South Tulsa Bridge Update

[RecycleMichael]

Some of my favorite cities have "Green Belts" and areas where there is very low density, rural/country farm type development.  This acts to contain sprawl and increase density.  If you have good development guidelines for good infill you can create a really good quality of life.  Its very nice to live in an area that has good quality urban spaces and right nearby, beautiful rural/country space.  What we have here is mostly bleh, more and more sprawl that is neither city nor country that goes on forever.

I think the river and the parks around it could kind of sort of act as a little bit of a green belt for our city and adding more bridges to the suburbs cuts through the green belt and decreases any benefit it could have.   

This is what I do for a living now.
I try to protect green space.
www.landlegacy.com

[swake]

This is what I do for a living now.
I try to protect green space.
www.landlegacy.com

So that brings up a good question, is that Land Legacy greenbelt park in the East Village downtown still on? It seems that the Nordam site that Brickhugger just bought has to directly next to where that park is/was supposed to go.

[cannon_fodder]

Find me a spot in Tulsa where I can have an acreage, 20+, large enough to support a garden where we can grow all our own vegetables, have an orchard of 24 various fruit trees as well as blackberries, raspberries and blueberries planted that supply a large portion of our fresh fruit, where I can raise chickens, rabbits and where my wife can keep her horses. Somewhere I can have a berm built and target practice when I feel like it. Find me something that fits all those requirements and I might consider it.

You basically can't. You have absolutely chosen wisely and list a ton of great reasons to not live in the city. I have a great number of friends with horses, or 4 wheeler tracks, farm fields/pastures, or want access to a lake, etc., that simply can't do that in an urban environment. I'm not trying to say I have a problem with that at all. In fact, it sounds awesome. If I didn't live IN the City, I'd live in the country where I can do everything you are talking about (not the in-between area where you have neither of the benefits in my view).

I live in the middle of Tulsa. I have a backyard with a small garden (new tactic this year - grow up! on trestles, so hopefully more garden!), a few fruiting trees, and an outdoor kitchen. My house is ~1200 square feet and my neighbors are 10' away. There are wealthy people and poor people all around me. I'm 5 minutes from downtown. I can walk to several cars, restaurants, grocery stores, gyms, pharmacies, bike stores, etc. etc. etc. But if I want to ride my mountain bike its a 20 minute drive. If I want to shoot my rifles, ride a horse, or whatever else its a 30 minute drive.

I have no problem with the choice I have made - I choose to live far from the rural activities I enjoy. By choosing urban over suburban I chose more diverse group of people, more traffic noise, and a smaller house. And I have no intention of asking for some rural or suburban area to pay for infrastructure benefiting me so I can more easily enjoy their quality of life. 

[Red Arrow]

It is simply a fact that longer commute times increases demand for housing closer in. ...

Up to the point of property values getting too high. Then you move to the suburbs or live in a tenement affordable housing.

It is a truism in urban planning that freeways created fast and easy access to cheaper suburbs, helping eliminate demand for older inner neighborhoods and creating the sprawl that America has enjoyed since the 1960s.

Migration to the suburbs started before ready access to the automobile and freeways.  Seen those spots about the OKC trolleys and the developers that used what we see as the savior of cities to create early suburbia?

[Red Arrow]

Since both communities listed are sales tax donor communities, do you propose they then should share in the sales tax generated by their residents from purchases made in Tulsa?

What I would propose is that Jenks and Bixby build the bridge (maybe with some county/state/federal money but not City of Tulsa money) and share with COT in the cost of improving Yale and Delaware.  Tulsa would need the sales tax of Bixby and Jenks citizens spending money in Tulsa to maintain the road improvements.  That is how us foreigners help pay for the infrastructure to get us to your sales tax generators.  The rich folks along Yale probably wouldn't see it that way but Delaware really needs something.  It will be used.  Keeping it in crappy condition will not stop development in Bixby.  I'm sure those folks in public housing near where Delaware and 121st meet aren't happy with the traffic and condition of Delaware.  There are a bunch of expensive cars with low profile tires there.

[Red Arrow]

I mean city officials from both areas were blind to what the repercussions of not planning for that growth would mean. They were too busy squabbling over other issues unrelated to serving their constituents.

That a bridge is needed is a no brainer. You don't ignore a communities needs because it didn't happen to grow the way you wanted it too. I have heard that argument by city planners in the past, only to be recognized as folly later when it became more expensive to build. Case in point was 15th and Utica. It was often argued that by keeping the intersection crowded and slow that it would decrease traffic. It didn't. They later added turn lanes.

Maybe that's why we have this infernal backwards/slanted parking cropping up around here.

Backwards parking by backwards thinkers.  I like it.   

[RecycleMichael]

So that brings up a good question, is that Land Legacy greenbelt park in the East Village downtown still on? It seems that the Nordam site that Brickhugger just bought has to directly next to where that park is/was supposed to go.

No. That project fell through a few years ago.

We did build the park at 6th and Main and one on Archer by the Coney Island.

[Red Arrow]

The sales tax argument is sound. If adding this bridge would contribute to Tulsa sales tax base more than it would detract from the resident/property tax base, it could be an economically sound decision. But there isn't commercial in that area.

We have a secret cloaking device to hide a highly commercial area south of the river west of Sheridan.  Citizens of Tulsa cannot see it but that is where everyone in the developing mobile home areas go shopping.  They cannot afford to go to the expensive Tulsa stores.  There is no need to go to the east side of the Jenks bridge (Kohl's etc) or up Yale to places like Whole Foods.  There is some token commercial development along Memorial south of the river but about the only place I go is to Carmichael's.  Traffic along Peoria/Elm in Jenks is terrible, especially where it goes under the Creek Tpk.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Not blind, unable to stop it.
My parents wanted a big lot, about an acre.  They also wanted a good school for my sister who was starting 9th grade.  We got the big lot.  My sister said 9th grade in Bixby was like 8th grade in suburban Phila, PA. There was even a bit of 7th grade thrown in.  She was here last week visiting so I asked her about it.  She said she was unchallenged and bored to death.  That was in the early 70s.  If Bixby was supposed to be good, I'm glad my parents didn't move into a TPS district.

Bixby was not that good in the 70's.  TPS was better at that time.  And TPS was 2 full years behind schools I went to in Iowa - they taught us algebra in 5th grade!!  Along with 'rithmetic....

[heironymouspasparagus]

It's not hostility. South Tulsa has ruined this city. Time to confront it.

Perspective moment;

That comment - "South Tulsa has ruined this city..." is similar mantra to what I have heard since the 50's when 'south Tulsa' was the newly developing area around Ranch Acres.  31st and Harvard.  We moved "out to the country" near 36th and Harvard.  Mayo Meadows was the eastern implementation of that urban sprawl at the same time, and a few years later, we went out there, too, to city limits near 21st and Memorial.

South Tulsa has been 'ruining' this city since just after WWII.....

[cannon_fodder]

We have a secret cloaking device to hide a highly commercial area south of the river west of Sheridan.  Citizens of Tulsa cannot see it but that is where everyone in the developing mobile home areas go shopping.  They cannot afford to go to the expensive Tulsa stores.  There is no need to go to the east side of the Jenks bridge (Kohl's etc) or up Yale to places like Whole Foods.  There is some token commercial development along Memorial south of the river but about the only place I go is to Carmichael's.  Traffic along Peoria/Elm in Jenks is terrible, especially where it goes under the Creek Tpk.

I'm confused. The only commercial property near the proposed bridge is 3.5 miles away on Riverside, directly across from the 96th Street Bridge and Creek Turnpike Bridge. Or the commercial property along Memorial, which is in Bixby. As far as shortening the distance from the new bridge to any of these places, there are maybe 1,000 people that would benefit.

Again, the real reason they want the bridge is so developers can more easily sell track housing in Bixby. Those farm fields would be much easier to turn into lots and sell if there was a bridge right there. Which is a fine goal - for the developers and for Bixby.

[AquaMan]

Bixby was not that good in the 70's.  TPS was better at that time.  And TPS was 2 full years behind schools I went to in Iowa - they taught us algebra in 5th grade!!  Along with 'rithmetic....

Actually, we studied some algebra (signed numbers) in the 6th grade in Tulsa at Kendall elementary. That was the 60's. It was simple stuff, but readied us for middle school algebra. We had support from student teachers and supplies from nearby TU. Of course we also had foreign language, art, music, band and physical ed. Stuff that's been cut out of schools thanks to our forward thinking state leaders. No use wasting education on folks who are only going to be flipping burgers and mowing our lawns.

[Red Arrow]

I'm confused. The only commercial property near the proposed bridge is 3.5 miles away on Riverside, directly across from the 96th Street Bridge and Creek Turnpike Bridge. Or the commercial property along Memorial, which is in Bixby. As far as shortening the distance from the new bridge to any of these places, there are maybe 1,000 people that would benefit.

Again, the real reason they want the bridge is so developers can more easily sell track housing in Bixby. Those farm fields would be much easier to turn into lots and sell if there was a bridge right there. Which is a fine goal - for the developers and for Bixby.

There are a few commercial sites at 91st & Yale in the Whole Food complex and nearby.  A few more at 81st & Yale like Fresh Market and Farrell Family Bread.  That plus 91st to 101st along Riverside and Delaware would be closer than anything except south of the river in Bixby.  Do some looking on Google maps.  Not having a bridge is not going to stop development south of the river.  Having a bridge would probably make it easier to sell tracts south of the river but those places are going to sell anyway.  Most of those folks will shop in Tulsa if it is convenient.  Again, block the bridge and you guarantee commercial development south of the river, probably between Glenpool and Bixby. 151st could become the new 71st.  Please don't let that happen.  When our family moved here in 1971, Memorial was 2 lanes south of the RR at 41st & Memorial and it didn't matter.  There was almost nothing south of about 57th St.  Woodland Hills was started in 1976 and it's been all downhill regarding traffic since.

[cannon_fodder]

You raise some good points. However, those commercial developments are 3-5 miles away from the subdivisions.  If the area develops, it is likely that a commercial hub would go in anyway.

But to clarify, I don't think Tulsa should actively block the bridge. It certainly isn't devastating for Tulsa. Merely that I understand why Tulsa doesn't want to help pay for it. Eventually, the bridge is likely to happen - the question is, "on who's dime?"

[swake]

You raise some good points. However, those commercial developments are 3-5 miles away from the subdivisions.  If the area develops, it is likely that a commercial hub would go in anyway.

But to clarify, I don't think Tulsa should actively block the bridge. It certainly isn't devastating for Tulsa. Merely that I understand why Tulsa doesn't want to help pay for it. Eventually, the bridge is likely to happen - the question is, "on who's dime?"

It probably should be the county, or a toll bridge.