OKC Says goodbye to a highway!

[mrhaskellok]

Wow, this is a neat idea.  What do you guys think?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-14-highways_N.htm

Oklahoma City swaps highway for park

Crosstown Expressway, an elevated 4.5-mile stretch of Interstate 40, will be demolished in 2012.





By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma has a radical solution for repairing the state's busiest highway.
Tear it down. Build a park.

The aging Crosstown Expressway — an elevated 4.5-mile stretch of Interstate 40 — will be demolished in 2012. An old-fashioned boulevard and a mile-long park will be constructed in its place.

Oklahoma City is doing what many cities dream about: saying goodbye to a highway.

More than a dozen cities have proposals to remove highways from downtowns. Cleveland wants to remove a freeway that blocks its waterfront. Syracuse, N.Y., wants to rid itself of an interstate that cuts the city in half.


"Highways don't belong in cities. Period," says John Norquist, who was mayor of Milwaukee when it closed a highway. "Europe didn't do it. America did. And our cities have paid the price."

In the 1950s and '60s, mayors, governors and planners thought downtown highways would help keep cities alive by paving the way for suburban commuters to get in and out. Today, many of those same groups view downtown highways as a plague, wrecking neighborhoods, dividing cities and blocking waterfronts. Many big cities have long-term plans that call for eliminating some downtown highways or reducing their scale.

The future of many of these highways will be decided in the next few years because the old roads are nearing the end of their life expectancies. The federal, state and local governments must decide whether it's smarter and cheaper to renovate highways or to build new routes.

Boost to downtown

Some cities want traffic routed around downtowns. Others want tunnels or highways that pass under streets. A number of cities want to close highways and replace them with — nothing.

In Oklahoma City, the interstate will be moved five blocks from downtown to an old railroad line. The new 10-lane highway, expected to carry 120,000 vehicles daily, will be placed in a trench so deep that city streets can run atop it, as if the highway weren't there.

The old highway will be converted into a tree-lined boulevard city officials hope will become Oklahoma City's marquee street.

By tearing down the Crosstown Expressway, the city hopes to spur development of 80 city blocks stretching from downtown to the Oklahoma River — an area that contains vacant lots, car repair shops and a few small homes.

"We've always been a good place to live, but we've never had a city we could show off," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says. "Moving the expressway makes it possible for a day to come when hundreds or thousands of people will live downtown."

The project will cost $557 million, mostly federal and state funds. The city will pay to spruce up the boulevard, build parks and put a pedestrian bridge over the new below-ground interstate.

Oklahoma City is doing what many cities want to do but have not gotten federal or state money to accomplish:

•Buffalo wants to get rid of its Skyway, an elevated highway that blocks access to Lake Erie.

•Nashville wants to replace 8 miles of interstate — parts of I-65, I-40 and I-24 — with parks and neighborhood streets.

•Washington has considered demolishing the Whitehurst Freeway, an elevated road that runs along the Potomac River in the tony Georgetown neighborhood. The plan is on hold because of cost.

•Akron, Ohio, launched a $2 million study on tearing down its 2.2 mile Innerbelt that leads downtown from I-76/I-77.

Highway removal proposals are also being discussed in Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Baltimore, Louisville, New Haven, Conn., Trenton, N.J., and Niagara Falls, N.Y. The Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx is another target.

On the waterfront

Many unpopular highways run along rivers or lakes. The path made sense when they were built because the route was flat, in existing rights-of-way and connected highways and busy ports.

Now, especially in old, industrial cities, waterfronts are often vacant, leaving the prettiest scenery blighted by highways carrying traffic passing through.

Cleveland wants to convert its West Shoreway, next to Lake Erie, from a 50-mph freeway into a tree-lined boulevard. "There was less appreciation for the scenic value of waterfront when the shoreway was built," says Cleveland Planning Commission director Robert Brown. "We need to connect the city to its parks and lakefront again."

In other cities, highways cut cities in half. "It's our very own Berlin Wall," Syracuse, N.Y., council member Van Robinson says of I-81.

Like many urban interstates, I-81 demolished a black neighborhood. The interstate has created a tale of two cities: thriving Syracuse University on one side, struggling downtown on the other.

When Robinson proposed getting rid of I-81 — sending through-traffic outside the city — many people thought the idea was crazy.

Since then, the president of Syracuse University and many local officials have supported evicting the interstate from downtown. The state is comparing the cost of renovating or relocating it.

Doug Currey, regional director of the New York State Department of Transportation, says taking down urban highways is sometimes the right thing to do — and sometimes not.

"No two situations are exactly alike," says Currey, who oversees highways in the New York City area.

Cost is the big obstacle to removing highways. "Generally, maintaining what you have is cheaper than building something new," Currey says.

San Francisco tore down its elevated Embarcadero Freeway, damaged in an earthquake in 1989, and replaced it with a palm-tree-lined boulevard serving local traffic. Since then, the bay-front neighborhood has blossomed, and traffic has been absorbed by city streets.

Currey witnessed the same thing in New York City when the West Side Highway was demolished. An asphalt truck plunged through the elevated road in 1973 and, rather than rebuild the decrepit road, it became the nation's first major highway tear-down.

Once the highway was gone, the Chelsea, TriBeCa and West Village neighborhoods came back to life. Traffic adapted. "It worked in Manhattan," Currey says.

[TheArtist]

They built new highway, underground to replace the old one they are tearing out. I would love for Tulsa to get the kind of state and federal money OKC did to do something like that. Especially near downtown. Of course its a great idea, its the costs that get ya and getting okc to poney up for highway funds in Tulsa to do it.

[Renaissance]

It would be great if Tulsa could do the same thing with segments of the IDL.

[waterboy]

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

[EricP]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

[mrhaskellok]

quote:Originally posted by EricP

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

Could the case be made by Tulsans that perhaps they don't care...because if you live 13 miles out of town ,  you are the reason there is a huge highway.    Perhaps we could tear out the highway, put in a rail system, a truck tunnel, and trails for other modes of transportation (bike, walking) and then you won't have to walk, unless of course you wanted to.  

I found they article particularly interesting when it talked about the social imbalances that highways tend to create.  A very somber truth in Tulsa.  If people south of 244 suddenly were part of the same neighborhood as those north, perhaps so of the "northern" issues would get addressed.  

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by mrhaskellok

quote:Originally posted by EricP

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

Could the case be made by Tulsans that perhaps they don't care...because if you live 13 miles out of town ,  you are the reason there is a huge highway.    Perhaps we could tear out the highway, put in a rail system, a truck tunnel, and trails for other modes of transportation (bike, walking) and then you won't have to walk, unless of course you wanted to.  

I found they article particularly interesting when it talked about the social imbalances that highways tend to create.  A very somber truth in Tulsa.  If people south of 244 suddenly were part of the same neighborhood as those north, perhaps so of the "northern" issues would get addressed.  

Yes, as I read the article I was more thinking I-244 would be the best one to do away with, rather than I-44 or the BA.  Imagine if the Admiral/244 corridor was turned into a boulevard with new developments - would be nice yes?  And without 244 there you would also be able to lose a leg of the IDL (North or East one likely) for benefits to the downtown area.

This is a highly unlikely scenario of course, but I could see it being possible with the I-44 widening completed, combined with the Gilcrease Expressway loop being completed (the real fat chance in hell, looking at the history of its progress) the main traffic flows could go around where the 244 corridor sits now.

You could even re-route some rail lines if you really wanted to help some more neighborhoods.  Just look at a satellite map of the 4th & Peoria to 12th & Lewis area.  It is the rail line that makes that area into a blighted one.  Old warehouses line the tracks, and new development avoids it like the plague.  That should be some of the best real estate in town.

OKC has the distinguished advantage of being able to use state dollars pretending it is the only city in the state.  Maybe Tulsa should get a TIF on all the tax revenues generated in OKC by using our tax dollars to renovate their city.

[cannon_fodder]

When the 1989 Quake knocked over Highways in San Fran they did not rebuild them in the middle of town.

Highways are a plus, and a minus.  The destruction of Greenwood and separating the Brady from downtown was detrimental was separating "uptown" from downtown.  But surrounding downtown was in vogue... and it does serve a transportation need.  

Bah! I've given my views on this before.

[perspicuity85]

A couple of years ago, there were some ideas floating around about suppressing the north section of the IDL, thus creating a greater connection between Greenwood (including OSU-Tulsa) and Downtown.  The idea was to make the north section of the IDL look like the south section.

I can't find anything online about this.  Has anyone else heard of this proposal, or know who proposed it?

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by EricP

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

Here's a thought. Buy a home closer to downtown, ride your bike or get a job closer to home.

[bugo]

This article is some of the shoddiest journalism that I've ever seen.  The author implies that the freeway is being removed, when in reality is is being rerouted.  Later in the article it does mention this, but it is buried in the story and those who only skim articles might miss it.

And this line is nothing but a boldfaced lie:

"We've always been a good place to live, but we've never had a city we could show off," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says. "

Has the mayor never heard of Bricktown?  Last I checked it was the pride of OKC and something for other cities to model themselves after.

[PonderInc]

I remember Alan Hart (a transit designer from Vancouver) saying that he'd never seen anything like the IDL.  I can't remember if his exact words were "choke collar" or "noose"... but his point was that it was much too tight around downtown Tulsa's throat. Amen to that.

It IS like a Berlin Wall to pedestrians and cyclists.  It destroyed hundreds of our most stately homes.  And it separates downtown Tulsa from its oldest and potentially most regal park, Owen Park.  (Imagine Owen Park reconnected to a revitalized downtown!  Loft dwellers could stroll over for "Shakespeare in the Park," or picnics, live music, frisbee...)

I think that symbolically, the north part of the IDL has to go.  Functionally, I look at the whole loop, and it makes absolutely no sense to me.  I believe those stories that say that our expressway system was designed by a couple guys drawing on a napkin.  The IDL is that silly and thoughtless.  It had a disasterous impact on downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods.

What would happen if you got rid of the IDL completely?  What if rail connected downtown to the bedroom communities?  What if people just had to slow down and drive through or around downtown?  Would it be the end of the world, or a new beginnging for downtown?

I wonder what the daily traffic statistics show about the IDL?  What percent of the traffic on it is "passing through" and how much is headed for a job in downtown?  

Just another reason to get involved in the comprehensive plan update.  We've got transportation planners on hand to help us run scenarios like these and consider our options.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

It would be great if Tulsa could do the same thing with segments of the IDL.

yes, but unfortunately our money is going to pay for OKC to do it.

Once again, Tulsa gets to be the donor city.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by EricP

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

Here's a thought. Buy a home closer to downtown, ride your bike or get a job closer to home.

yeah, that's exactly what will happen.  our jobs will move closer to our homes.  close off the BA, and you might as well kiss dt tulsa goodbye.  it is a geographically offset downtown and the only reason it continues to be a business hub is because so many major roads flow around it.

[EricP]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by EricP

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

We could start with the BA expressway. Might be cheaper to tear these monsters down rather than repair them and their overpasses. Novel idea.

Yes, great idea. I'll just walk 13 miles to work.

Here's a thought. Buy a home closer to downtown, ride your bike or get a job closer to home.

You know of any major consulting companies with application centers that do SAP work in small Tulsa suburbs? I didn't think so.

The number one reason we outright refuse to buy a home in Tulsa is Tulsa Public Schools. Maybe some of the "magnet" schools are OK, but my sister in law taught at Rogers for a year... I'd rather my daughter not catch a stray bullet from gangbanging retards. I face a choice of one of the safiest cities in the nation or one of the most dangerous to raise my family... man that's a toughie.

My wife and I car pool to work in the same office every day.. yes I would rather not, but we minimize our environmental impact.