Oklahoma Opportunity

[nathanm]

Although compensation is largely market driven, it boils down to a SINGLE entity paying someone what it believes that individual is worth to them, and that is all that matters.  Doesn't matter if others outside of that agreement concur or not (their name isn't anywhere on the check).

In theory. In practice, CEOs have been fleecing shareholders due to poor corporate governance and a bunch of inbred compensation committees doing the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" thing. One must always keep in mind that management does not own the public companies you're talking about.

As far as Tulsa's development is concerned, we won't see big things until the city is willing to do for downtown what they're willing to do for the outer areas, which is zone appropriately and spend money on transportation projects appropriate to the area. Happily, we have enough risk takers in this town that we're getting quite a bit of pedestrian oriented development in downtown despite the city's continued inaction. Almost enough to keep some of our young people here, even. Transit is the biggest stumbling block remaining there (at least among the people I talk to). It's still a huge PITA to live in Tulsa without a car in the family, no matter what neighborhood you choose.

I was very disappointed to hear the rumors that the Peoria quasi-BRT is going to be one of the last V2 projects.

[Red Arrow]

Transit is the biggest stumbling block remaining there (at least among the people I talk to). It's still a huge PITA to live in Tulsa without a car in the family, no matter what neighborhood you choose.

Tulsa's transit system certainly needs improvement.  I think there are not very many cities in the US where living without a car is truly workable except maybe a few select neighborhoods.  Anyone care to start a list?  I nominate NYC. 

[Hoss]

Tulsa's transit system certainly needs improvement.  I think there are not very many cities in the US where living without a car is truly workable except maybe a few select neighborhoods.  Anyone care to start a list?  I nominate NYC. 

San Francisco if you live/work in the city limits.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

San Francisco if you live/work in the city limits.

Hmmm, you can get to SF from San Jose, Fremont, Dublin, and other outlying cities quite easily on BART. Fremont to Embarcadero is ~40 minutes in the morning on a work day.

Back in September, I took BART from Fremont to Embarcadero, and then SF Muni to AT&T park for a game and it took about 50 minutes, and back to Fremont took about 50 minutes, and cost $15.00. Parking near the park was $20.00 and up. If you live in the Bay area, you buy a Muni Pass that also works with BART, and you can include the cable cars and other transit, (yes people use the cable cars in SF for more than tourism) and god forbid you have to walk a half mile to work from your station it's a hell of a lot cheaper than driving and paying for parking and any bridge tolls.

But then again, it requires walking, which is foreign to a lot of people.

[TheArtist]

Tulsa's transit system certainly needs improvement.  I think there are not very many cities in the US where living without a car is truly workable except maybe a few select neighborhoods.  Anyone care to start a list?  I nominate NYC.  

No way Tulsa or many cities in the US can be said to have anything but "workable transit except in a few select neighborhoods/areas."  For some areas of Tulsa it will be relatively easy, bur for large areas of Tulsa it will not be possible because of the way it's designed.  But more and more are able to offer TOD in ever larger parts of their cities, except for Tulsa because we have not yet made the "transition" to allow for it or fund for it.  Would be really nice to be able to at least offer some or even be showing that you are working in that direction like say Dallas and Austin. Salt Lake City is one that has built a system that will blow your mind how far they have come in such a short time, the amount of TOD they have under construction now is amazing. DC is an obvious example where you can live without a car if you want, had a friend visit here who lived in that area and did not have a car. Portland, Seattle, parts of NJ like where I stayed for a while had excellent transit options, Boston, Santa Fe, Chicago, Charlotte, Denver, Los Angeles believe it or not and they have 5 new lines under construction right now.  I could go on and on for a lot of cities, that once did not have good transit or TOD that are building up their transit systems, that have zoned for TOD, and seeing their cores really take off and attract people and businesses.    

If you gave me a good circulator in downtown, and a circulator that went up Brookside from the two grocery stores there and connected to Cherry Street, Utica Square area, and Downtown. I would be quite happy to live without a car in Tulsa.

[Red Arrow]

No way Tulsa or many cities in the US can be said to have anything but "workable transit except in a few select neighborhoods/areas."  
If you gave me a good circulator in downtown, and a circulator that went up Brookside from the two grocery stores there and connected to Cherry Street, Utica Square area, and Downtown. I would be quite happy to live without a car in Tulsa.

See the map of Phila, PA for what I think of when I was saying "select neighborhoods".
http://www.phillytrolley.org/trackmap/ptc_track_map.html

The map shown is 1954.  There are some regional maps at that site too.

[Rookie Okie]

San Francisco if you live/work in the city limits.

Just over the border in Toronto, and the same can be said for Montreal.

[Rookie Okie]

No way Tulsa or many cities in the US can be said to have anything but "workable transit except in a few select neighborhoods/areas."  For some areas of Tulsa it will be relatively easy, bur for large areas of Tulsa it will not be possible because of the way it's designed.  But more and more are able to offer TOD in ever larger parts of their cities, except for Tulsa because we have not yet made the "transition" to allow for it or fund for it.  Would be really nice to be able to at least offer some or even be showing that you are working in that direction like say Dallas and Austin. Salt Lake City is one that has built a system that will blow your mind how far they have come in such a short time, the amount of TOD they have under construction now is amazing. DC is an obvious example where you can live without a car if you want, had a friend visit here who lived in that area and did not have a car. Portland, Seattle, parts of NJ like where I stayed for a while had excellent transit options, Boston, Santa Fe, Chicago, Charlotte, Denver, Los Angeles believe it or not and they have 5 new lines under construction right now.  I could go on and on for a lot of cities, that once did not have good transit or TOD that are building up their transit systems, that have zoned for TOD, and seeing their cores really take off and attract people and businesses.    

If you gave me a good circulator in downtown, and a circulator that went up Brookside from the two grocery stores there and connected to Cherry Street, Utica Square area, and Downtown. I would be quite happy to live without a car in Tulsa.

It would be interesting to see a feasibility finding of what one of these systems would cost to construct, and perhaps more interesting, the projected cost per ride.  I suspect that the route you propose (which might make the most sense to run if you could only do one such line in Tulsa) would be quite expensive per trip.  I do think it would appeal to folks wanting to shop and hangout in Brookside and Cherry St.  However, I believe the success of the route would be largely tied to gaining a sizable number of commuters riding to and from work on a regular (daily) basis to downtown and Utica Square offices, and probably less so on casual ridership numbers for just Brookside and Cherry St destinations (primarily on weekends or evenings).

[Hoss]

Hmmm, you can get to SF from San Jose, Fremont, Dublin, and other outlying cities quite easily on BART. Fremont to Embarcadero is ~40 minutes in the morning on a work day.

Back in September, I took BART from Fremont to Embarcadero, and then SF Muni to AT&T park for a game and it took about 50 minutes, and back to Fremont took about 50 minutes, and cost $15.00. Parking near the park was $20.00 and up. If you live in the Bay area, you buy a Muni Pass that also works with BART, and you can include the cable cars and other transit, (yes people use the cable cars in SF for more than tourism) and god forbid you have to walk a half mile to work from your station it's a hell of a lot cheaper than driving and paying for parking and any bridge tolls.

But then again, it requires walking, which is foreign to a lot of people.

I'm only speaking as to what I was familiar with, since I was commuting from within the Mission district.  I knew there were other options, but the BART was so easy and quick from that area it was worth noting.

[TheArtist]

It would be interesting to see a feasibility finding of what one of these systems would cost to construct, and perhaps more interesting, the projected cost per ride.  I suspect that the route you propose (which might make the most sense to run if you could only do one such line in Tulsa) would be quite expensive per trip.  I do think it would appeal to folks wanting to shop and hangout in Brookside and Cherry St.  However, I believe the success of the route would be largely tied to gaining a sizable number of commuters riding to and from work on a regular (daily) basis to downtown and Utica Square offices, and probably less so on casual ridership numbers for just Brookside and Cherry St destinations (primarily on weekends or evenings).

Wish people would compare the cost of say a bus circulator downtown with the cost of new parking garages downtown.  My business chips in a little for the trolley to run downtown.  When you consider the cost of a new parking garage could be around 10 mill, and they are considering at least one over time, that could go a long way to having multiple small busses making rather frequent trips.  Then they are also talking about putting more parking and parking garages around River-parks, perhaps one by Cherry Street, etc.  We all know there is plenty of available parking in and around downtown already.  The night of the Justin Bieber concert a while back noticed that there were people parking on Main Street but right there on Main Street is a good sized parking garage that was empty because it was closed in the evening and there is the 6 story parking garage right over my shop where there weren't any people parked either, and I bet there were other parking garages and certainly parking lots in other parts of downtown that were also able to be used.  There is ample parking, put in a couple circulator busses that will pass by the downtown hot spots and already available parking, and ramp that number up during busy times. Don't know why people complain about parking downtown, then get so upset when they see an empty bus/trolley and not as upset when they see an empty parking garage or parking lot?

Also mentioned the idea of the Downtown Circulator and the Brookside/Cherry Street one the other day while talking to some friends and it came up that they would be far more likely to try using the bus from other parts of the city to get to those circulator routes.  Though it may take a little time to get to those routes, once there you could then easily get to everything else in Downtown/Brookside/Cherry Street, Riverside, etc.     

[Conan71]

It would be interesting to see a feasibility finding of what one of these systems would cost to construct, and perhaps more interesting, the projected cost per ride.  I suspect that the route you propose (which might make the most sense to run if you could only do one such line in Tulsa) would be quite expensive per trip.  I do think it would appeal to folks wanting to shop and hangout in Brookside and Cherry St.  However, I believe the success of the route would be largely tied to gaining a sizable number of commuters riding to and from work on a regular (daily) basis to downtown and Utica Square offices, and probably less so on casual ridership numbers for just Brookside and Cherry St destinations (primarily on weekends or evenings).

Here's the thing, we already have a bus system which is under-utilized.  I don't see the need for light rail within the city until the bus system is better utilized (at least I assume you were talking about light rail).   The question is how do you get more people out of their cars and on to the bus who wouldn't even think of getting on a bus now?  Someone I know who owns a PR firm was working on a contract at one point with Tulsa Transit to come up with an image campaign to get more upwardly mobile adults to start riding the bus.  I'm guessing either the contract never materialized or the campaign was a failure.

[Hoss]

Here's the thing, we already have a bus system which is under-utilized.  I don't see the need for light rail within the city until the bus system is better utilized (at least I assume you were talking about light rail).   The question is how do you get more people out of their cars and on to the bus who wouldn't even think of getting on a bus now?  Someone I know who owns a PR firm was working on a contract at one point with Tulsa Transit to come up with an image campaign to get more upwardly mobile adults to start riding the bus.  I'm guessing either the contract never materialized or the campaign was a failure.

That system needs serious upgrading though.  Not everyone works near or in downtown, and that's what makes it a challenge.  I used the system in the early 00s for about six months and realized how broken it really was then.  Including transfers, to my work at the time, it took about 1:05 to and about :50 from.  And frequency (every 30 minutes) was terrible.

[Conan71]

That system needs serious upgrading though.  Not everyone works near or in downtown, and that's what makes it a challenge.  I used the system in the early 00s for about six months and realized how broken it really was then.  Including transfers, to my work at the time, it took about 1:05 to and about :50 from.  And frequency (every 30 minutes) was terrible.

But buses run all over town, not just downtown.  It would seem on more popular routes you could add extra buses so that there isn't the awful lack of frequency you alluded to.  It's been a very long time since I've ridden a Tulsa Transit bus.  Aside from more convenient routing and timing, what sort of other upgrades would you recommend to get more people on the bus?  Are they kept clean?  Are there transients simply using them as a warm spot to nap? What are other key issues you can see that keep people from taking the bus?

When I was a child, one route came down 26th Street between Harvard and Lewis then proceeded up Lewis to the north and finally ended up downtown.  Our house was only three houses off 26th on Delaware.  I could use it to get to school and back at Barnard Elementary on rainy days that walking or riding the bike would have sucked.  I even took that bus line down to the Central Library and back home on occasion.  Of course, that's back before parents had to worry so much about their kids encountering all sorts of creeps out there.

[Hoss]

But buses run all over town, not just downtown.  It would seem on more popular routes you could add extra buses so that there isn't the awful lack of frequency you alluded to.  It's been a very long time since I've ridden a Tulsa Transit bus.  Aside from more convenient routing and timing, what sort of other upgrades would you recommend to get more people on the bus?  Are they kept clean?  Are there transients simply using them as a warm spot to nap? What are other key issues you can see that keep people from taking the bus?

When I was a child, one route came down 26th Street between Harvard and Lewis then proceeded up Lewis to the north and finally ended up downtown.  Our house was only three houses off 26th on Delaware.  I could use it to get to school and back at Barnard Elementary on rainy days that walking or riding the bike would have sucked.  I even took that bus line down to the Central Library and back home on occasion.  Of course, that's back before parents had to worry so much about their kids encountering all sorts of creeps out there.

Keep in mind this was over a decade ago I used them.  I didn't see them being dirty, never really saw transients on them.  For me, however, when I worked at Bender, my options were 1) Take the 17 -SW Blvd route out to Sand Springs and back into downtown (usually I did this because the frequency was so low on this I would have to wait 30 minutes at the stop, so I just hopped it outbound), transfer to the 3 (3rd St/Memorial) then get off at 16th and Memorial in front of my apartment.  Or 2) walk across the 23rd St bridge, pick up the 21 route across the street from the park, get off at 21st/Memorial and lug another half mile home.  I didn't mind the walk, and that usually was a quicker commute, but still took some time from leaving work to home.

I think more frequency would do better.  The routes have changed a bit since they added the mid town transfer station at 33rd and Memorial (or thereabouts), but I was hoping PlaniTulsa would get involved with looking at the lines to see how they would best serve the city and other areas around it.

[Gaspar]

I've been on one of the busses recently in a parade, and found it very clean and comfortable. 

We see the one that comes down Lewis regularly.  During the first of the month it's packed with folks going to the 71st st. Walmart. If you need to shop at that store, it's best to go at the end of the month. We've learned to stay away on the 1st through the 10th.

I think that bus must come from an area without a grocery store, because those folks pack up groceries, some bring garbage bags to put all of their Walmart bags in. The ritual repeats every month.