The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Today's headline in the Tulsa World is City of Tulsa road crews to focus on downtown. (http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20091227_12_A1_Arearv626865)

Why are we still treating downtown like an office park and waiting to even touch the streets until the office workers are returning? I don't expect them to be completely cleared, but I also don't expect them to be untouched for days.

Being a downtown resident, I attempted to go out for a late dinner last night. But of the six places I called that would've been open, all were closing early. So I drove to Brookside, where the Brook was packed and open normal hours. Kind of defeats the purpose of living downtown when everything closes so early you have to drive to get dinner.

I'm not sure how much the lack of plows affected that. Maybe The Brook was packed because it's closer to more people. But with the new downtown assessment tax, if I were a downtown restaurant/bar owner, I'd be mighty peeved with the continued treatment of downtown as an office park, where they don't even have to start plowing until the workers are returning.

What's a plowed street?

Driving from downtown to Brookside via 15th and Peoria, all those streets were pretty clear. 15th was almost fully clear, while Peoria had two lanes clear and the other two partially clear. Downtown, on the other hand, looked untouched.

I actually live in the north part of Bixby.  I think I have only seen a plow on our residential street once since 1976 and that was last year.  Several steps involved in getting to work.
1. Get out of our driveway.  I spent most of a day in the late 80s shoveling the driveway to clear 11" of snow.
2. Get to Memorial.  11" of snow between my driveway and Memorial with 6" of ground clearance doesn't work.  Needed the 4X4s to pack down a wider route which took a few days.
3. Get to 101st & Memorial (from near 111th depending on my exit route from the development).  Pretty treacherous but never failed to do it once I got to Memorial.

I don't think I've missed more than a handful of work days since entering the real world workforce in 1979. I've never had a truck or SUV. I do have a front wheel drive car.

I was downtown for several different things this weekend.  The condition of the roads was shocking. 

Several members of my family visited us from OKC this weekend.  They were amazed at how bad the streets & highways still were in Tulsa.  I drove from OKC to Tulsa on Saturday.  The Turner was clear and smooth sailing.  As soon as you crossed into Tulsa it narrowed to one lane.  It was a very dangerous transition. 

I experienced the same thing. Drove in from about 50 miles west of OKC to Tulsa on Saturday. I-40, the Kilpatrick Turnpike, and the Turner were all absolutely clear as day and problem-free. So I was also shocked by the condition of the highways when I drove into Tulsa....244/75 going into downtown were like a death trap....especially 244. My knuckles were definitely white...

Driving in this morning the only place I slipped around any was in my neighborhood and downtown.  Downtown looks bad still.

Does the city give tickets for uncleared sidewalks? I'm sure half the downtown business owners still haven't bothered. And then there are the surface lot owners, who plow the snow from their lots into giant piles on the sidewalk.

Seems like the meter maids should be able to issue tickets for uncleared sidewalks while doing their parking meter rounds, as they're risking injury walking on icy sidewalks.

I thought they did a pretty good job on downtown. I saw crews chipping away at ice on sidewalks near Denver and Cheyenne between 4th and 3rd streets this morning. I saw open spots at empty meters on 2nd and 3rd where the snow had been removed as well.

Last year, DTU just scraped the street to one side and we had to walk over piles of ice or slush for days.

Reminds me why I like not having sidewalks in our neighborhood. All I have to shovel is from the front porch to the driveway, about 40 ft, and the back porch.  I'm in reasonably good shape but too many men my age have died from heart attacks shoveling snow.  I know that not having sidewalks wouldn't work downtown.

A lot of the men that happens to don't get much other exercize throughout the year.

My employer plowed their lot and put it all in piles out of the way, but still on the lot.

This morning the city came through and plowed the street into giant piles blocking all 4 entrances to the parking lot.

FAIL

Unless you wanted an extra holiday day..then...

WIN

 ;D

Agreed but I took it easy just in case.  I'm on vacation now but usually try to walk during my lunch break for about 2 miles.

Reminds me of when I lived near Philly and we had to park on the street.  I'd dig out the cars (my duty as a kid) then the township plow would go by and I'd have to start over.  We did get a nice berm to protect the cars for a while.  Not so good if someone took our spots while we were out.

Electric snowblowers are a wonderful thing.  I have not lifted a single shovel and still cleared a  long drive and walks.   Too about 2 hours total. 

There is something about standing at least ankle deep in (frozen) water and operating an electric powered device that doesn't appeal to me.  I could go for a gas powered one except that I would have used it about 5 times in the last 30 years.

Edit: spelling correction