The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

One of the interesting things I've learned lately is that a lot of the parking "studies" that are the basis for minimum parking requirements in the nation are statistically flawed and irrelevant.  (I could see this empirically, but it's nice to have actual facts backing it up.)  A lot of cities and national chains use the recommendations of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) "Parking Generation" book. They take the "peak demand" numbers and turn them into minimums.  That's a mistake.

But it's not the first mistake. The ITE book includes parking generation data for 106 land uses, half of which are based on 4 or fewer samples.  Another interesting fact is that there's very little correlation between the SF of a building and trip generation or the need for parking. Also funny, the ITE book includes warnings about some of the data like: "Caution: use carefully.  Low R2"  I didn't take a class in statistics, and I suck at math, but what I do know is that a low R2 means that the data is essentially random and can't predict future outcomes.  But these are the sorts of studies that are used to determine minimum parking requirements. (Oh yeah, and the studies also take place in locations without any alternative transportation options like transit or biking, and where all parking is provided for free...which means the study sites are bulked up by artificial demand.)

As you do your holiday shopping this year, take a look at the parking lots.  If you have the time, do a few counts.  One thing I've noticed is that even when you think a parking lot looks busy, it's probably about 50% occupied at max.  That's because we're so used to them being 10-20% occupied.  Also, b/c the lots are so huge, there are entire areas where people don't really consider parking.  (Target at 17th and Yale has a whole extra parking lot that I never realized existed until DJeffries showed it to me on a satellite map.  This is in addition to the massive wasteland in front of the building.)

If there are any geeks out there, who want to take the time to do this, post your numbers / photos here.  It could be interesting.  And it might offer some good ammunition that proves we shouldn't develop our city around a myth about "peak demand" on a couple days / year.

I can attest to the open lot at Target. I walk (OMG!!!) between Target and Lowes several times a year and have *never* seen anyone parked there. Occasionally a business will use it to store equipment (tree trucks or something). But never an actual parking lot.

The only place I have been in Tulsa that was out of parking is Turkey Mountain. In that instance I went back across the river, parked at Tom's Bicycles, and then made my way back to Turkey Mountain sans car. But other than that, I cannot recall a time when I couldn't find parking for whatever I was going to.

Pretty good indication that there is too much parking.

I have also observed that that our parks have the largest shortage of parking spaces
Turkey Mtn, Riverparks, Woodward...

The tarmac business must be really good in Tulsa!

Yea, I can't even begin to imagine how other cities like NYC, Paris, London, etc. do it with as little parking as I see around their parks.  Must be a nightmare. Might as well not even have them.

I think people... WALK to parks!

I was trying to use the parks as a positive example. Most of the time there is plenty of parking. In peak demand, there isn't and you have to get creative. That beats replacing more parkland with asphalt.

Clearly, they need to be paved over what a waste!  Can’t you just imagine Central Park as a huge slate of asphalt?

I'm tired of sharing my oxygen with trees.

Stop going to the park after dark.  Go during daylight when they take in CO2 and give off ozone oxygen.

That's not allowed.  People can only walk across parking lots.

 

Just another beautiful day to walk in the park(ing lot).
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Aug2008-036-e1442519389525.jpg)

And since we're talking about parks and parking lots... (I couldn't resist, even if it's off topic.  Sort of.)

(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11902249_434774263400263_3535649940445904077_n.jpg?oh=7f00debb9785219653b16e8df5948277&oe=56E57972)

OK, so I didn't do much shopping this weekend, but I did make a trip to Best Buy on Skelly Drive and Darlington at 2:00 PM on Sunday, Dec 13 (less than 2 weeks before Christmas).

The parking lot "looked" busy. There were 81 cars.

There are 267 spaces total for the building. So the parking lot was 30% occupied.  Even if you just count the 165 spaces that are in the main parking area in front of the building, the main lot was only 50% full.  And this was on what is presumably one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

So here's the parking lot that appears to be busy.
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Best-Buy-Parking-12_13_15.jpg)

But here's all the parking associated with the building.
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Best-Buy-Parking-Satellite.jpg)

Which means that even on busy shopping days, there's lots of this:
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/image1-e1450200794584.jpg)

Just a fun note for reference:
Our old zoning code would have required 201 spaces for this 46,136 SF building.  The developer obviously wanted to satisfy the highest possible requirements of any big box store they might attract, so we got 267.  The new zoning code would require 150, which basically reflects the main parking area where normal people actually park in front of the building.  Which would still be only 54% occupied on a weekend afternoon before Christmas.

The city of Tulsa is moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.  National chains and the parasitic developers who serve them, are not doing us any favors by covering more and more of our city in wasted, unproductive space.

Dear heaven.  That is ghastly.  

I am always amazed that so many people actually like that style of living.  Its just take our urban spaces and turn them into parking lots.  For cheaply built big box stores with a life expectancy of 30-40 years before the buildings are old and crappy.  And with no architectural merit that makes them worth preserving.

This was posted by the president of Tulsa Now on "the Facebook:"

http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/12/a-quick-clear-explanation-for-why-parking-minimums-hurt-cities/420228/?utm_source=SFFB

Amazing video on this exact topic!

We are the Oil Capital....gotta find a place to dump all that asphalt!!


Even the king of retail seldom fills the WalMart or Sam's Club lots...and if anyone would, I expect it from them...

Oh, you mean like this one...

(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_1070.jpg)
Nov 28, 2014 (Black Friday)

(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SamsParking.jpg)

Just wanted to throw in that during the opening of Star Wars at AMC, when almost every seat on all 20 screens was showing it (in 5 minute increments) parking was very full, I was over behind Reasons, but there were still probably a hundred spots left. They will never be more full.

That's it...just don't need it all....


Black Friday was a little surprising to me this year - I guess many more are online shopping now - but the traffic didn't seem that bad, and we actually went to Sam's Club and had no trouble parking or shopping or getting checked out in a reasonable fashion.

I went back to Best Buy on Saturday (12/19/15).  It was 60 degrees and sunny on the Saturday before Christmas.  There were 146 cars parked on the 267 space lot.

Although people get excited about Black Friday, I'm convinced there are more procrastinators than there are early shoppers.  Saturday's count certainly supported this theory.  

On the Saturday before Christmas, with springtime weather, the parking lot was 55% full. 

Here's another fun one from Tulsa Hills on Sunday, 12/20/15 at 3:30 PM.

The Target store is connected to other stores, so I simply counted the spaces in front of the building.  
(This compares fairly closely to the assessor's map. According to the assessor, they probably have a few
more parking spaces within their lot.)

I counted the area shown in red.  The dotted line indicates the area where most people are willing to park/walk.  
Few people park beyond this point.
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Target-spaces-at-Tulsa-Hills-3-e1450893102237.jpg)

There are 558 parking spaces within the area I counted.
(Per old zoning for this 126,268 SF building, they should have 561.  In the new zoning, they would be required to have
421.  But this is moot because national chains want what they want, which is more than that.)

There are 342 spaces in the area closer to the building, and an additional 216 in the outer area, for a total of 558.

On the Sunday before Christmas, it looked like this:
(http://www.accidentalurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Target-Tulsa-Hills-12-20-15-336pm.jpg)

There were 211 cars parked in the main area, and 35 parked in the outer area, for a total of 246 cars.

Thus, our parking ratio for the entire lot was 44% full.  In the main area, it was 61% full.  The outer area was 16% full.

Five days before Christmas.

I know empty parking lots are your "thing" but could this also be a sign of a poor spending season?

OR...

...less people spending at B&M stores and more online?

Too much parking.
Less people shopping.
More people shopping online.

All the same thing. It all equates to a rational decision to discourage wasted parking. Lack of density costs the City money and is an opportunity cost.

It's true.  I hate wasting land on parking. 

For decades we've been forcing these arbitrary parking minimums on everyone.  Even on small, local developers who might be smart enough to realize that surface parking lots are a waste of resources.  These minimums were never based on statistically sound studies over time.  Parking minimums across the country are based on a couple counts (decades ago) in places with no transit or alternative means of transportation.  All these years, people have treated them like some sort of sacrament.

Maybe this year is a "poor spending season."  Maybe it's a sign of the Amazon-buying times.  Does it matter?

Personally, I don't care what the maximum need is on 2 days out of the year.  I think that's irrelevant.  Why should a minimum requirement be based on maximum use during .005% of the year?  We know from looking at historical satellite imagery that typical parking needs are about 10-20% of what is provided.  So, one question is: Do we plan our city based on the (perceived) maximum needs of a couple days each year?  Or do we plan our city based on the typical needs of a typical day? 

We've been told for years that we have to have these huge lots to account for those big shopping days.  I want to start a dialogue that shows even on those big days, you don't need what we have.  If we do this for several years straight, we'll start to get valid numbers for those "maximum" days.  What if that allows us to free up 50% of the land currently wasted on surface parking lots?  That would be like the Louisiana Purchase, opening up vast swaths of land to development.

Then, if we start building true mixed-use (residential above commercial) places, maybe in a few decades, we'll be counting pedestrian, bike and transit traffic instead of cars.  Wouldn't that be a nice change?

Well, at least today, the lots at Sprouts, Reasor's, and Walmart had a lot of cars in them down here in Bixby (and Tulsa for the WM).

I was all over town today. Only Reasons and Utica Square had what I would call full parking lots. Target and Tulsa Hills even today weren't half full. The Farm was mostly full.

Parking like The Farm and Utica Square is much, much more reasonable and attractive than the model of Tulsa Hills or Woodland Hills, and the traffic flows pretty orderly in around and out of the centers.

Kind of OT, but I’m surprised some enterprising developer hasn’t seen fit to infill the SW corner of 71st & Memorial where Target used to be.  Talk about a ton of wasted space that could be re-purposed with something like The Farm that would be a win for the developer and the city.  You could utilize the existing building spaces for the most part but build another set to the north and on the strip to the east of the old Target building.  That’s not a very far out concept and would be similar to the center on the west side of Memorial at about 68th where the mini movie theater, Pep Boys, and Sun & Ski are.

Local company Reasons actually seems to do well, they often have full parking lots. I many times have had to wait on parking in Jenks and today on Brookside was the same. They don't have 50% unused spaces at all times. Isn't that the goal?

The other thing to consider is this: when you require free parking, you subsidize driving.  And when you subsidize driving, you elevate it above every other form of transportation--transit, biking, walking--by making them less convenient, attractive and desirable.  This creates demand for more driving.  So then you have to widen roads, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, which is another way we subsidize driving.  When you widen roads so cars travel faster, you make transit, biking and walking even less desirable and safe.  And when you dedicate the entire public right-of-way to cars, you make mixed-use impossible.  Our city streets effectively become wide, loud, unpleasant, dangerous highways for cars with deep asphalt setbacks and widely spaced, single-use destinations where no sane person wants to be...except when they are sheltered in the protective cocoon of their cars.

Many of us can imagine living above a store on Cherry Street or above a restaurant downtown.  No one would dream of living above a commercial space anywhere near 71st and Mingo.

But when people can live above commercial spaces, you get a magic synergy.  Suddenly, every square foot of land doubles (or triples or quadruples...) in value and productivity.  The land is not sitting vacant 2/3 of the time, it's being utilized night and day. Then, when people can walk to meet their daily needs (stores, services, etc), you don't need a car for every household member. This means we can dedicate even less space to parking and roadway lanes, which frees up more land to create walkable development that's attractive to people.

And when places are walkable and transit-friendly, even people who don't drive receive the same freedoms and benefits of drivers.  They have the freedom to utilize the public right of way.  They can exercise their right to be engaged in their community.  They have the ability to obtain employment because they can get to their jobs without a car. 

Because walkable places with efficient transit are not limited by the caste system of car-ownership, exciting opportunities occur. Suddenly, old folks can participate.  Kids can participate.  Disabled folks can participate. Less affluent people can participate. Everyone can be an active member of their community, whether they own a car and can drive, or not.

And that's the kind of place I want to live.  It's the kind of place I want Tulsa to be.

To eliminate cars and free parking from downtown, public transit will need to be subsidized.  The Transit Holocaust which doomed most real (rail guided, electric powered) trolley systems is proof of that.  Buses used paved roads for free while privately owned trolley companies had to maintain not only their track but the roadway surrounding it that buses and jitneys used.  When you eliminate parking, you elevate bikes, transit and walking as artificially as free parking elevates using automobiles.  I have read that some vocal bicyclists abhor rail transit as rails in the street pose a danger to bicycle wheels.  Should we prohibit clean, efficient, electric powered, rail guided transit for a few bicyclists?  There are electric buses but I doubt they are as efficient as steel wheels on rail.  I agree that transit etc is a much better choice for downtown.  Going vertical is certainly a better use of limited space than parking lots.  Narrow streets are not necessarily friendly to transit. Double tracking a trolley line will take more space than an alley width.  Narrow streets with turns to other narrow streets are unfriendly to large vehicles like trolleys and buses.  To what extent do you think your Utopia should extend within our lifetimes?  The entire city limits?

Public transit is actually responsible for the suburbs.  Before transit, everyone except the 1%ers of their day had to live within walking distance of work.  Maybe now a good transit system could allow Tulsa to embrace its suburbs so we could think of ourselves as a region rather than little fiefdoms.

I don’t want to live above a noisy night club, downtown, Cherry St, 71st and Mingo or anywhere else.  I don’t want to live in an apartment or even a duplex.  I hope that what you want becomes more available for those that do want the urban lifestyle.  There are still holdouts like me that like having 100 feet between me and my nearest neighbor.  If I could use public transit as a way to get downtown for a similar time and dollar cost as my car, I would be tempted to come downtown more than once or twice a year.  Don’t bother including purchase cost, insurance etc for my car as I will have one anyway.  The extra couple of hundred miles I would drive to downtown would not be significant.  Even if I were forced to live downtown, I would find a way to have a car.  I just might not have to drive it when the weather looks like hail or the roads are covered with snow or ice without taking a day of vacation. 

But not nearly as much as "car transit" is subsidized. Free parking. Free roads and highways (use taxes like tolls, the gas tax, and tags only pay 50% of road costs). Traffic control devices. Police, fire, and medical care for all the car crashes. Not to mention the land devoted to it, and thus taken off of the tax rolls (including, effectively, the massive parking lots we are talking about). Tulsa spends about $200,000,000 a year to just subsidize repairs of our streets (that's not counting State and Federal money), safe to assume we clear $400,000,000 when we count highways (in the last 6 years: $140mi for the new I-244 bridge, $375mil I-44 widening cost, IDL repairs at $75mil, I-244 resurfacing $25mil), state money, regular repairs, new streets, traffic devices, police need, etc. etc. etc. etc.   

Tulsa transits budget is $14mil. Trail maintenance is about $500k of Tulsa's budget each year.

I'd be OK with more subsidy for other forms of transit.


I disagree. Eliminating mandatory free parking only removes one subsidy for auto-centric development. It isn't artificially subsidizing other forms of transit, rather it is placing it more in the domain of the market.


I'm a cyclist. Rail crossings are areas of concern - make sure you are as close to 90 degrees when crossing as you can get. But this has never caused serious concerns, just being careful and/pr planning. Most crossing at near 90 degrees anyway.


I disagree again. The suburbs exploded with the advent of highways. Mass transit is not responsible for Owasso, Jenks, Broken Arrow, etc. But I agree, a comprehensive mass transit system could embrace the suburbs - but won't as long as we continue to develop car centered infrastructure.

The entire point is that car centered development rules lead to the outcome we currently have - everyone needs a car, or two, and lots of (free) parking. As long as we subsidize that model, it will continue to dominate. Lets at least explore the possibility of cutting some of the mandatory subsidies...

"And that's the kind of place I want to live. It's the kind of place I want Tulsa to be."

And that is precisely what Tulsa used to be when I was a child in the fifties. My grandparents lived above retail and restaurants downtown along with lots of other retired folks whose children and grandchildren had moved to the suburbs. They clerked in those stores. They shopped nearby for everything. Even minorities found nearby downtown convenient. That suburban movement started in the 1920's with Whittier Square and other nearby "suburbs" served by trolleys, buses and taxis. Both downtown and suburban growth were economically driven. There was not enough room downtown for the coming explosions of population that oil wealth and post war(s) economic growth stimulated. The money to be made was in building schools, shopping centers and residential housing. Yet, folks were still tethered to downtown by their employment and good mass transit.

Now I see the opposite happening. Economics are hindering middle class and retiring folks from living downtown. The designs and cost of housing downtown are out of synch with the wealth and needs of a huge aging population unless its rest home status. When faced with the decision of half million dollar lofts near downtown versus buying yourself transportation to live comfortably in the burbs, the burbs will win both with hard pressed and shrinking middle class populations and (particularly) with workers who have eclipsed the magical 50yr old threshold where they become practically resident aliens. No wonder T-partiers love Trumpy. They are angry at being ignored. Highest underemployed rates and very little chance to prosper as large companies keep leaving the city. Either start your own company using retirement funds (high failure rate), decrease your standard of living by selling off assets or go into politics.

Meanwhile the tether is no longer connected either. Whether because of loss of quality downtown jobs or shortsighted planning, it is simply more difficult to reside downtown unless you're in the early stages of adulthood with relatively high incomes, no children, are oriented towards youth culture entertainment and its budget . The basics for middle class and aging are still not downtown and that's the bulk of our population. IOW, the economics for returning to my grandparents golden age of downtown living are working against us.

So, I enjoy reading your posts and admire your ability to correctly assess the deficits of suburban sprawl and auto-centric development, but I am depressed by the realization that unless this city has an extreme paradigm shift, they are merely elements of Vision 2055. Help me be more optimistic!

Parking isn't free, and "free" parking isn't required in Tulsa. 

Many business locations have parking areas for customers, but there is an associated cost of providing "free" parking.

Are you going to make Tulsa Transit start paying for road maintenance, traffic light maintenance, fire and police as part of their budget?  How about the police and fire departments that use the streets.  Is road maintenance to become part of their budget as a line item?  There were streets in big cities before there were automobiles.  The cost would be less without so many cars but not zero. There would still need to be delivery trucks downtown.  I think that trucks do more damage to roads than cars.  Granted, you wouldn't need the inner dispersal loop and it takes a chunk of land.  Do you think we could put I-44 back to a simple 4 lane highway?  Maybe we could get the Feds or OTA to put in a big bypass totally around Tulsa and have nothing but 2 lane arterials to Tulsa proper from the bypass which would go north of Owasso or south of Bixby.  Google trolley traffic jam for an idea of how wide open the streets would not necessarily be.  The next time you renew your car tag, check where the money goes.  The majority goes to the General Fund and to Schools. ( https://www.ok.gov/tax/documents/16%25chart.pdf ) I believe a significant amount of the gas tax is also diverted to other items at the federal level.  I agree there is toooo much surface parking in downtown.  I will agree with Ponder that the parking lots out here are bigger than they need to be in most cases.  But, free parking out here is built into the price of shopping.  It just isn't a separate charge.  If you need a car to get some place, "free" parking makes sense. 

I wouldn't use Tulsa Transit as an example of good transit with low spending.  The system is not very useful to too many people.  Dig up some numbers on Philadelphia, PA area (SEPTA), New York City, Boston, Chicago and scale it down to Tulsa.  Trail maintenance is primarily recreational.  It is part of quality of life spending that I agree is necessary.

By eliminating the usefulness of automobiles there is an inherent support of other modes of moving about.  Keep in mind that for downtown, I favor less parking if a useful alternate transportation system is available.

 
The complaint I usually read about is when the rails go around a corner the cyclist want to cross, making a 90º crossing more difficult.  I agree that a 90º crossing should not be a big problem.


You need to read up on the development of areas that had more extensive mass transit.  The town where I grew up in suburban Phila took off when the trolley line to the county seat was put it.  It did really boom with the automobile but it got its first transition from farms to housing with the trolley line.  Also check up on the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroad commuter services.  A lot of it still exists under the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA:  http://www.septa.org ).  There are even spots on OETA about OKC putting in a new trolley line which explain how the trolley lines from the early 1900s allowed the expansion of OKC.

For some areas of Tulsa, I agree.  To envision all of the Tulsa area being totally independent of autos is not realistic and, in my opinion, not even desirable.

Enough for now, I need to cook dinner.

Just for grins, I looked up the SEPTA reports.  SEPTA is a regional Authority.  It covers the City of Philadelphia and 4 surrounding counties.  I believe the city of Philadelphia and Philadelphia County have the same borders. ( http://septa.org/maps/system/index.html )  The system map actually goes into Delaware and shows a few connections to New Jersey.  I lived along the 101 trolley line to Media at the Springfield Rd stop between the Scenic Rd and Saxer Ave stops. There is another intersection with the same Springfield Rd on the 102 line to Sharon Hill. Oh, look.  There is free parking at "my" stop.  We only lived a couple of hundred yards from the stop though so I never needed that parking lot. ( https://goo.gl/maps/T69g4BU9USF2 )

Tulsa is about 187 sq mi according to Wikipedia.  Tulsa County is 587 sq mi.  The Tulsa Transit map ( http://tulsatransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SystemMap11-15-No-Date-current-map.pdf ) shows some excursions into Jenks, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, and maybe a bit past the north edge of Tulsa.  Nothing is in Bixby.  I will still use the county area though since I remember coverage in the outer areas of SEPTA not being as dense as downtown Phila.

Tulsa: $14,000,000 (per CF) and 587 sq mi. for $23,850/ sq mi for the county.  (It would be $74,866/ sq mi if we only considered the area of the city.)

SEPTA: $1,287,658,000 (including revenue, subsidies with $230,000 left over) and 2202 sq mi. for $584,663/ sq mi after subtracting the $230K. ( http://septa.org/strategic-plan/reports/opfacts.pdf )

Tulsa Transit should be spending $343,197,181 if they consider the county their service area.

I am well aware there is a population density difference but if we want to severely reduce automobile use, we will need a usable public transit system which we don't really have at the moment.  It will need to include Bixby too.

At $14M, I think we're a bit short.  (I am not in the natural gas business, M = Mega)  

Now, back to Highway 33 the Yale Ave Bridge.  ;D (http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/a-dream-fulfilled-dan-p-holmes-never-gave-up-on/article_d689e1e2-5aa4-579e-ba70-3d5e164d1430.html )

Edit: add street view link
Edit: add link about Dan P Holmes

I was talking with some folks last night about land use, and how the way we develop our land is so inefficient and unproductive (ie: 2/3 asphalt with single-story buildings is not an efficient use of space, and the tax revenues prove it).  This development pattern creates a huge amount of public infrastructure that has to be built and maintained on very few dollars. Which is why our roads suck, among other things. 

The question that came up was "How do we change it?"

I keep thinking about this because it's such a chicken/egg problem.  But I think the answer has to be: invest in fixed-route transit (rail or BRT) and shape development policy around transit.  Then let (require) the private sector to build mixed-use density along the publicly-funded transit lines.

I think the transit has to come first.  Because otherwise, if you try to build density first, suddenly everyone gets stuck in a traffic jam and demands wider roads and more parking.

I;m include to agree, mostly. Clearly you need the base population to utilize the services - Wagner couldn't put in light rail from  the turnpike to downtown and then wait for the eastern section of town to just fill in. I think it has to be in an area that is already developed and has a propensity to being urban (CBD, Pearl, Cherry, Brooksidie, or even other parts of Midtown). Even if immediate population of the neighborhood doesn't support it, it has a head start and it will.

This is in line with what communities did before cars were the go to mode of transportation. Trolley lines would be expanded to the areas the city wanted to develop. Even here in Tulsa there are some development quirks that can be explained by where the trolley line ran. And we do it still today - but we do it with highways. Where did we put the the Creek Turnpike? Where we wanted the City to grow (fun fact - Tulsa requested pedestrian bridges as part of the Creek over the Arkansas river. But citing "economics" the idea was shot down. Dewey Bartlett was on the panel and said it was a matter of economics). Why do we want to expand the Tisdale through west Tulsa?  To encourage development.

All that to say, putting the "government subsidized" road before development is nothing new.

The other side of the argument, that you need density before transit, has not been shown to have great success. In NYC new subway lines can cost $1 BILLION per mile. Cities who have tried to retrofit transit have had lots of expense, and mixed success. Even places that are often ahead of the curve messed it up, example A: Austin, Texas. Most of the population wishes they would have pulled the trigger on transit in the 1990s, before the city really boomed and added hundreds of millions (billions?) to the cost of any proposed project.

The best transit systems are the ones that survived the glut of post war destruction. The next best ones are the ones that grew along with the density of the city. Lets do that.

What you have is developers after profit, and city governments after the next marginal dollar (no matter how inefficient). Until one stops, this madness will continue. Developers will never stop chasing profit. It should take a city putting it's foot down and saying we are not extending ourselves just to capture that extra few dollars in revenue.

It's like the stadiums in all these cities though. Right now, if St. Louis or Oakland won't pony up, someone else is happy to step in there and take the financial burden on (for whatever reason).

I'm not trying to sound hopeless, but this is what is driving this development. It's cheaper to develop on flat land AS LONG AS the city will provide services at little to no cost. Try doing the same development with no public infrastructure.

erfalf - I don' think anyone is arguing with your statements. Its foolish to think developers will benevolently change the way they have been profitably doing business for 50 years. They aren't in it for legacy, usually they only hold the property until the loans are consolidated into s a mortgage and they are paid in full - then walk away.

Its that marginal return you are talking about. We add retail, add retail, add retail, and never get ahead. We add subdivisions and subdivisions, gated communities and so on... but the new revenue doesn't seem to help our continuous budget crisis. Clearly, our return isn't in excess of the cost of adding new roads, sewers, school capacity, etc.  It isn't a matter of demanding better development because its cool, because it attracts young educated people, or because it is better environmentally --- but it is more economical for the city.  Every lot in downtown, midtown, Cherry Street and Brookside has water, sewer and utilities run to it. The roads are there and don't need to be expanded.  From a fiscal perspective, we may as well pack those lots with taxable assets and ta paying citizens. 

I'm certainly not arguing that are city leaders are acting wisely. Just that they are acting. I agree COMPLETELY that it is a losers bet to keep adding all this infrastructure when it is already in places that are perfectly develop able. I REALLY don't understand why more gentrification hasn't occurred in some areas. Especially around 6th street/Pearl. Land can't be that expensive, and I would think they could still capitalize on mid to high end homes.

I've seen study after study showing how a reasonably dense small town downtown is far more efficient at generating revenue (forget the savings in costs) than a huge lot with a Walmart. See graphic below. Who benefits from smaller scale development more? But who runs the show? If I'm looking at Walmart vs a dozen PERSPECTIVE retail establishments in an urban setting, a city will pick Walmart because it is considered a safer bet, ie, more likely to get $70 mil in revenue ($3 mil tax). The incentives are all out of whack.

(http://www.planetizen.com/files/minicozzi-table.jpg)

I think you got this correct.  Rail would work better than BRT since BRT can be changed with a few pen strokes.

I'll have to go along with that one since the old bridge to Jenks which in now a pedestrian bridge is close by.

Isn't that area still subject to severe dampness occasionally.  I wouldn't invest there.
 

I cannot argue the income per acre to the city but at what level do you discourage business due to cost.  Artist, how much more rent could you afford for your business if taxes severely increased your landlord's cost?  (No $, just a percentage.)  There is a thing called diminishing returns.  I don't know that we are there but the concept exists.

I just wrote a paper on this:

Tulsa is roughly three times the physical size it was in 1970.
It's population has been roughly stagnant since then
It has continued to sprawl rapidly despite little actual population growth
This has been made possible because of our heavy subsidization of private development and automobile/utilities infrastructure
It now has enough roadway to stretch from Tulsa to the East Coast to the West Coast and back to Tulsa
This is financially crushing and why Tulsa has perpetually crumbling roads



I have some graphics for this but can't figure out how to post an image...

Since I just moved and the rent is higher than the last place and its a larger space to boot... jury will be out on whether I can afford it as is lol.  The main thing is traffic.  I need pedestrian traffic.  When we get people in the store they rave about it and love it and we make sales.  Decent pedestrian traffic on a moderate urban retail street could easily be about 5,000 people a day.  I would guess we are lucky to get a couple hundred or so walking by on average.  I could handle a whole heck of a lot more taxes if we had normal urban pedestrian traffic. 

Looking at some pedestrian count examples, many streets in NYC can reach over 100,000 people per day.

Minneapolis
Top Walking Locations (estimated daily traffic):
1. Nicollet Mall north of 7th St S (20,320)
2. Washington Ave SE west of Union St SE (19,990) 3. Washington Ave SE Bridge (19,710)
4. 6th St S east of Nicollet Mall (13,270)
5. Oak St SE south of Washington Ave SE (10,650)

Denver 16th Street Mall
Mid-day Count   4,953
Evening Count   3,560
Est. Daily Activity   29,604
Est. Monthly Activity  986,933
Est. Yearly Activity   12,336,666


Portland 2011 counts
CBD/ Retail Core (6th & Pine) 8,014
CBD/ Retail Core (4th & Pine) 5,566

Long Beach
Pedestrian Count Highlights

Daily weekday average of 25,115 pedestrians at 10 locations.
Daily weekend average of 20,319 pedestrians at 8 locations.

Thank you for your insight.  I wish you the best of luck.

Used to be a sign at 21st and Memorial through the 60's that said city limits and population 160,000.  It was way outdated by 1970, but that is close to the time they took it down....

I think the size of Tulsa can pretty much be blamed on the huge annexation that happened in March of '66.  Sand Springs went and annexed about 110 sq miles of fence line, forcing Tulsa's hand.


I think if not for Sand Spring's move, Tulsa may not be as sprawled out as it currently is..which isn't really a whole lot.

You can read the whole sordid affair here (http://www.tulsacouncil.org/media/79331/Annexation%20History.pdf) starting on page 14.

I drive by the Staples on Harvard nearly day.   Huge amounts of unused parking flanking the store.   Could have retail, restaurants, business, density, or whatever flanking the building instead.
And looks  like a house was removed for all the unused parking in the back.

Never more than 12 cars  in at least 106 spots.

Street View (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tulsa,+OK/@36.1239582,-95.9403013,3a,75y,88.88h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s8IBucJoECEqkiUKX1eHjcA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D8IBucJoECEqkiUKX1eHjcA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D88.611954%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x87b692b8ddd12e8f:0xe76910c81bd96af7!6m1!1e1)
and from above (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tulsa,+OK/@36.1237075,-95.9395491,157m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x87b692b8ddd12e8f:0xe76910c81bd96af7!6m1!1e1)

I live in that area. Midtown is my bike store. I drive by at least once a day. I often bike past or walk past.

I have never seen the front lot more than half full. I have never, ever, seen more than 3 cars in that back lot. I suspect from time to time employees get "reminded" to park in the back - and a few comply for a short period of time. Ridiculous to require that extra parking.

On the bright side, it is a great place to test ride a bike.

Just think, instead of a medium box store, we could have had a mini strip mall with a California Nails, T-Mobile, Subway, and H & R Block.

The property used to house the Harvard Club which was a swim club we went to when I was a kid.  Seems like they also had a restaurant and lounge which is one of the reasons for the large parcel size.

Swim clubs were apparently a thing back in the 50’s & 60’s when they were built.  I believe it was also a way to get around liquor by the drink restrictions.

Office Depot at 15th & Lewis is pretty bad as well..  The store faces 15th.
There's a completely unused parking lot on the backside of the store.  
The loading dock is back there.. but that's no excuse
The unused lot is right off of Lewis where something other than a parking lot should be.

The parking lot has the same footprint as the Sonic property across the street

Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/@36.139285,-95.9585768,190m/data=!3m1!1e3)
Observe the zero cars in the lot during business hours  (not even used by employees)

That building orientation is hideous. Especially given that the Safeway that was on the spot utilized it so much better. It had doors on the north and south corners of the building facing Lewis. They deviated from their successful formula of utilizing the well thought out site selection and orientation of existing grocery stores and ended up building the same kind of structure badly oriented. OD is clueless which is why they had to merge with a competitor.

The Office Depot at 15th and Lewis is a great example of how things can be better thanks to our new zoning code.  (Obviously, there are many flaws with this building, including the lack of windows along Lewis, and it's poor relationship to the corner.  Also, national chains impose their own ridiculous parking requirements, regardless of the local parking minimums, so better zoning doesn't always prevent the problems inflicted by national chains.  But, as an example...)

This corner is zoned CH.  In the old zoning code, a 22,264 SF retail building required 99 parking spaces (1 per 225 SF).  Office Depot provided 80 in the "front" (facing 15th street) and 37 in the "back" (south of the building) for a total of 117 spaces.  

In the new zoning code, retail buildings in CH zoning get an exemption for the first 5,000 SF, which requires no parking.  (This is to help little buildings along historic main streets, and to prevent people from demolishing adjacent buildings/residences to provide parking they don't want or need). This means that the calculations would be based on 17,264 SF of building area.  And the new zoning code requires 2.5 spaces per 1,000 SF (1/400 SF) which equals... 43 spaces.  

There are also some credits you can earn for providing motorcycle parking, long-term bike parking, car-share or bike-share parking, etc.  So basically, this building could be served by 1/3 the asphalt currently provided.

Imagine what we could do with the other 2/3 of the land currently wasted on parking that we don't need.  The total land area is 81,775 SF with a 22,264 SF building on it.  If we only needed 40 spaces, that's about 12,000 SF.  Which leaves us with over 45,000 SF of land.  

That's a lot of little storefronts for shops, offices, and restaurants in what could be a walkable place.  (In Kendall Whittier many lovely storefront shops are less than 2,000 SF each with buildings that are about 25x75 or so in size.)

Big developers and national chains don't know how to do this.  But I bet a lot of local entrepreneurs could figure something out.

Ironically, that corner during the 1960's did have many little storefronts and a much smaller parking lot to serve them. 15th and Lewis was a nice little neighborhood corner.

I now work at 15th and Lewis.
It feels safer jaywalking across 15th or Lewis than to use the intersection (which has no clear stop line or walking zone paint)  and lacks crosswalk buttons (may have a button to go east... but then you get to the east side and there's no button to go north.. that button is found on the north side)

This is what 15th Street looked like back then, pre-Albertsons destruction.

Photo: Looking east from Lewis on 15th. You can see the railroad bridge in the background (where the BA is now).

(https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpl1/v/t1.0-9/12391357_10101525215747580_2261298980821921220_n.jpg?oh=31386b49e1f4de3d6837c43dd2693a98&oe=572F1993)

Same intersection in 1961:
(http://djeffries.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/15th__Lewis_1961-2.jpg)
Source: Beryl Ford Collection (http://"http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15020coll1/id/455")

You mean on the north side where the Delman shopping center was?  Did that extend all the way to the BA or am I imagining things?  It seems the Apollo theater faced south then there were other businesses oriented along Lewis.  Am I remembering correctly?

The space where office depot is now. It used to be a small strip center with a men's store, globe or exodus iirc. And some other little retail spots. Next to Delman was a women's lingerie store we always chuckled about.

That is where Massad’s was originally, wasn’t it?  He moved further east on 15th after that was demolished.

Yes that's it. And the cutting edge men's store was Exodus. Wild stuff. All pretty much walk up stores and not much parking. 15 th street was very pedestrian friendly.

Lack of connected biking infrastructure causes this in my opinion.

To some extent, I agree. I live ~3 miles from the river and can easily get there via "share the road" routes. If I couldn't, I would be far more likely to drive. That could be improved from some parts of the city.

But like everywhere else, the parks shouldn't be designed with parking for "peak demand." 95% of the time there is plenty of parking (go look right now!). But on weekends when it is 80F and sunny, it will be packed no matter how much parking you put in. And that's OK. Park a block away and walk. Consider biking or walking to the park.  Park at another section of the park and walk a mile down the path.