Drumstick that I picked up somewhere along the line - not my pic.  I remember going there quite a bit to eat, though, and it looked the same.

There are quite a few pics of the Golden Drumstick especially on post cards. I did finally start that thread - can't say how often I'll update it but it is fun to do. If only Google maps had been a thing for the past 100 years!

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21936.0

This was in the infrastructure bill. I assume I-244 through Greenwood will be included? Biden mentioned it specifically on his visit. I wonder what the timeline is for planning and completion.

"And it contains $1 billion to reconnect communities -- mainly disproportionately Black neighborhoods -- that were divided by highways and other infrastructure, according to the White House. It will fund planning, design, demolition and reconstruction of street grids, parks or other infrastructure."

There are no set projects yet that will be funded by the Reconnecting Communities program. It will be a competitive grant process much like TIGER and other programs have been. Tulsa would obviously be at the top of the list to get funding if it wants it, Biden mentioned it like you said. There's some conflicting information on how the grant money will be given out, I've heard it might only be $100 million per year for 10 years which will not pay for very many projects anywhere in the US. So, would likely have to either change that or be able to get funding from other DOT programs too or one city would easily take up 1 or 2 years worth of funding easily with project costs at least in the $30 million/mile range.

The reconciliation bill has another $4 billion that will go to the Reconnecting Communities program as long as it is not cut, which would make $500 million a year available at least and would actually make the program something worthwhile.

If Tulsa were to go after these funds it would likely be 2-5 years before you'd see anything happen. You'd have to start the environmental review process, community input, etc. which takes at least 2 years or longer depending on various things.

Removal of I-244 will be bad for north Tulsa, so I am against removing I-244.

A lot of folks believe it would be good to reunite that portion of Tulsa.  Why do you think it would be bad?

Bill was filed for this session from Rep. Goodwin to get $400,000 for studies on redeveloping the I-244 portion of the IDL. This would be the local match to the Reconnecting Communities federal program. City Council is planning to hold public meetings on this later this year.

The Congress for the New Urbanism is doing a session on this at their conference coming up.

Things are moving along to get the needed studies done. Interestingly enough, now that the Turnpike Authority has announced they will finish the Gilcrease northwest loop portion from 412 to the Tisdale - it would actually be in their financial interest to get rid of 244 and have regional east-west traffic funnel on to the turnpike.

Interesting I missed that the OTA will finish the Gilcrease Loop, is that tied to the federal infrastructure bill?  Excited to see what they come up with as the alternate here if it's a boulevard along the same alignment or mostly just reconnecting the original street grid.

It's not tied to the infrastructure bill, OTA probably sees the writing on the wall that 244 is not wanted and they can either finish the loop and profit off of it or the city could finish it with federal infrastructure funds and it be a free highway.

It was announced fairly quietly as part of their upcoming $5 billion long-term plan which includes widening the Will Rogers to Claremore and also the Turner all the way to OKC.

https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2021-12-07/turnpike-authority-sees-toll-road-improvements-as-significant-investment-in-oklahomas-future-as-it-develops-15-year-plan (https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2021-12-07/turnpike-authority-sees-toll-road-improvements-as-significant-investment-in-oklahomas-future-as-it-develops-15-year-plan)

New website is up for all the planned improvements in the $5 billion plan.

Link to the Gilcrease portion: http://www.accessoklahoma.com/gilcrease-expressway (http://www.accessoklahoma.com/gilcrease-expressway)

About 75% of the projects are OKC related, kind of ridiculous but typical of our DOT.

It's insane how focused they are on building more and more loops around our cities, especially OKC. It's like they are trying to extend OKC throughout the whole damn state. The Kickapoo turnpike is so unnecessary and such a waste and sprawl creator.

All I want them to focus on is a few widening projects (namely Turner and Will Rogers), and then just interchanges everywhere.

I wish they could make 75 a limited access toll road from Tulsa all the way to the TX border (similar to the Indian Nation Turnpike which is partially on this route).  The biggest challenges are in Okmulgee and Henryetta, which would need bypasses, and along the small towns north of Durant like Atoka and Stringtown.

It would be an extension of I-45, it should happen.

Looks like if I-45 is extended it will follow US 69 rather than US 75 through Tulsa.

https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-045/

Plans can change. Look at the map upgrading US-69 from Muskogee to I-44 would be far more expensive and with less benefit to Oklahoma than upgrading US-75 between Glenpool and Henryetta. 

The section of US-75 in from Glenpool to the Tulsa county line is already in the works and will be done regardless. The biggest new part would be a bypass around Okmulgee and upgrading the section in Henryetta.

Upgrading US-69 would require new full highway interchanges at the Muscogee Turnpike and I-44 and probably upgrades to the interchange with US-412. Then bypasses around Muskogee, Wagoner, Chouteau, Pryor and Adair would be needed. The cost for that would be astronomical and serve many fewer Oklahomans.

I agree following US-75 would be more beneficial to more people in general, not just Oklahoma.  An Interstate to KC and another one to Wichita  from Tulsa would be nice but I don't know if the cost is warranted. A couple of years ago I needed to go to Newton, KS, north of Wichita.  I flew my plane since the weather was nice. Not everyone has that opportunity.  MANY years ago the company I was working for had a consultant in Wichita.  They flew me up by commuter airline rather than make me drive.

The link only proposed extending I-45 to I-40.  It would make sense to me to continue north to KC.  The improvements you mention north of I-40 would be extensive.

Bypasses around Okmulgee and upgrading the section in Henryetta would be expensive.  The towns between McAllister and the TX border would fight bypasses as they would probably lose a lot of traffic enforcement revenue.

When is the next Vision sales tax renewal vote, 2029?  I would think something like this would likely be part of it by then especially with matching federal funds.  Anyone driven 75 northbound from the BA lately?  It’s in bad shape and will be the last section rebuilt after they finish southbound 75.

Speaking of the Vision renewal below are some other things I think should be in it other than the IDL (knowing it’s still several years out):
1. Extensive renovation/expansion of the PAC downtown
2. New downtown convention hotel on the Page Belcher site
3. Downtown streetcar circulator between the CBD, Blue Dome and Arts District
4. Acquisition of land west of Chandler Park creating the county’s largest urban wilderness area
5. River trail expansion to Bixby, from Jenks to Turkey Mtn and to Sand Springs
6. Airport concourse expansion and modernization
7. OSU-Tulsa downtown expansion -creation of a Research Campus in Greenwood
8. OU-Tulsa midtown expansion
9. New sidewalks, bike lanes and street light repairs
10. Tree planting along thoroughfares all over the city

I dig all those things^. I'd love some protected bike lines... curbs or plastic barriers would make me a lot more likely to bike places.

The matching funds that could be used for the IDL are available over the next five years. A vote in 2029 is too late.

Why will need to expand the airport concourse in 2029? I get modernizing it, as it always needs some updating. But the airport already seems "right-sized" or am I just visiting during the wrong times?

They are almost using all of the available jetways, but there are a couple spaces where they could add more. Perhaps they could induce some demand by building a third terminal though... Not much room if another carrier wants to come in at this point. That would be pretty speculative though. The main use of the funds will probably be infrastructure around the airport to support what is already there. The new ATC tower is the next big project for them.

As for the other suggestions, the PAC is a no-brainer to invest in more. What happened to that $300 million makeover?

Streetcar is probably overkill downtown. It's not that hard to walk from the arts district to the blue dome. We aren't as spread out as OKC in that regard. The fancy busses and the downtown trolley (is that still around?) probably do enough.

The land west of Chandler is some kind of toxic dump that was covered over.

River trail expansion down to Bixby would be cool.

Some serious streetscaping on 11th would be nice but none of this silly street parking like Cherry street (I understand it there but 11th ain't 15th). I'm down with protected bike lanes but I'd like to see them integrated into the sidewalks and then add a suicide lane to 11th up from Peoria to Memorial. Since none of these things will ever happen I'd also like to throw out maybe we do a 10-story tall Route 66 Museum shaped like a 50's Cadillac nosed into the ground - that'd be cool.  ;D

The PAC should be the signature project for the next Vision.  Hire a famous architect and go all out like they did with the BOK Center.  Completely revamped interior and exterior and a new smaller, 5th theater across 3rd St.

The airport is likely right-sized for current passenger counts and flights but not for future growth 15-30 years from now.  That involves adding more gates to each of the concourses as well as an FIS (immigration) for international arriving flights (OKC just added one with their recent expansion).  While doing this the concourses likely would be rebuilt to be wider with higher ceilings, updated finishes and new F&B options.  Then after those projects are complete the rest of the airport would be “refreshed” to match the updated design (ticketing areas, baggage claim, etc).  Vision funds make sense to fund at least part of this project (they are currently helping fund the new ATC tower).

Regarding Chandler Park, there is one small section that is a Superfund site but hundreds of acres to the west that could be the next Turkey Mtn (rugged hilly terrain, cliffs, hiking/biking trails) and help alleviate some of the pressure  Turkey faces from so many visitors.  It could easily further cement Tulsa as a mountain biking destination.

Hopeful to think about growth with the West concourse maybe 1/2 utilized today.

I believe the majority of the Tower funding is from ARP funds. 

I second the idea for Chandler Park expansion, its been discussed in the past.

V2025 - do you know when the next vote is to extend the Vision sales tax? 

It would be an amazing asset to have an urban wilderness area west of Chandler, especially with the County already controlling Chandler Park on the east end and being able to connect the two.  Such a park/wilderness area would be 3x the size of Turkey Mtn with similar elevation changes along the two main drainages with lots of exposed bluffs along Avery Drive.

Fingers crossed that RiverParks will be able to purchase the Mid-Continent site on the west bank and expand the festival park. 

1. I agree with the PAC, I almost think it's time to replace it if renovation isn't economical, certainly do NOT spend money to save the current building. It's ugly and dated.
2. Seconded on a convention hotel, but, it should be where the police/city courts are now. That building is done. Vision funds for a new police/fire headquarters building, either by the jail or on the parking lots by the county. courthouse. A TIF can be used to fund the hotel
3. I like the idea of a streetcar to connect downtown. I would add OSU Tulsa and the Pearl District.
4. All for expanding Chandler Park, but I would prefer a city bond issue and Chandler is a county park
5. All for expanding the trail system but again, most of your new connections would be outside the city
6. I wouldn't support using vision funds on the physical Airport facility, federal funds and use fees on tickets cover that
6B. I could see a pot of money to be used on ticket guarantees for new routes
7. OSU has to grow. The city needs to help with funding and to fight for additional programs to create a full free standing research university
8. OU needs to grow as well, good idea. Maybe buy Promenade Mall for OU?
I'm all for 9 and 10

I would add these:
11. A major expansion to the new Gilcrease
12. Purchase the concrete plant on the west bank for a Soccer specific stadium complex
12. Zoo Improvements
14. A new fund to lend money for downtown housing, but, this time specifically for affordable apartments for downtown service workers
15. Paint the damn 21st St bridge

Like I said this should be the crown jewel of this package.  The current building needs a major overhaul like what they proposed a couple years ago at ~$300M.  And build the 5th theater on the parking lot across 3rd.
I think that is where the Arena District Master Plans shows it.  I think the Page Belcher site is better being across from the BOK Center but still able to connect to the convention center.  If not then some kind of green space would be good on that site once a new Federal Building is constructed downtown
This would be a "starter line" similar to what they did in OKC.  Future connections could go down to 18th & Boston and down 11th to the Pearl and TU
In that case a county package supporting parks and transportation should absolutely including funding to expand Chandler.  Look at how popular Turkey Mountain the Keystone Ancient Forest have been; this would be even bigger and better.
Add to a county package focusing on parks, trails and transportation (streets and bike infrastructure)
Probably right, but should start planning for new larger concourses to be funded with bonds and landing fees.  The airport is "fine" but could be outstanding with some key improvements.  Again look at what nearby OKC and Wichita have done with their similar-sized airports
Previous Vision funding built the Helmerich ATRC and OU Library, this should be a significant part of this package
Great idea on Gilcrease.  The new museum is great start but that collection deserves an even bigger, grander facility
Hopefully this site will be purchased by the city within the next 1-2 years as it officially goes on the market soon.  But programming for it absolutely should be part of this package
Agree the zoo has seen a lot of improvements but there are still old buildings and exhibits that need to be updated.  I would love to see the zoo eventually expand onto the parkland to the east.
Fantastic idea!  There has been incentive money in the past for downtown residential projects.  This would make developers add more affordable/workforce units to their projects and provide the necessary financial incentive to do that
And add back the lights while they’re at it  ;D

14. A new fund to lend money for downtown housing, but, this time specifically for affordable apartments for downtown service workers
Fantastic idea!  There has been incentive money in the past for downtown residential projects.  This would make developers add more affordable/workforce units to their projects and provide the necessary financial incentive to do that

The majority of the original Vision 2025 fund for downtown housing is still intact and is approved for second generation projects by the City.

It's well early at this point, I would not expect real discussions for another five to possibly seven years. 

Maybe something a little better thought out than just lights for the sake of lights.
The river is a delicate ecosystem that doesnt need to look like a gas station.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180612090618.htm

Super random thought but I don’t think Kirby is right.

I’ve heard some slow drumbeats about a convention center hotel, new PAC, soccer stadium funding, Turkey Mountain pedestrian bridges (over the river and over 75). Also OKC is now probably going to vote on a new arena in the next year or so.

With this in mind, I was looking at the 2016 Vision tax plan… for Proposition 3, 0.5% of the tax expires on July 1, 2025, not Dec 31, 2031. And the city has figured out that it’s a lot easier to extend a tax for a new purpose that reinstate - that way they can campaign on “no tax increase” (I’m politically agnostic on this tactic, just pointing out that it’s a reality).

So - I predict we should start getting ready for new Vision discussions in the next 18 months or so. Not 5-7 years.

Sooner is better, especially with the PAC.  OKC can have their new arena and we can have a world-class PAC.  We shouldn’t settle for anything less. 

Well one of my future Vision ideas is happening.  This is exciting news for the river trail system


 https://ktul.com/news/local/tulsa-to-receive-162-million-grant-for-pedestrian-mobility-project?fbclid=IwAR0_ArOejyAaWnEC-Bm8X76b74CNF99oDmelo-JHHVh13zXLDKK5mLRzTQ0 (https://ktul.com/news/local/tulsa-to-receive-162-million-grant-for-pedestrian-mobility-project?fbclid=IwAR0_ArOejyAaWnEC-Bm8X76b74CNF99oDmelo-JHHVh13zXLDKK5mLRzTQ0)

What’s the status of the Jenks low water dam project?

Really exciting to see the expansion of the trail system. Does anyone have an idea on the timeline?

The Tulsa World article says with this grant the south dam project is nearly fully funded.
https://tulsaworld.com/news/state-and-regional/tulsa-jenks-transportation-projects-get-federal-infrastructure-grants/article_7eff8ee8-1998-11ed-92b9-bbf9a4f3df9c.html

Found this on the City of Tulsa website…it will be a few years for the trails, not sure if this includes the low water dam.  I believe a lot of the environmental studies and engineering are already underway?


 https://www.cityoftulsa.org/press-room/local-leaders-celebrate-contribution-to-bring-south-tulsajenks-dam-project-one-step-closer-to-reality/ (https://www.cityoftulsa.org/press-room/local-leaders-celebrate-contribution-to-bring-south-tulsajenks-dam-project-one-step-closer-to-reality/)

https://ktul.com/news/local/greenwood-residents-and-lawmakers-call-for-removal-of-i-244 (https://ktul.com/news/local/greenwood-residents-and-lawmakers-call-for-removal-of-i-244)

Haven't commented much on it here yet but there's been a lot going on between various officials for about the past year.

ODOT is working on an application for Reconnecting Communities to essentially block a community led application that would fully study removal options of the section of I-244 between US 75 and Tisdale.

ODOT and the mayors office have been working behind the scenes to block it and they are looking into options to expand I-244 to either 6-8 lanes through Greenwood. Absolutely ridiculous type of things going on by some, including some of INCOG leadership too. ODOT thinks if they study a tunnel option it will be able to show it's too expensive to do and allow them to expand the roadway and completely ignore even evaluating the possibility of removing it or dedicating so little of the study for it they can just gloss over the benefits and feasibility of it while claiming they have "studied it fully".

While the community efforts have been to dedicate a Reconnecting Communities grant (if awarded) only to studying removal options, which that is what they money is meant to go toward. With removal it would include redesignating Highway 11/Gilcrease as I-244 and eventually the new interstate between NWA to I-35 (most likely will be I-42).

I get ODOT not wanting it, but I'm perplexed why the mayors office would be against the removal of 244?  It's not like it completely goes away either, as it would be replaced with an at-grade boulevard that reconnects the grid.  Are there any renderings available that show what would be proposed after 244 was dismantled?

I totally agree with this and think this would have a long-lasting impact on future development in North Tulsa

It's a mystery to me why the Mayor's office has decided to do this, because it's an opposite position of most of the council. Definitely complete opposite of the neighborhood organizations and community feedback that has came in over the past year + as well.

ODOT would actually benefit tremendously if they removed 244, because that would shift 40-50k worth of cars on to the Gilcrease turnpike (easily increasing revenue for OTA by $30 million+ a year or more | 45k cars per day @ $2.00 average). Plus with shifting traffic like that all of a sudden all that land in the Northwest Passage area and east in North Tulsa suddenly becomes incredibly desirable and feasible to do all sort of commercial and residential development versus it being along a highway that has 10k cars per day maybe - according to their own traffic studies.

Tulsa was just awarded a Reconnecting Communities grant to start the planning process of what it would take to remove I-244. The award was given to the community led application that had Rep. Goodwin and others who have been advocating for this. $1.6 million at minimum to do traffic studies, preliminary engineering, community outreach, etc.

This was picked OVER the application submitted by ODOT, INCOG, and the Mayor's Office.  ;D

Great news, excited to see what they come up with for an actual plan.  I assume this would include a boulevard in place of the existing highway and reconnecting the street grid?

Only non profit that was awarded one of the grants that didn't have the state DOT as a partner. So pretty big deal and really awesome to see USDOT taking a chance on awarding grants to community led efforts instead of letting state DOTs hijack stuff and waste money. ODOT wants to study tunneling 244 and had the support of INCOG, the chamber, mayor's office (not the city council though - Hall Harper is for removal as was McKee, I'm sure Laura feels the same as both of them), and others, and they've basically said it would never happen for another 30 years-ish. ODOT was purposely lying to some of the stakeholders about what they would/wouldn't study if they got the award to get support letters.

So this will allow for unbiased studies to be completed to really show how feasible it is for removing the highway soon, like in the next 5 years versus this long term BS ODOT is pushing.

There will likely be a few options looked at and would have to weigh the pros/cons of different ways to redo the grid. If you did it by the historical grid it wouldn't give you a full non stop east-west route, you'd likely have to dump some cars off on the 1st and 2nd Street, Archer, etc. Traffic studies will give a clear answer on what is feasible based on how much of the traffic is truly local use. My estimate is probably 15,000 - 20,000 a day is local and the rest is regional. So you'd just need to make sure you can support the local traffic and that wouldn't necessarily mean you'd have to build a boulevard - you might be able to get away with redoing it to the old street grid and still be able to filter traffic out through other downtown streets. A lot of it will depend on how much of the traffic is peak time traffic versus non-peak as well and not just the total daily trips. 244 has never had a lot of rush hour usage compared to say the BA, 169 and others - but it has a pretty steady traffic flow dispersed through out the day. So if the local traffic is evenly distributed out through the day then you can also get away with smaller, more walkable streets too. Hard to say what options make the most sense until the traffic studies are done and you have to weigh which options give back the most land for redevelopment as well and what is the appropriate trade off in traffic vs. economic development.

Were there ever any plans done that shows what this could look like?  Assuming this just removes the IDL portion?  Trying to visualize it and wondering the following:
- How would the eastbound and westbound connections to the street grid look like at the 244/412 and 244/75 interchange?
- Rebuilding Easton seems like a good way to connect Denver to Elgin and could be turned into a wider boulevard.  John 3:16 would be in the way and would have to be relocated
- Same with Edison extending it east to connect to MLK/Detroit

Keep in mind this is just one option and no idea if it would even be fully studied, I've sketched out many ways it could ultimately be done. This would be a non-boulevard type plan to maximize redevelopment land area. 1st Street would essentially become the east-west Blvd instead of it being through the 244 right of way.

(https://i.ibb.co/Qd3Sqj3/2023-03-06-10-26-36.jpg)

(Purple: on/off ramps modifications | White: street grid rebuild | Orange: redevelopment parcels)

- On the west side, you'd filter traffic out through Easton and Edison and extend them east. John 3:16 does present a challenge if Easton needed to be expanded, but I think it'd likely be ok as a 1 lane each way street. Edison could pick up the extra traffic.
- On the west side, reconfigure the on/off ramps to 1st Street and 1st becomes 2 ways again.
- On the east side, you'd reconfigure the on/off ramps a bit with 1st Street here as well, now 1st Street becomes a primary east/west through downtown. With the BOK blocking 2nd, this seems like a positive thing to do and would be less confusing to out of town visitors too. Would allow 2nd to becoming 2 way travel as well again and provide better connection for Blue Dome/East Village into the Pearl with 2nd street being local instead of cut off by ramps.
- On the east side, you'd utilize the ramps over the railroad already and just cut them off essentially and have a new intersection with Archer. Traffic could then travel in any direction - you'd need to build some additional grid capacity up through the EFT/BMX site on their west side along the rail lines and also build out some grid capacity through OSU, etc. which was identified in the Kirkpatrick Heights plan to reconnect that area.

An option like this would allow east-west travelers on 244 to divert south to the BA and then use the east/west legs of the IDL to get back to 244/412. Would also require about the least amount of interchange reworking too as you'd be utilizing many of the on/off ramps that are there already with modifications instead of major changes.

This is a fantastic plan, well done!  You should submit this to the group studying the removal.  It would be great to see how the Kirkpatrick Heights plan integrates into this as this frees up another 6-7 blocks for redevelopment north of Easton. 

I love the idea of Edison reconnecting Denver to OSU which forms the boundary between "downtown" and the more residential neighborhood to the north.  And 1st and 2nd as two-way streets will be a huge improvement especially with all of the new development planned in Blue Dome

Good point on 244/future interstate traffic diverting south to the 444 loop.  Or use the Gilcrease Loop, which would be completed by the time this happens, to avoid downtown altogether.

It would also be nice to get rid of the little rail yard that looks to be used mostly for parking cars. Re-route the northbound active rail line in the median of US-75 until you get to Latimer Pl.

The rail area between Evans/BMX and OSU/Langston? Most of that will eventually be redeveloped too, the parking/on-off loading area can be relocated but the small main line can't be relocated without a lot of work. I agree if it had been moved into the 75 right of way that would have been nice but that ship has sailed because of ODOT.

I've been told the main rail operator is willing to lease or allow commuter rail to use the line which would provide access to Owasso, Collinsville and possibly Bartlesville. Too bad the air terminal isn't on the other side where a station could serve the airport and zoo/mohawk park too.