Vision Extension - IDL Removal/Demolition

[LandArchPoke]

It is my website – I have not done much in terms of making it very public yet, but I've been meeting with varies groups in town to make people aware of it and get feedback.

I've been researching and working on this for several years, and will be submitting it to the Vision projects ideas. Even if it's not included - the economic viability of this project is real, and could be done without Vision funds. There's only a short time period in terms of getting the project off the ground because in 1-2 years the funds will be set in stone with ODOT and can't be reallocated - then we will be stuck with the IDL for another 20-30 years.

A few examples and takeaways:

Central Freeway and Embarcadero – the key takeaway that's applicable to Tulsa for these is that removing freeways does not cause massive gridlock.  People find different routes and adapt – see Riverside Drive, there has been no massive traffic jams and it carries 20,000 commuters in and out of downtown everyday. Just so people know, the BA Expressway handles about the same amount of commuters per day into/out of downtown (the rest are non-downtown inner regional travelers or regional travels i.e. Arkansas to Kansas). Those non-downtown and regional travels would re-route to other routes if the south and east legs were changed to at-grade boulevards. They would take 169 to I-244 through downtown instead of the BA.

To note – traffic counts on the south leg of the IDL are only about 40,000 cars per day, that is the same traffic volume at parts of 71st, Riverside, Yale, Memorial see per day as well. So why are we paying for such over sized infrastructure? It's a misconception that the IDL handles such a large amount of traffic that we can't do anything with it. The Central Freeway and Embarcadero all handled over 100,000 cars per day – more than 2x the IDL – and they did not see any impact to traffic congestion.

West Side Highway – same issue, no added traffic congestion and it has helped the re-birth of the entire west side of NYC by connecting it to the waterfront.

Milwaukee Park East Freeway– This example I used for construction cost estimation as it's the most recent example and Milwaukee construction costs are way more applicable to Tulsa than San Francisco. Again, this section handled more traffic per day than any section of the IDL currently sees – yet no increase in traffic congestion was experienced when it was removed.

Economic Development

We can open up very valuable land for infill development by simply slimming down our infrastructure.

I did a return on investment calculation for this to see if this was even a good investment for the city. The assumptions are: $45 million per mile for demolition and reconstruction of the street-grid for a total of $142 million. We reallot the $79 million in ODOT funds from repaving the IDL to this project. The city then bonds the rest or $63 million. What's the return on that $63 million? Well we assume a 3 year construction period (which likely could be 1-2 years). Land sales to developers would begin occurring in Year 3. We would infill each new city block with 300 units, first development delivers Year 5. The income from land sales and ad valorem taxes from the multi-family units would give the city of Tulsa a 8-9% return on their $63 million investment at Year 30. If we add into the equation that these would be mixed-use (retail on the ground floor) then this number goes up significantly.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Freeway


JMO, the Central Freeway and Embarcadero are not valid comparisons.  They were proposed in the 50's and construction started in the early 60's and never completed do to the "Highway Revolt" and stood as incompleted roads until they were demolished in the years after the Loma Prieta quake as a result of being damaged and too expensive to repair. SF already had in place public transit infrastructure to take the place of the failed highways. Also it took the better part of 12 years for completion.

I agree. Tulsa is nowhere near SF in terms of public transportation. Plus this kind of thing would only make sense in Tulsa if the land taken up by the highway was worth more than the highway plus the cost of removal plus the economic hit from losing that highway. I  highly doubt that. Tulsa isn't even remotely close to needing that land that badly downtown yet.

I like the idea and the website infrastructuretulsa.org is well done with good points. I think at this point the economic benefit of having that as a shortcut through Tulsa outweighs the potential value of the land. It could also lower real estate values in downtown and surrounding areas if suddenly there were many new blocks of open land.

We can't even get the city leaders to keep from turning a popular public park into a massive parking crater!
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/tulsa-city-council-approves-amendment-clearing-the-way-for-rei/article_b2c26a75-1af6-5f59-83b3-376b5eabcced.html

[LandArchPoke]

I agree. Tulsa is nowhere near SF in terms of public transportation. Plus this kind of thing would only make sense in Tulsa if the land taken up by the highway was worth more than the highway plus the cost of removal plus the economic hit from losing that highway. I  highly doubt that. Tulsa isn't even remotely close to needing that land that badly downtown yet.

I like the idea and the website infrastructuretulsa.org is well done with good points. I think at this point the economic benefit of having that as a shortcut through Tulsa outweighs the potential value of the land. It could also lower real estate values in downtown and surrounding areas if suddenly there were many new blocks of open land.

We can't even get the city leaders to keep from turning a popular public park into a massive parking crater!
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/tulsa-city-council-approves-amendment-clearing-the-way-for-rei/article_b2c26a75-1af6-5f59-83b3-376b5eabcced.html

I'm not sure I agree with it being economically beneficial to have a shortcut through downtown. It's very bad for the City to do this - we shouldn't be in the game of getting people through as fast as possible, we want people to say in the city and encourage them to stop and spend money. Placing time over economic development and tax revenues is never a good thing. We're allowing tax dollar to fly out of the City of Tulsa in exchange for letting people get from Broken Arrow to Stillwater or Ft. Smith to Wichita 5 minutes faster.

The land which I've "valued" at $1 million per city block. Just to note, the site the Hampton Inn is being built was sold for close to $2 million. So land sales could potentially pay for all of the extra cost needed to bridge the gap between ODOT funds and what's needed to finish the project if they were sold for higher than $1 million per block.

Dumping this much land on to the market would have to be done in a thoughtful way. This could be done through only allowing 2-3 city blocks to be sold per year. Even if you did put them all on the market at the same time - there is almost no land for sale in downtown now. Just because we have tons of parking lots - doesn't mean they are developable. We have very little developable land because a lot of the entities that own them are not sellers.

This project would take several years to even put land on the market as well. Just think about how much new development has been announced in the last 2 years. How much will be announced in the next 3? We need to think about do we need this land in the next 10-15 years for new developments? The answer is yes - to me at least.

You can then create a value capture area (BID and TIF districts) and capture all the new taxes for 30 years and pay for other projects as well like say a streetcar connecting downtown to surrounding neighborhoods?

[dbacksfan 2.0]

My point is, that you are proposing removing at least one portion of a highway interchange on the potential development that might happen along that corridor. The cities that you are using for a comparison already had development in the areas discussed, China Town in SF was there before the Embarcadero and Central Expressway, and it was the same for Seattle, Portland an Milwaukee. They were not one of the Kevin Costner "If you build it, they will come" areas.

How many developers are proposing residential and commercial along the east leg? Is there enough existing employers to support those living there? How many businesses are proposing moving to downtown, let alone how many businesses not already in Tulsa are willing to relocate to downtown?

The demise of downtown started before the IDL was built and completed in the late 70's early 80's an stagnated for close to 30 years. I'm not saying that there is no potential there, but it seems like the cart before the horse. I also think that your estimate of $142 million is way off, an getting the Fed, ODOT, and other funding realigned won't be easy if not damned near impossible.

[davideinstein]

East side needs to go so Downtown connects to the Pearl District.

[TheArtist]

I just don't think its time yet. Nor will it be in 10 or 15 years.  30 years from now, perhaps.  But again, I don't mind the psychological barriers that are created by the IDL.  Also, just as they get people past and out of downtown from neighboring communities and further abroad, they get people into downtown easily as well.  Again, I liken them to rivers that transport people and goods into and past downtown.   I like it when development runs into an impediment, like a river or in this instance a highway and piles up, versus when there is no delineating factor and everything just sprawls outward.  Especially in Tulsa's current situation, it helps people visualize "we can develop and fix up this small run-down area within this boundary" versus, "omg, the desolation just sprawls out forever, what can I do to have an impact" lol.  Perhaps 30 years or so from now, fine, but not now.

As for areas like 6th street and connecting downtown with the Pearl.  I would rather see creative art/park type projects that make the overpass and such an interesting asset/gateway and attraction.

I think sometimes we tell ourselves "stories" about something, carry it around as though its truth.  "Not enough parking." (I would say thats wrong per downtown) "Needs more light to be safer and more attractive" (I believe too much light can make an area unattractive and not add to safety), etc. etc. I think "The IDL needs to be removed." is another one of those stories that is easy to jump on and believe, and you can come up with things that make it sound logical at first glance, but is not really true. I think we are so used to automatically assuming that this story is true "that the IDL and it breaking up areas is bad"(and it does appear that building it hurt some areas in the past, but the situation we have now, is different. We unfortunately can't go back to that time and place. But the thought of it's past harm fools us into perhaps wrongly thinking that it now must be a current harm.  But that in itself is not logical. ), and we come up with notions that support the idea that the IDL is now bad, that we have not also explored the idea that there may be positives ideas to explore.

[LandArchPoke]

My point is, that you are proposing removing at least one portion of a highway interchange on the potential development that might happen along that corridor. The cities that you are using for a comparison already had development in the areas discussed, China Town in SF was there before the Embarcadero and Central Expressway, and it was the same for Seattle, Portland an Milwaukee. They were not one of the Kevin Costner "If you build it, they will come" areas.

How many developers are proposing residential and commercial along the east leg? Is there enough existing employers to support those living there? How many businesses are proposing moving to downtown, let alone how many businesses not already in Tulsa are willing to relocate to downtown?

The demise of downtown started before the IDL was built and completed in the late 70's early 80's an stagnated for close to 30 years. I'm not saying that there is no potential there, but it seems like the cart before the horse. I also think that your estimate of $142 million is way off, an getting the Fed, ODOT, and other funding realigned won't be easy if not damned near impossible.

dbacksfan 2.0 – I appreciate the feedback. In terms of SF being developed – yes it was, but it was in a state of rapid decline at that point. SF lost population from 1950 – 1980, in fact it went from 775,357 in 1950 to 678,974 in 1980. The Embarcadero was damaged in 1989 and was finished constructing in its current format in 2002. The Central Freeway was essentially the same timeline. BART (SF's subway lines) began operating in 1972 (a very small segment). It was the combination of investments to rid the city center of freeways to open up developable land and reconnect neighborhoods and the re-investment in it's rail/bus systems that helped bring SF back to where it is today. They did these projects because they knew in the long run it was good for the city, most of the land that the Embarcadero Freeway used to occupy is know being developed into the Transbay Center. That would not have been possible without a future looking vision by citizens and community leaders.

Developers aren't proposing anything there 99% of people are going to say that's a highway, it will always be a highway. I'll post this map again though.



This is all very recent developments and planned developments – the way of infill and flowing towards the east leg of the IDL and you've seen property values shoot up in the Pearl especially along the 3rd Street area adjacent to the IDL/East Village area. All this that has happened in these last 2-3 years I don't see how a developer if offered the land the IDL now occupies – especially the east leg – would not want to develop the land. Where is there other land to develop around here that hasn't already been accounted for? Where are there mass blocks of land for sale to develop downtown? There isn't any...

The parking lots help create a façade that there is an immense amount of land just immediately available to develop, but that's not true. They have to be willing sellers first, many of which are not.

Here's a few businesses moving downtown: Hogan Assessment, Compression Solutions, Ross Group – all building new HQ's downtown = 100,000 sq. ft. of new office space, all in the East Village area too. Downtown is our largest employment center in the region too – so in terms of people wanting to live close to work this will drive demand downtown for a long time. There's a reason buildings like the Vanderver and Harrington lofts have waitlists of nearly 100 people. I tried to move downtown when I came back to Tulsa and it took me 10 months to get a place.

You are correct about it not being simple to realign the ODOT funds – I've been trying to research more into how to do this. It would really take a collection of citizen, local leadership, and the willingness of our state reps to work with us to do this. This is why I think if it were to be included as a project in Vision2025 – there's no stronger way to show support for something than a community wide vote and to have it pass. That sends a very loud and clear message to ODOT and the Fed's this is what the local citizens want and demand. If it were to end up not being included in Vision20205 renewal – it would likely make the road harder, but not impossible.

The $142 million might be "way off". I will admit I am not an engineer or a construction genius. I'm looking into way to help raise money to do some construction estimation and engineering studies to help determine a better number than that. I used to Milwaukee example to base construction costs based off the fact they were tearing down and elevated structure and re-built the entire street-grid surrounding it which would make it very similar to what I'm proposing to do with the IDL.

Also – Milwaukee where they did their program had no development going on remotely close to it at that time. They have seen a significant amount of infill and new construction around it since. The Milwaukee area had significantly less potential than the East Village/Pearl area in Tulsa does currently.

[LandArchPoke]

I just don't think its time yet. Nor will it be in 10 or 15 years.  30 years from now, perhaps.  But again, I don't mind the psychological barriers that are created by the IDL.  Also, just as they get people past and out of downtown from neighboring communities and further abroad, they get people into downtown easily as well.  Again, I liken them to rivers that transport people and goods into and past downtown.   I like it when development runs into an impediment, like a river or in this instance a highway and piles up, versus when there is no delineating factor and everything just sprawls outward.  Especially in Tulsa's current situation, it helps people visualize "we can develop and fix up this small run-down area within this boundary" versus, "omg, the desolation just sprawls out forever, what can I do to have an impact" lol.  Perhaps 30 years or so from now, fine, but not now.

As for areas like 6th street and connecting downtown with the Pearl.  I would rather see creative art/park type projects that make the overpass and such an interesting asset/gateway and attraction.

I think sometimes we tell ourselves "stories" about something, carry it around as though its truth.  "Not enough parking." (I would say thats wrong per downtown) "Needs more light to be safer and more attractive" (I believe too much light can make an area unattractive and not add to safety), etc. etc. I think "The IDL needs to be removed." is another one of those stories that is easy to jump on and believe, and you can come up with things that make it sound logical at first glance, but is not really true. I think we are so used to automatically assuming that this story is true "that the IDL and it breaking up areas is bad"(and it does appear that building it hurt some areas in the past, but the situation we have now, is different. We unfortunately can't go back to that time and place. But the thought of it's past harm fools us into perhaps wrongly thinking that it now must be a current harm.  But that in itself is not logical. ), and we come up with notions that support the idea that the IDL is now bad, that we have not also explored the idea that there may be positives ideas to explore.

Artist – I always respect your opinions and thoughts on here. I am a bit surprised; I figured you would be one of the people on here that would be excited by something like this.

I have heard that several times that it's a benefit to downtown to get people through as fast as possible or to have the exposure of regional travelers coming through downtown. How many of those people really stop downtown? None of them. There's no gas stations, no fast food places for them to stop.  They're going to stop and spend money in Sand Springs at QT and McDonald's.

Plus – the proposal doesn't get rid of this corridor either. I'm not simply saying let's removing everything and they can find another route. I'm just saying we need to take the infrastructure from a grade-separated freeway down to an at-grade complete street. Now people would be able to bike from Cherry Street into the heart of downtown or walk instead of trying to navigate around these freeways. It would make the infrastructure human scale and friendly.

Also another valuable thing about this proposal is we would improve our local connectors. Right now 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. they have all been severed from the surrounding neighborhoods and downtown. This is bad for retail, restaurants and downtown businesses that would benefit from having better infrastructure connections to customers who are within minutes of them.

Being able to reintegrate and connect Cherry Street and Maple Ridge into downtown would be a huge benefit – right now it's cut off by the SE interchange which is the biggest barrier into downtown.

The IDL construction removed thousands of households – imagine if we had all of those back? How much money would the city be seeing now or over the course of 30 years if all those structures hadn't been removed? Well it amounts to about $300 million or more that the City of Tulsa has lost out on revenue wise since the IDL was built – enough to pay for The Gathering Place. That's from property taxes alone. That doesn't even take into account all the retail businesses that picked up and moved when people stopped using 15th, 11th, Admiral and others as their drive and diverted to I-244 and the BA.

DOWNTOWN BEFORE THE IDL



AREA'S DEMOED FOR THE IDL




These maps illustrate that point. You can see the structures that were removed for the freeways and all the former street grid and local connectors that were destroyed for the IDL.

I just don't see the positives in the IDL. I also am one who see's this as a large swatch of land that can be developed (as I've said before I'm in the RE industry) so I know my perspective is skewed in that direction – I'm open to hearing about positives things about the IDL, but from a planning, development, property value, economic situation the only thing I've seen has been negative.

_______

In the end – that's why I posted the link to my website – I want to vet the idea. Have people pick it apart. Tell me what they think is wrong, answer questions, and open a dialogue between people. I think the idea will evolve – as it has since I've started on the idea years ago – and at the end of the day I'm hopefully that something impactful will come of it that will help move Tulsa forward into a more innovatively thinking city in terms of infrastructure and economic development.

[Bamboo World]

AREA'S DEMOED FOR THE IDL

The area destroyed was much larger than your map indicates.

1.  For the southeast interchange which was never completed as designed;
2.  For the on/off ramps; and,
3.  To make the south leg less of a canyon (lower costs of retaining walls, probably).  Anyway, there are more grass slopes and fewer retaining walls than originally planned.

[SXSW]

Those downtown before the IDL images are about as sad/depressing as the picture of Boston Ave before urban renewal/TCC decimated the south part of downtown. 

I would love to see your plan become a reality.  I also would like to see the BA rebuilt below-grade from Harvard to Peoria moving the rail line to one of the sides like what Denver did when they rebuilt I-25.

[LandArchPoke]

The area destroyed was much larger than your map indicates.

1.  For the southeast interchange which was never completed as designed;
2.  For the on/off ramps; and,
3.  To make the south leg less of a canyon (lower costs of retaining walls, probably).  Anyway, there are more grass slopes and fewer retaining walls than originally planned.

You are right - that was a pretty quick sketch of the area. Here is a more accurate look that shows the other sections as well:



I added these maps to my website as well. The southeast interchange definitely took out the largest chunk of real estate out of all the areas of the IDL.

[natedog784]

The southeast interchange ended up being larger than originally designed. I'm guessing this is because it was built last and land values had already started to drop.  My understanding is there were some doubts the Broken Arrow Expressway would get built when it was proposed because of right-of-way costs.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Vince Sposato that lived in the path of the BA between Lewis and what would become the SE corner of the IDL, was involved in the delay of construction, but he did it for the right reasons so that citizens received fair compensation for their homes.

He ran for street commissioner seven times. Although he never won, Sposato said numerous times that he was not going to stop trying to fight for the residents of Tulsa.
In 1986, Sposato ran for water and sewer commissioner, a bid he also lost.
His love of politics was born from a love of people, according to his family.
In the 1950s, he championed civil rights and special educational needs. In the 1960s, he fought against urban renewal and the taking of people's homes without just compensation.
In 1974, Sposato found himself fighting for his own home. The city had condemned the property because it was needed for part of the construction of the Inner Dis persal Loop. Sposato eventually lost his fight for the house that he and his wife had owned for 22 years.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/vincent-sposato-rites-today/article_aa4447d4-0695-5c65-b4ce-8c2bc203fa30.html

[Hoss]

Vince Sposato that lived in the path of the BA between Lewis and what would become the SE corner of the IDL, was involved in the delay of construction, but he did it for the right reasons so that citizens received fair compensation for their homes.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/vincent-sposato-rites-today/article_aa4447d4-0695-5c65-b4ce-8c2bc203fa30.html

When I was a toddler I lived in that area (SE area of the IDL).  We were moved in 1973.  1430 S Elgin Ave.  Just north of 15th across from what I reckon is Maple Park.  I have vivid memories of that house.  The railroad track was behind our backyard.

[LandArchPoke]

Here's is another project that really hasn't got much publicity - Houston is likely to remove one section of it's downtown freeway loop:



This was a recommendation from TxDot as well. If Houston can do it - Tulsa can do it.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/transportation/article/Massive-I-45-project-would-remove-Pierce-6217572.php#photo-7867328

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/houstons-urban-interstate-debate-transform-or-tear-down/392546/

http://www.planetizen.com/node/76079