Clear Water Carwash on Cherry Street....

[DTowner]

Abuelos would be the 4th Tex-Mexicanish chain restaurant on this stretch of 15th (Chipotle, Mi Cocina, Qdoba), plus a local Mexican joint - Chimi's.  Seems that type of food is pretty well covered from low end to high end.

Nonetheless, replacing the car wash would be good for Cherry St., especially if whatever is built maintains the character of the rest of the street.

[SXSW]

Yeah Mexican really doesn't make sense here.  A big patio area on 15th would be nice though.

The empty lot to the north has some really big old trees, hopefully they can preserve some of them for what would likely be the parking area.  There are newer townhomes just to the north (the brightly colored ones).

[carltonplace]

Hopefully they will build to the street to match the area, they must understand that the zero setbacks on Cherry Street are what make this street work and helps to bring the crowds. As long as they build for form over function then we will at least have a new building when Abuelo's goes under.

[Conan71]

Hopefully they will build to the street to match the area, they must understand that the zero setbacks on Cherry Street are what make this street work and helps to bring the crowds. As long as they build for form over function then we will at least have a new building when Abuelo's goes under.

Shouldn't be a foreign concept to them, since the one in Hicktown, er Bricktown is a zero setback building, but so is pretty much everything else there.

[Townsend]

or

[davideinstein]

So it has to meet parking minimums for a restaurant, but the planning board still has to approve the site plan.  I would think anything not in character with the rest of the businesses on the street would get turned down, which is why we see new buildings in Cherry Street and Brookside facing the sidewalk.  Now if we can just get the code to also reduce parking requirements then we would be in better shape as these districts evolve.  I hope eventually the streetscape on 15th can be improved; the angled parking is fine but there needs to be bump-outs at the intersections and better sidewalks, with more trees.

Hoping this isn't another chain, Cherry St has plenty of those already and is already saturated with Mexican food.  

Angled parking is awful! Needs to be parallel parking on one side with bike lanes on each side. I don't care if people can't find a spot. Bike safety is more important.

[SXSW]

Biking on 15th was scary before and even more so with the angled parking.  Since they just changed it I don't see it going back to parallel anytime soon. 13th and 14th are better alternatives for biking in the area.

[Conan71]

I don't care how they configure it, there is simply too much traffic, too many turn ins, and too many distractions to the motorists to even think about riding a bicycle down Cherry St. from Utica to Peoria.  Change the parking configuration all you like, it will never be safe on a bike.

[carltonplace]

Its barely safe for pedestrians...I don't ride my bike on Cherry Street unless that is my destination.

[DowntownDan]

I jog through Cherry Street all the time.  You have to slow down to go around pedestrians but that's no biggie.  Crossing the street is admittedly not ideal.  The worst part of jogging through the area is smelling the good food and seeing people having drinks and enjoying themselves and hoping your run ends faster so that you can partake.

[Dspike]

Has there ever been a proposal to turn 15th from Peoria to Utica into a car-free zone? The road is pretty narrow, but would make a great walkable boulevard. Not sure where folks would park then, but it seems to be one of the most ideal places for a full pedestrian takeover.

[Townsend]

Has there ever been a proposal to turn 15th from Peoria to Utica into a car-free zone? The road is pretty narrow, but would make a great walkable boulevard. Not sure where folks would park then, but it seems to be one of the most ideal places for a full pedestrian takeover.

Interesting idea but this is Tulsa.  We've taken an intersection in DT and made it pedestrian friendly and then ripped it up and made it car friendly again.

[TheArtist]

Interesting idea but this is Tulsa.  We've taken an intersection in DT and made it pedestrian friendly and then ripped it up and made it car friendly again.

Actually that area of downtown did not have pedestrian zoning.

During the late 70s and 80s lots of cities lots of small to medium sized cities tried the "pedestrian mall" concept.  One city I was reading about, in the late 90s noticed that theirs had died and did some research about what other cities had done.  They noticed a trend.  Every city that had pedestrian zoning in their pedestrian mall area, the area had flourished.  Every city that did not have pedestrian zoning in their pedestrian mall area, the area had failed. Any 5 year old could understand the concept (a pedestrian mall should have pedestrian zoning). Too bad we apparently don't have anyone at the top in our city with the intelligence of a 5 year old.

Tulsa does not have pedestrian/transit friendly zoning in it's downtown and did not have pedestrian zoning in the pedestrian mall area (and subsequently saw numerous developments which basically gutted the pedestrian friendly nature of large sections of main street.  Btw, the city that did the research, changed their zoning to pedestrian friendly zoning in their pedestrian mall area and it has since become one of the booming bright spots in their downtown.

I don't however think that Cherry Street would work at this stage as a pedestrian only area, but would benefit greatly with some pedestrian friendly zoning.

[Conan71]

Actually that area of downtown did not have pedestrian zoning.

During the late 70s and 80s lots of cities lots of small to medium sized cities tried the "pedestrian mall" concept.  One city I was reading about, in the late 90s noticed that theirs had died and did some research about what other cities had done.  They noticed a trend.  Every city that had pedestrian zoning in their pedestrian mall area, the area had flourished.  Every city that did not have pedestrian zoning in their pedestrian mall area, the area had failed. Any 5 year old could understand the concept (a pedestrian mall should have pedestrian zoning). Too bad we apparently don't have anyone at the top in our city with the intelligence of a 5 year old.

Tulsa does not have pedestrian/transit friendly zoning in it's downtown and did not have pedestrian zoning in the pedestrian mall area (and subsequently saw numerous developments which basically gutted the pedestrian friendly nature of large sections of main street.  Btw, the city that did the research, changed their zoning to pedestrian friendly zoning in their pedestrian mall area and it has since become one of the booming bright spots in their downtown.

I don't however think that Cherry Street would work at this stage as a pedestrian only area, but would benefit greatly with some pedestrian friendly zoning.

Where I get confused is what is "pedestrian zoning" exactly?  I don't think Main Mall could have been more walkable than it was.  What improvements does pedestrian zoning provide that helps an area like that?

I suspect some of the failure of the pedestrian mall on Main Street in downtown was also due to terrible timing that came along with a fairly sour economy in Tulsa in the early 1980's and a lot of energy-dependent jobs which used to be downtown had gone to either the suburbs or Houston.  Williams moved much of their operations to the office park at 66 & Yale that now houses Warren Clinic and various other companies.

Interesting, just as soon as I wrote that, I pulled up this old blog from Batesline from 2005 that indicated this was a dying trend around the rest of the country when this was instituted here in the late 1970's.

http://www.batesline.com/archives/2005/07/lost-tulsa-the.html

[Townsend]

Actually that area of downtown did not have pedestrian zoning.

Never mentioned zoning.  Just would've been a motherf'er to drive through.