The fencing around sidewalk patios is to comply with ABLE Commission rules.
I don’t see anything in the article indicating the city is going to put the kibosh on sidewalk cafes - rather it wants to implement rules for approving such licensing/uses consistent with the walkability study the city has commissioned.
Jeff Speck's firm has conducted several walkability studies already. In those studies, protecting the sidewalk with trees and parking along the curb is the important issue, not licensing cafés or other uses.
However, sidewalk width was specifically mentioned in the walkability study for Fort Lauderdale:
Ample Sidewalks
This obvious point sometimes doesn’t need mentioning, because few American cities have forgotten about sidewalk width. But, particularly against certain stretches of Broward Boulevard, Andrews Avenue, and E 3rd Avenue, sidewalks in the downtown can get scarily small. Generally, absent pedestrian crowding, most sidewalks need provide little more than a 6-foot clear zone to be comfortable, but this condition changes when parallel parking or mature shade trees are missing. In these cases, it is more important to provide the car-and-tree buffer than it is to widen the clear zone, but an ideal solution accomplishes both.
(from page 18 of the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Walkability Analysis, submitted by Speck & Associates, January 15, 2013)
I'm not familiar with sidewalks in Fort Lauderdale, but I'd like to check out Broward, Andrews, and East 3rd on Google Maps to see how the sidewalks there compare to Tulsa's.
As I see it, this sidewalk café "issue" is really a non-issue for Tulsa. It shouldn't be a high priority for the Mayor's Office, and I don't see how Jeff Speck's walkability study will change anything, or why the City of Tulsa needs to wait on the completion of
any walkability study. If a minimum 6-foot clear zone was Speck's recommendation for downtown Fort Lauderdale, then 6 feet ought to suffice in Tulsa.
ABLE Commission regulations or not, fencing attached to public sidewalks shouldn't be allowed. The clear zone at Ti Amo is relatively narrow. So is the clear zone near Prairie Artisan Ales in the Universal Ford building along Main St. I haven't measured those clear zones, but I have noticed that they cause walkability choke points in the sidewalks ... very minor in the big picture for people who are able to walk around them ... more an issue for people using wheelchairs.