Tulsa "Economic Recovery" Projects

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

no kidding.  I think the boulder bridge thing is a crock.  And I didn't vote for no "design study" or "engineering work"  They are supposed to be tearing that thing down already.  When I voted for the streets, I voted to get that damn bridge REBUILT!

The project was listed as "Bridge Replacement".  I don't know how they could come back and say they really just budgeted to conduct a study on the bridge's impact on the three-toed sloth.

[inteller]

one thing I heard at the UED meeting was that only street projects where all of the ROW had been acquired can be submitted because that is how ODOT works and the money flows from the feds through them to the cities.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

quote:Originally posted by inteller

no kidding.  I think the boulder bridge thing is a crock.  And I didn't vote for no "design study" or "engineering work"  They are supposed to be tearing that thing down already.  When I voted for the streets, I voted to get that damn bridge REBUILT!

The project was listed as "Bridge Replacement".  I don't know how they could come back and say they really just budgeted to conduct a study on the bridge's impact on the three-toed sloth.

The amount they budgeted towards the bridge was pretty slim to start with and I've heard they want to do more to accommodate pedestrian traffic separate of auto traffic so this may be to upgrade the design a bit.

[perspicuity85]

quote:Originally posted by pmcalk

As a rule, I agree with Friedman, but I think that his column today is spot on.  We need to balance between quick fixes, and long term strategies:

quote:Tax Cuts for Teachers
             
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 10, 2009

Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They're each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11friedman.html?ref=opinion

Best line:  "If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs."

Thank you for posting that article-- it brings up some great points that are highly relevant to Tulsa, namely the fix the streets cry of local citizens.  While I agree that Tulsa's streets are poor condition, I think more must be done to fix the streets besides just actually fixing them.  What I mean is get to the root of the problem by asking the right questions: why are the streets in such poor condition in the first place?  Why did the population in Tulsa city proper decrease by 11,000 residents from 2000 to 2007, while the metro area increased by almost 40,000 residents?  I think the above article helps to answer these questions.  Generally speaking, streets and physical infrastructure are not Tulsa's problem, in and of themselves.  Rather, they are manifestations of Tulsa's real problem, which is lack of investment in the city core.  Of course, we have made some great improvements in city core investment in the past five years or so.  It's worth noting that both the public and private sectors have placed considerable investment in the city core.  Unfortunately, the fate of our city streets was sealed long ago, as the Tulsa metro landscape sprawled further and further out of town.  The good news is that the recent investments seem to be slowly increasing demand for residential, office, and retail space in the city core.  Specifically, Downtown Tulsa seems poised to finally turn the corner.  Public investments such as the BOk Ctr, Convention Ctr. remodel, new baseball stadium, and OSU-Tulsa tech research facility will pay off in the long run.  Private investments in the Blue Dome, Brady, Greenwood, and new arena-area Districts complement and should vastly outpace the public investments in the long run.

In short, we have to continue to add value to the idea of living in Tulsa.  I think Mr. Friedman would agree that American communities in general must continue to add value to the very things that give communities' economies a competitive advantage-- their unique lifestyle.  We have to invest in our local blue chips: higher education, business infrastructure, arts, culture, and recreation-- things that make people want to live in town.  Otherwise, people will keep asking for new roads, new bridges, and new utility lines that go to their out-of-town home, so they can get what the need from the city and get the hell out!

[OurTulsa]

Stop the Boondoggles, Six-Lane Highways, MPOs: James S. Russell

Commentary by James S. Russell

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- In a narrow swath along Manhattan's Hudson River, stone walls and beautiful arched bridges set off with trees disguise a buried railroad and entwine a six-lane highway.

This is Riverside Park, and it's an infrastructure masterpiece.

Congress and President Obama shouldn't commit themselves to spending billions for "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects before examining every inch of the park, which was built during the Depression.

Regrettably, we can't create its contemporary equivalent today. Great ossified bureaucracies make it all but impossible to unite highways, rails, transit and appealing walkways.

I fear that "shovel ready" means boondoggles like the E- 470 beltway, a six-lane, 46-mile arc through empty high-desert grasslands dotted with new subdivisions east of Denver. Cars cruise the wide-open toll road at 80 miles per hour.

Touted as essential to the metro area's growth, this land developers' delight hasn't lightened loads on more centrally located highways. It's just rearranged growth patterns, scattering splotches of development over an unimaginably large landscape. New residents depend on long beltway commutes by car.

We can't do better now, the lobbying legions say, we need to start the bulldozers fast. Translation: No bridge to nowhere will be left behind.

What's wrong with America's way of building transportation has long been known. We segregate roads, mass transit, railways and air. Each has its own pot of money. It's no one's job to assemble a transportation system that offers the right travel mode for the task at hand.

Obscure MPOs

Aside from the odious earmarks, most transportation funding decisions are made by Metropolitan Planning Organizations. Never heard of MPOs? They're supposed to set priorities based on real needs, though instead they operate in obscurity and allow the political horse-trading to go on unimpeded by real oversight.

So much is made of the nation's neglect of infrastructure, yet the U.S. actually is spending record sums on it.

We don't make progress because the nation fails to lay out new communities so they can be efficiently served by means other than the auto. A start would be to group people-intensive colleges and commercial centers as hubs along corridors served by transit and walkable streets.

While the bureaucracies (state and federal) get overhauled, officials can easily cross off much on the wish lists, like all those beltways that are really land-development schemes posing as congestion relief. (Charlotte, North Carolina, killed an outer- beltway plan some years ago and has done fine, thank you.)

Next, knock out the fourth, fifth and sixth expressway lanes. When roads get that big, there's enough demand to support high-quality transit. The six rail tracks that tunnel into New York's Penn Station haul as many people as 45 freeway lanes.

Walkable Downtowns

What should Obama support? Lots of innovation has been trickling up from municipalities. Beltway suburbs like Bellevue, Washington, turned their parking-lot acres into high-value suburban downtowns. Focused on transit, they're appealing as places to walk, shop, work and live.

Some metro areas are aligning roads and rails (both freight and passenger) in corridors to support these emerging urban hubs. The San Francisco Bay Area could use some cash to finally finish a rapid-transit extension linking Oakland and the East Bay to San Jose and Silicon Valley. Without additional aid, underfunded and overburdened big cities will soon have to stop long-planned, often-deferred projects like New York's Second Avenue Subway.

Little Parks

Express bus lanes and bikeways sharing "green streets" with cars can reduce auto dependency. In the best cases, each mode is physically separated from the others by planted buffers. These little Riverside Parks aren't just pretty. They make pedestrian crossings safer and sop up storm water -- essential in an increasingly flood-prone era.

Dollars spent that get Americans out of cars will ease traffic, save money, reduce pollution, slow global warming and make us less vulnerable to volatile oil oligarchs.

Road projects do little more than rearrange the traffic jams. Look for freeway spectaculars among the proposals, like the 23-lane extravaganza touted for Atlanta's suburbs. Mark them "D" -- for delusional.

(James S. Russell is Bloomberg's U.S. architecture critic. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: James S. Russell in New York at jamesrussell@earthlink.net.

Last Updated: January 22, 2009 00:01 EST


--- I can't help it, every time I see discussion related to the Gilcrease Exprwy I wonder...why?  Is this new highway really necessary?  I don't see it relieving any traffic congestion...we're already expanding I-44 for that right and we have the Creek as a by pass.  I just can't help but think that this project serves very few and we're committing tons to it over time.  

How much of 'road improvements - 74 segments' is going to build new capacity?  When we complain and complain about our existing roadways I hope that the overwhelming majority is going to fixing our streets above and beyond what we just voted for.  

[patric]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

quote:Originally posted by inteller

no kidding.  I think the boulder bridge thing is a crock.  And I didn't vote for no "design study" or "engineering work"  They are supposed to be tearing that thing down already.  When I voted for the streets, I voted to get that damn bridge REBUILT!

The project was listed as "Bridge Replacement".  I don't know how they could come back and say they really just budgeted to conduct a study on the bridge's impact on the three-toed sloth.

But they had to put in decorative lights first.
Dont you know what a priority that is? [)]

[OurTulsa]

quote:Originally posted by perspicuity85

quote:Originally posted by pmcalk

As a rule, I agree with Friedman, but I think that his column today is spot on.  We need to balance between quick fixes, and long term strategies:

quote:Tax Cuts for Teachers
             
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 10, 2009

Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They're each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11friedman.html?ref=opinion

Best line:  "If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs."

Thank you for posting that article-- it brings up some great points that are highly relevant to Tulsa, namely the fix the streets cry of local citizens.  While I agree that Tulsa's streets are poor condition, I think more must be done to fix the streets besides just actually fixing them.  What I mean is get to the root of the problem by asking the right questions: why are the streets in such poor condition in the first place?  Why did the population in Tulsa city proper decrease by 11,000 residents from 2000 to 2007, while the metro area increased by almost 40,000 residents?  I think the above article helps to answer these questions.  Generally speaking, streets and physical infrastructure are not Tulsa's problem, in and of themselves.  Rather, they are manifestations of Tulsa's real problem, which is lack of investment in the city core.  Of course, we have made some great improvements in city core investment in the past five years or so.  It's worth noting that both the public and private sectors have placed considerable investment in the city core.  Unfortunately, the fate of our city streets was sealed long ago, as the Tulsa metro landscape sprawled further and further out of town.  The good news is that the recent investments seem to be slowly increasing demand for residential, office, and retail space in the city core.  Specifically, Downtown Tulsa seems poised to finally turn the corner.  Public investments such as the BOk Ctr, Convention Ctr. remodel, new baseball stadium, and OSU-Tulsa tech research facility will pay off in the long run.  Private investments in the Blue Dome, Brady, Greenwood, and new arena-area Districts complement and should vastly outpace the public investments in the long run.

In short, we have to continue to add value to the idea of living in Tulsa.  I think Mr. Friedman would agree that American communities in general must continue to add value to the very things that give communities' economies a competitive advantage-- their unique lifestyle.  We have to invest in our local blue chips: higher education, business infrastructure, arts, culture, and recreation-- things that make people want to live in town.  Otherwise, people will keep asking for new roads, new bridges, and new utility lines that go to their out-of-town home, so they can get what the need from the city and get the hell out!

I agree.  I would also like for us to reconsider how we design our streets.  I would like to see us expand the role of streets beyond just utilities for moving cars.  Streets should be seen as spaces that connect our public.  They are common spaces that permit the movement of people in various modes.  I would like our policy makers understand that if we can redesign our streets and encourage land use patterns around the streets that promote other modes, wear and tear will be greatly reduced while potentially increasing quality of life.

[Gaspar]

Only 166 billion of the bill will be to states now.  

The rest has now been earmarked as expected, so we probably need to pick just one of these projects from the list and focus on that.  

Wonderful list of earmarks:
Digital TV coupons
Almost a quarter of a Billion for Sod (grass).
Almost half a Billion for something called "National Treasures" (I really didn't think that movie was that great).
One billion for block grants.

1.3 trillion will be needed, we now have 166 Billion, but the average citizen won't understand this.  

Pitiful!

[sgrizzle]

Think of the thousands employed to watch grass grow.

[Double A]

I'm not a fan of the stimulus and am somewhat skeptical of the Tulsa projects.

I wish there would have been money to help Tulsa fund projects to deal with our Ozone problem being that there is a constantly increasing  struggle just to meet attainment standards, much less resolve the problem.

[cannon_fodder]

Double AA:

Per pollution, we will be on the dirty air list ion the near future.  Not because our pollution is getting worse (it has actually improved marginally), but because standards are being raised.  As I understand it, our inclusion on the new list under the new standards is almost a foregone conclusion (not an pollution expert, I stand to be corrected).
- - -

Also, as a point of order, this is funds requested for proposed projects.  I do not believe any of this money has been approved or allocated for our projects yet.  Again, please correct me if I am wrong.
- - -

[RecycleMichael]

Tulsa's air improved again last year with every regional monitor showing declines of at least two points.

Unfortunately for Tulsa and hundreds of other American cities, the new standard dropped significantly and now Tulsa has failed to meet the lower standard. The old standard was 84 parts per billion and the new standard is 75 parts per billion. Most of the Tulsa monitors are around 80.

The governor will probably have to declare us in non-compliance this summer and the EPA will declare us so in 2010.

The rules are being contested, so anything is possible and if we have a great 2009 season, it is possible that EPA won't designate us non-compliant.

I don't know how stimulus money could be spent to improve air quality, but I am sure that road projects can sometimes back up traffic and cause worse air. The alternative transportation options could lead to less cars on the street which would really help.

[TURobY]

Maybe giant fans that blow the air to Springfield, MO? []

[RecycleMichael]

We could just buy helicopters to hover over the monitors on really bad days.

[TURobY]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

We could just buy helicopters to hover over the monitors on really bad days.

Just make sure that they are black helicopters.