Huge planning failure by everyone involved

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

I want BOK Arena busy all the time all year.

Distant remote lots with shuttles outside of downtown proper is not a viable solution.  Dedicated parking and traffic flow changes are needed to make this work.

Now imagine adding ball park traffic.  

You are going to lose regulars that can't find their regular parking spots.  You are going to anger and inconvenience downtown workers.  You are going to see an increase in the cost to park downtown.

It's not the end of the world, we just need to finish what we started.  There are places close by that would work for Arena and Ball Park parking.

I guess I'd be pretty raw too if I'd sat in traffic for an hour once I got to downtown.

Why demolish more buildings, blight more downtown landscape, and lower property values  with more parking lots to service several daytime events every year?

There's thousands of parking spaces at Expo Square (even with fair set up this week they still would have had plenty of space) and it's a direct shot up 15th for the shuttles to the BA and into downtown.

The former Eastland Mall has plenty of spaces, as does the Mabee Center.  IOW- we really don't need more idle parking spots.

This is a simple solution.  BOKC management needs to listen to the complaints and react appropriately.  Give people something free from the concession stand or some other incentive to take a shuttle instead of driving all the way into downtown.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

I want BOK Arena busy all the time all year.

Distant remote lots with shuttles outside of downtown proper is not a viable solution.  Dedicated parking and traffic flow changes are needed to make this work.

Now imagine adding ball park traffic.  

You are going to lose regulars that can't find their regular parking spots.  You are going to anger and inconvenience downtown workers.  You are going to see an increase in the cost to park downtown.

It's not the end of the world, we just need to finish what we started.  There are places close by that would work for Arena and Ball Park parking.

You guys are acting like 90 percent of the events are going to be held during business hours on Monday when that's just not the case.

I'm not saying they don't need to revisit parking or how the run shuttles, but most of this problem could have been abated with better visibility of shuttles.

Welcome to big city life.  For those of you who don't like the fact that we have a 19000 seat arena, then move.  That may seem harsh, but people are moaning with very few of you actually coming forward with any kind of plan to alleviate the problem.  Look at the following map and tell me where we are going to have parking.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=36.152984~-95.998299&style=a&lvl=16&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=16711701&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Doesn't it look like there is a lot directly east?  How about the CC parkade and all the spaces for the old City Hall?  How about the garage at 2nd and Cheyenne?  That's about 3500 spots right there.

[]

[bbriscoe]

I see three spots where garages could be built just west of the Civic Center garage.

But I don't work downtown anymore.  Or live downtown.  Or go downtown, except to OSU.  I can't think of any reason to.  

Who'd want to live there with 3 little kids anyway?  There's not enough grass.

[Gold]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

so what I want to know is, who is at fault, and when are they getting fired?  I don't want to hear any bull**** about "growing pains" or "working the kinks out"  They had months notice on this.

Da mare is directly responsible for this debacle.  She has authority to plan for this kind of crap.  Thank goodness there was no major medical emergencies in the fubar parts of downtown.  The planning negligence exposed the city to liability today.

What is even MORE insulting is putting the downtown workers in direct competition for parking with attendees.  I can just imagine how the conversation went:

"Hi, we are Zig Zigler motivational speaker series and we will be in your region late Sept, but we can only visit your podunk town on a Monday instead of a weekend"

Mare's office:  "Ok, but we need you to start at 8 because if all of the naysayers get downtown at 9 and find all of the good parking taken they will make us look bad"

Ziglar:  "No problem!  In fact we will do one better, we will go until 4:45 so we can unleash our 18000 motivated individuals on your pissed off workforce for rush hour traffic"

Mare's office:  "EXCELLENT!"

Question: were you downtown yesterday?  Because I was and the traffic at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM was minimal.  I drove up Boston, like every day, and it was no different for a Monday.  Parked in my usual garage, went by the office, and then took the five minute walk to the arena.  

The issue was people not knowing where to go downtown (wanting parking spots at the arena, I guess) and other folks not paying attention.  That said, I had another event to go to last night nearby and they event sent us am email warning about the traffic after the BOk event.  The result was I parked a block further from that event than normal.

So, as a person who works downtown, attended the event, and had to deal with the effects as someone who had to navigate around the traffic, the disruption was MINIMAL.

For what it's work, they ran a shuttle from Eastland Mall to the event yesterday.  When I called to get my tickets, they actually warned me about the parking.

[EricP]

quote:Originally posted by Gold

quote:Originally posted by inteller

so what I want to know is, who is at fault, and when are they getting fired?  I don't want to hear any bull**** about "growing pains" or "working the kinks out"  They had months notice on this.

Da mare is directly responsible for this debacle.  She has authority to plan for this kind of crap.  Thank goodness there was no major medical emergencies in the fubar parts of downtown.  The planning negligence exposed the city to liability today.

What is even MORE insulting is putting the downtown workers in direct competition for parking with attendees.  I can just imagine how the conversation went:

"Hi, we are Zig Zigler motivational speaker series and we will be in your region late Sept, but we can only visit your podunk town on a Monday instead of a weekend"

Mare's office:  "Ok, but we need you to start at 8 because if all of the naysayers get downtown at 9 and find all of the good parking taken they will make us look bad"

Ziglar:  "No problem!  In fact we will do one better, we will go until 4:45 so we can unleash our 18000 motivated individuals on your pissed off workforce for rush hour traffic"

Mare's office:  "EXCELLENT!"

Question: were you downtown yesterday?  Because I was and the traffic at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM was minimal.  I drove up Boston, like every day, and it was no different for a Monday.  Parked in my usual garage, went by the office, and then took the five minute walk to the arena.  

The issue was people not knowing where to go downtown (wanting parking spots at the arena, I guess) and other folks not paying attention.  That said, I had another event to go to last night nearby and they event sent us am email warning about the traffic after the BOk event.  The result was I parked a block further from that event than normal.

So, as a person who works downtown, attended the event, and had to deal with the effects as someone who had to navigate around the traffic, the disruption was MINIMAL.

For what it's work, they ran a shuttle from Eastland Mall to the event yesterday.  When I called to get my tickets, they actually warned me about the parking.

What???

Did you try driving on oh I don't know..... Highway 169, highway 51, the IDL... anywhere other than a downtown street? For some reason the BA into downtown was completely assraped.

[Gold]

I drove city streets because I live nearby.  Even if you were taking the highway, it may have made more sense to get off the highway.  Seriously, Boston looked no different than any other Monday.  In fact, there was less congestion at my garage than normal.

Got to say I don't appreciate your reference to "assraping," which is much worse than sitting in a traffic jam, so I understand.

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by pfox

They should have taken the light rail.  Problem solved.

 

Unfortunately the only light rail around here is a light beam.  Just as you get on, someone turns off the flashlight.

[Wilbur]

Two points:

1.  I heard today (not sure how true this is) there are 35,000 people who work downtown and parking for 30,000.  So when you add 18,000 more who need to park, where are they supposed to go?

2.  Isn't there a city ordinance that requires so many parking spaces for every person/square feet/..... when you build something?  If someone were to build a mall downtown, I doubt they would be able to claim everyone elses parking spots.  Why would the BOK Center be exempt (other then being government)?

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

Two points:

1.  I heard today (not sure how true this is) there are 35,000 people who work downtown and parking for 30,000.  So when you add 18,000 more who need to park, where are they supposed to go?

2.  Isn't there a city ordinance that requires so many parking spaces for every person/square feet/..... when you build something?  If someone were to build a mall downtown, I doubt they would be able to claim everyone elses parking spots.  Why would the BOK Center be exempt (other then being government)?

There are no parking requirements under the CBD zoning within the IDL.

[OUGrad05]

quote:Originally posted by Gold

quote:Originally posted by inteller

so what I want to know is, who is at fault, and when are they getting fired?  I don't want to hear any bull**** about "growing pains" or "working the kinks out"  They had months notice on this.

Da mare is directly responsible for this debacle.  She has authority to plan for this kind of crap.  Thank goodness there was no major medical emergencies in the fubar parts of downtown.  The planning negligence exposed the city to liability today.

What is even MORE insulting is putting the downtown workers in direct competition for parking with attendees.  I can just imagine how the conversation went:

"Hi, we are Zig Zigler motivational speaker series and we will be in your region late Sept, but we can only visit your podunk town on a Monday instead of a weekend"

Mare's office:  "Ok, but we need you to start at 8 because if all of the naysayers get downtown at 9 and find all of the good parking taken they will make us look bad"

Ziglar:  "No problem!  In fact we will do one better, we will go until 4:45 so we can unleash our 18000 motivated individuals on your pissed off workforce for rush hour traffic"

Mare's office:  "EXCELLENT!"

Question: were you downtown yesterday?  Because I was and the traffic at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM was minimal.  I drove up Boston, like every day, and it was no different for a Monday.  Parked in my usual garage, went by the office, and then took the five minute walk to the arena.  

The issue was people not knowing where to go downtown (wanting parking spots at the arena, I guess) and other folks not paying attention.  That said, I had another event to go to last night nearby and they event sent us am email warning about the traffic after the BOk event.  The result was I parked a block further from that event than normal.

So, as a person who works downtown, attended the event, and had to deal with the effects as someone who had to navigate around the traffic, the disruption was MINIMAL.

For what it's work, they ran a shuttle from Eastland Mall to the event yesterday.  When I called to get my tickets, they actually warned me about the parking.

Not sure which downtown you were at but I was due east of the BOK center and traffic was a nightmare from 6:30am to well after 8am.  I PAY for my parking monthly at first and boulder, it was downright atrocious.  I have spent a lot of time in Dallas/Houston and while their overall traffic is terrible compared with ours the issues getting parking yesterday were far worse than anything I've experienced except texas motor speedway.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by bbriscoe

I see three spots where garages could be built just west of the Civic Center garage.

But I don't work downtown anymore.  Or live downtown.  Or go downtown, except to OSU.  I can't think of any reason to.  

Who'd want to live there with 3 little kids anyway?  There's not enough grass.

Where?  That big spot will be built up soon, as it's part of the Convention Center renovation.  Just west of that is the state gov building.

[joiei]

I wasn't downtown during the clusterf--k, but I have lived and worked in the financial district  of San Francisco, worked in downtown Portland before their fancy new trolleys, worked in downtown New Orleans.  In New Orleans when something big like the Bayou Classic or Mardi Gras or the Superbowl was happening, everybody knew it might take more time so we allowed extra travel time.  I used the busses in order to get there and was never late and they had not special lanes or routes to take
. We, as downtown workers just dealt with it.  It is a learning curve and the downtown workers need to get used to sharing downtown with visitors.  Downtown is not your private enclave, get over yourselves.

To talk about the parking problem, if more downtown workers rode the bus that would free up parking for events.  Think about it.  It sounds like everyone wants to blame the event,  but maybe everyone will start to rethink how they transport to downtown on a regular basis.  If there is more parking for daytime events maybe there would be more downtown events during the day and more people downtown to liven up the streets and more stores opening because there are more people walking around taking in the sights and shopping.  What was it like in the old days that everyone waxes so poetic about.  I would bet lots of traffic, very few parking spaces, lots of people walking around, lots of stores doing business with those people mingleing around.  Was there all that surface parking that we see now,  I have a feeling not.  How did you Tulsans deal with that aspect back then?    

No one needs to be fired.  You all are so spoiled rotten.  You need to rethink about your relation to downtown and to your job.  If Downtown is to become active and alive then you need to let go and make some changes yourselves.  If there becomes a demand for daytime events during the week downtown I say Hurrah.  To demand that events be scheduled around your schedules is so out of it.  

By the way, I do go downtown on a regular basis.  I am always amazed that there is not more traffic or people or life in downtown.  To compare downtown Tulsa to downtown New Orleans just doesn't work, tulsa is like a ghost town compared to New Orleans.  

[marc]

All the naysayers who said Tulsa couldn't fill an arena must be surprised by the crowds at The Eagles, American Idol and Get Motivated events. It seems to me that the heavy traffic was just another sign of success.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by Gold

quote:Originally posted by inteller

so what I want to know is, who is at fault, and when are they getting fired?  I don't want to hear any bull**** about "growing pains" or "working the kinks out"  They had months notice on this.

Da mare is directly responsible for this debacle.  She has authority to plan for this kind of crap.  Thank goodness there was no major medical emergencies in the fubar parts of downtown.  The planning negligence exposed the city to liability today.

What is even MORE insulting is putting the downtown workers in direct competition for parking with attendees.  I can just imagine how the conversation went:

"Hi, we are Zig Zigler motivational speaker series and we will be in your region late Sept, but we can only visit your podunk town on a Monday instead of a weekend"

Mare's office:  "Ok, but we need you to start at 8 because if all of the naysayers get downtown at 9 and find all of the good parking taken they will make us look bad"

Ziglar:  "No problem!  In fact we will do one better, we will go until 4:45 so we can unleash our 18000 motivated individuals on your pissed off workforce for rush hour traffic"

Mare's office:  "EXCELLENT!"

Question: were you downtown yesterday?  Because I was and the traffic at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM was minimal.  I drove up Boston, like every day, and it was no different for a Monday.  Parked in my usual garage, went by the office, and then took the five minute walk to the arena.  

The issue was people not knowing where to go downtown (wanting parking spots at the arena, I guess) and other folks not paying attention.  That said, I had another event to go to last night nearby and they event sent us am email warning about the traffic after the BOk event.  The result was I parked a block further from that event than normal.

So, as a person who works downtown, attended the event, and had to deal with the effects as someone who had to navigate around the traffic, the disruption was MINIMAL.

For what it's work, they ran a shuttle from Eastland Mall to the event yesterday.  When I called to get my tickets, they actually warned me about the parking.

You are talking out your donkey with blinders on.  It is a FACT that it was a traffic nightmare downtown....don't try and ignore all the news stories.  John Bolton and the rest of the donkey talkers need to be FIRED.  That ****er had the gall to say "we needed to get one of these under our belt"  That is like saying everyone need to have a hot poker shoved up their donkey at least once.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by marc

All the naysayers who said Tulsa couldn't fill an arena must be surprised by the crowds at The Eagles, American Idol and Get Motivated events. It seems to me that the heavy traffic was just another sign of success.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

tell us that in two years....