Major road work on Delaware Ave starts Mon, 9/18

[AVERAGE JOE]

A little bird told me that Delaware Avenue from I-244 to 11th Street will be under construction starting on (or shortly after) Monday, September 18. It's a major reconstruction project that will take 9-12 months.

In addition to new paving and stormwater inlets, the project will include several pedestrian amenities -- new sidewalks, pedestrian warning signs, crosswalks, and a center median with landscaping. The street will be straightened out and the road bed widened (not sure about this, depending on how wide they go). The plan calls for Delaware to be three lanes of traffic -- one each direction plus a center turn lane -- and two bicycle lanes. They're also dropping the  speed limit from 30mph to 25mph.

Supposedly, they are going to relocate all the utilities during the road project -- including telephone lines  -- and enlarge the stormwater sewer pipe to help with flooding in Kendall-Whittier.

My opinion: sounds good on the face of it, but the devil will be in the details. It seems as though they want a more pedestrian-friendly street right there through campus, which is fantastic and what a lot of us want to see more of in Tulsa. I think they're heading in the right direction. The only concern I have is that when you straighten and widen a road, you tend to see increased vehicle speeds, not slower vehicle speeds. However, if the medians, landscaping and bike paths are done right, it could become the pedestrian-friendly place they seem to want.

Just wanted to pass that along. Potential good news on the walkability front... and also a big headache until next fall if you usually drive on that stretch of Delaware.

[SXSW]

There is a huge difference between this stretch of Delaware and the stretch south of 11th.  Hopefully they eventually do the same thing south to 15th (before it becomes a smaller residential street south of 15th).  The median and bike lanes would be a great improvement for the Renaissance neighborhood.