The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

What's up with the strange striping on these streets by the north leg of the IDL?

On Detroit, there is a bike lane along east curb, inside of that (west towards traffic) is a parallel parking 'lane', inside of that are traffic lanes.

As you near the IDL on ramp, the 'parking lane' turns into a narrow double/double striped lane with a 'jaunt' cutting between the double/double and the parking lanes to what is now the turn lane along the east curb.
MLK is the same just on the west side.

Very confusing to ask people to park in a street between driving lanes and bike lanes. I get that it's safer for the riders but people struggle enough driving in downtown and there is more confusion to deal with.

And, what in the heck on the new study saying we should go back, again, to two way streets?
How much money have we spent on studies to justify switching back and forth and the actual switching over the last 20 years? It seems we've switched back and forth 4-5 times.

Recent thread on the protected bike lines on MLK and Detroit:

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21476.0

You missed a 2 hour presentation on this last night.   ;D

Protected bike lanes are a standard in many cities our size.  I will spare you the cut and pasting of images, but if you google protected bike lane (https://www.google.com/search?q=protected+bike+lanes&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuntygne_SAhWJLmMKHfqjA5gQ_AUIBygC&biw=1932&bih=1083&dpr=1), this configuration isn't unique.  The idea is that pedestrians and cyclists are protected from traffic by parked cars, additionally, the drivers side door opens 100% of the time - so having the bikes on the port side of a vehicle increases the risk of door collisions by a huge margin. 

Ironically, studies also suggest that the "confusion" period is the safest time.  Drivers tend to slow down and try to figure out whats going on.  Our downtown is currently designed as a freeway, with wide straight lanes, timed lights, and clear site lines encouraging drivers to speed through.  Turns out, that's not so good for cyclists, pedestrians, or reducing motor vehicle collisions.  At 25 MPH here's what the driver needs to know:  lots of paint means don't drive there.  Just like the angled back in parking (that is also not unique to Tulsa), drivers can figure it out.

The roads downtown have been one way for a generation now (or two).  During that time shopping has left downtown, residential left downtown, and recreation left downtown.  Now that those things are coming back and many hope even more comes - it isn't surprising that going back has been suggested.  Turns out if you have streets that encourage pedestrians, you get more pedestrians.  If you have infrastructure that tells everyone they have to drive, then everyone drives. 

There also is supposed to be green paint (or blue?) marking the cycling lanes, which would give a more visible area for drivers not to, ya know, drive on

Those bike lanes are progress.... it's just that they lead to the massive empty urban renewal area where there is literally nothing except grass and the memory of gross injustice.  Bike lanes to nowhere.

I still can't believe there is a 200 acre hole in the middle of Tulsa's urban core, immediately adjacent to its hottest downtown district.  It's unreal.   

Thanks for the replies and great points.

I'll leave it to the experts but until they put the cones out after a few days, people we're driving down the parking lanes.

It seems there should be some colors to help but hey, I figured it out.

The speaker last night said the exact same thing happened in Boston when they first switched over.  A colored lane would help a ton, but costs $$$ and has to be redone as part of maintenance.

If you are talking about the wasteland north of 244, I'm not sure what injustice you are referring to.  That wasn't gutted during the riots of 1921 if that was what you were implying.  That was all leveled in the 1980's or '90's as a result of urban renewal efforts.

So here we are.  If the streets had remained 2 way, suburbia never would have happened.   ;D

If there were a convenient, desirable, cost effective (to the public) way to get downtown, a lot of parking real estate could be turned into something desirable. 

Hint: A noisy, stinky bus that only runs every half hour to 45 minutes is not the answer.

We are going to fill the hole with bicycles.
 
 ;D

Where is Detriot?

It's across the river from Windsor Ontario.

In Tulsa is the third street east of main.

Oh joy. Tulsa gets magick paint.

My question was about Detriot, not Detroit.

Exactly.  That urban renewal was a terrible mistake, especially because it still sits empty decades later.  If those houses still stood I could see that area being rapidly improved.  It would be the only traditional neighborhood in Tulsa within walking distance of the cool parts of downtown.

I read a historic preservation study from (i think?) 1990 that described the area as being pretty awesome, like Brady Heights with a little commercial districts, just really run down.  If that area could have made it another 10 years I think the tide would have turned against large scale urban renewal and the neighborhood would have been saved.  Thank God the urban renewal people didn't decide to go bonzai blight removal on Kendall-Whittier. 

IIRC most of that area made parts of burned out Detroit look nice. It was a crime infested, drug and prostitution area filled with a lot of abandoned torn up houses.

Echoing DBacks:

Much of that was too far gone for restoration.  Gentrification would have had to have happened in the 1950's or 1960's for that area to have survived.

IMO, a wasteland is better than what was there in terms of crime but I never thought it would sit vacant as long as it has.

Takes some folks quite a while to sort through the confusion and adapt to change.  I still see cars nosed in to the back-in designed parking on Detroit across from the Rusty Crane. 

True, and that's one reason for the recommendation to paint the bike lanes green.  It's more expensive, but can make a new, unfamiliar, possibly confusing roadway condition more understandable to drivers.

I've seen vehicles parked head-in on spaces clearly marked as back-in, and I've seen cars backed in to parking spaces clearly marked as head-in.  In Tulsa, the angled parking is willy-nilly, and it's very confusing to some people, because it often involves drivers making illegal U-turns, crossing the centerline of two-way streets, and similar unsafe maneuvers.

Nope.  The one way streets were largely a response to the desire of suburban citizens to get to and from work as fast as possible.  But... they did hasten the decline of downtown and the trend they reflected is beginning to be reversed, even in Tulsa.  If the freeways were never built, maybe downtown wouldn't have been gutted.  But that fate was rare in mid-sized cities, regardless of the circumstances.   Hell - there have been volumes written speculating on the whys.  (yes, I realize you were just poking me for fun, but I couldn't resist the discussion)


How to Kill Main Street and Make it Look Like an Accident
http://djeffries.com/kill-thriving-main-street/

Michael Bates's article on the "steps to nowhere" has a great history of that area (link below). While it was hollowed out during urban renewal, the final bulldozing was for the proposed 4-year university that we now know as OSU-Tulsa. If that land were used to create a 20,000 student campus on the edge of downtown, it would be a big winner for municipal finances, downtown development, demand for walkable attractions, and exposing non-Tulsans to our downtown during their college years. Not sure if that is a feasible goal, but those 200 acres are almost certainly the most promising large patch of undeveloped urban landscape in any city our size.


http://thislandpress.com/2014/06/18/steps-to-nowhere/