Music City: Tulsa the next big music destination?

[SXSW]

I agree, when another Tulsa music festival reappears let's not have it in the middle of summer.

[LandArchPoke]

Completely false that Austin has become a victim of its own success. Last time I was here was in 2004 for ACL Festival and the city has actually gotten better. The public transit is better, the protected bike lanes are more prevalent, there are more music festivals/venues and it is so successful the only thing people from Tulsa can do is retort to the "it's not the same anymore" debate and fill in excuses for why we are so far behind. Just my $0.02

Public transit in Austin is deplorable. Any other city Austin's size has considerably better transit, and for a city that is so 'alternative' and 'forward thinking' it sure isn't in many regards. Look at Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver, Charlotte, etc. all blow Austin out of the water when it comes to transit.

Now as far as our culture being a bland city - I think you need to cheer up a bit. A lot of it really has to do with point of view - if you go through life with the notion that the glass is half empty everything will seem negative, but a glass half full you'll see some of the better things. I'll admit, I used to have many of the same views about Tulsa, but I've really changed my mind set on the city over the last few years. There really is a lot to take advantage of here in terms of quality of life and that goes to entertainment from live music, festivals, sports, the general affordability of the city, and the ease of living here (when I was in DC the smallest task was a giant pain in the a**).

Compare Tulsa to Oklahoma City? If you really think we are less cultured than OKC from music to political thinking, there may not be much hope for ya (sorry). Things like when our council passed unanimously with no fight to adopt a fair housing policy that included LGBT. OKC? Well they almost voted it down, and passed 5-4 after a very public fight - that's just one minor example. Sally Kern is all I need to say when comparing the difference between OKC and Tulsa. What about Omaha, Little Rock, Des Moines, Wichita? For a city our size, we punch well above our weight in many areas. If you try to compare us to Denver, Portland, Austin of course Tulsa is many years behind, they are also metros that have generally been twice the size of Tulsa since the 20s so of course they have many things we don't. Comparing Tulsa to Austin is like trying to compare Austin to San Fran, NY, or somewhere much larger, it's not a similar comparison.

There's many distinct advantages Tulsa has in order for us to really become a draw for people. Not everyone wants to be in a large, very expensive city. That is how Austin became so popular in the first place.  It was seen as an affordable city that had more cultural than its peer cities, so people who were tired of paying $600-700k for a house in LA relocated. Austin is now morphing into the very thing many of those people relocated to get away from. Austin is experiencing many issues at the moment, and to say it's not is blatantly ignorant (sorry). The city has some of the worst mobility issues anywhere in North America, mainly because it is the most car dependent major city in Texas - yes even more than Dallas or Houston. It's affordability has vanished rapidly in the last 3-4 years, it's now one of the most expensive cities between the coasts, and has some of the fastest growing rents in North America. To live downtown really isn't possibly anymore unless you make over $120,000, so unless you work for Google good luck - you'll be living out in Georgetown and driving an hour + to get to all those cool bars downtown. Even many of their 'cool' areas are being over run by these high priced condos/apartments - case in point is Rainey Street. They've had several instances where music venues are being bulldozed to make way for new developments and replaced with Shack Shakes, etc too.

Now is it doom and gloom for Austin? Of course not, and Austin has gotten a lot more dense and has some very amazing urban projects going on currently and has some pretty amazing events like SXSW, races at CoA, etc. It has some very major glaring issues that could very well cause it to have an exodus of creatives just like you've seen in other high priced and inaccessible areas of the U.S. That presents major opportunities for cities like Tulsa that are seeing some very interesting growth in their art and music scenes. There's not another city our size who can claim comparable scenes with venues like the BOK, Cain's, Brady, Woody Guthrie Center, Bob Dylan Collection, AHHA, Philbrook, Gilcrease, The Gathering Place, Turkey Mountain, River Trails, etc... I don't think OKC, Des Moines, Omaha, Little Rock, Tucson, Albuquerque, Birmingham can compete with Tulsa in that regard and that's our true competition in terms of positioning ourself to become a 'it' city.

If you are really unhappy with the progress Tulsa has made in the last few year, do one thing: VOTE in June and make sure Dewey is not the mayor again. He has fought tooth and nail against transit and other things that would help push Tulsa into the next generation.

[SXSW]

I can definitely agree with this.  Not sold on GT Bynum but anything is better than Dewey.  Progressive city leadership has been something Tulsa has really missed.

If you are really unhappy with the progress Tulsa has made in the last few year, do one thing: VOTE in June and make sure Dewey is not the mayor again. He has fought tooth and nail against transit and other things that would help push Tulsa into the next generation.

[rebound]

Catching up on this thread after a couple of days supporting out of town kids' sports, and an old James Mcmurtry tune keeps popping up in my head.   From "I'm Not From Here":

I'm not from here
but people tell me
it's not like it used to be
they say I should have been here
back about ten years
before it got ruined by folks like me


The song, if anyone's interested:  https://youtu.be/agVIN8UIRsg

[davideinstein]

Austin public transit is not deporable at all. We used it all week. It is much, much better than Charlotte. Do you people actually visit these towns you have opinions on?

EDIT: Sorry if that sounds prickish but I have experience on both systems recently. The bus system in Austin blows the one in Charlotte out of the water.

[LandArchPoke]

Austin public transit is not deporable at all. We used it all week. It is much, much better than Charlotte. Do you people actually visit these towns you have opinions on?

EDIT: Sorry if that sounds prickish but I have experience on both systems recently. The bus system in Austin blows the one in Charlotte out of the water.

Ok, so when was the last time you were in Charlotte? Lets ignore the fact that comparing Austin to Portland, Salt Lake City, or Denver, Austin's system is deplorable.

Austin's "BRT" line you are talking about has a daily ridership of 9,554. Austin's commuter rail (which in my opinion sucks for a host of reason) has a daily ridership of 4,242. Charlotte's LRT line has a daily ridership of 15,800 carries, more than that BRT line and commuter rail line combined. That doesn't even take into account the new streetcar line in Charlotte or the expansions to the LRT systems they have planned. They also have a "BRT" line too called the Sprinter. The fact that Charlotte has a functioning LRT line, Streetcar, and BRT line puts it on a level way above Austin.

Charlotte also just was awarded $25 million to jumpstart Gateway Station from the Fed's. Their plans are to model it after Union Station in Denver: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article74368437.html

Yes - I do visit all these cities, and I lived on the east coast in DC for several years. I also have spent the last 6 years of my life researching transit systems in North America and commercial real estate markets/development in these cities. I've even been in the WSJ talking about TOD and transit systems because of this research. Real estate and infrastructure are my big passions in life, so when I talk about it I'm not just shooting off the hip - it's generally an opinion thats based off personal experiences and facts. Maybe you had a bad experience with transit in Charlotte? But there's just no way to look at it and say Austin's transit system is even remotely in the same league - they can't even fund the idea of LRT or Streetcars in Austin, let alone have a regional plan for different mass transit routes. They are a decade behind Charlotte in transit planning and implementation.

[johrasephoenix]

I used to live in Austin and have taken the BRT and city bus several times.  Here's my take:

The Austin BRT works great if you are using it during off-peak hours.  On the weekends or after evening rush hour it zips you around fine.

The problem is that the BRT sits in the same mixed traffic as personal cars.  Anyone who has lived in Austin knows that the city has crushing, crippling rush hour traffic where it can take you an hour to go a few miles.  The bus crawls along at a snails pace just like a car.

Having lived in Chicago and Boston the MAIN benefit for choice transit commuters is avoiding horrific rush hour congestion.  In those cities even the rich take transit because it has dedicated right of ways and zips along pretty well while the roadways are crawling.  In Austin, the buses are in the same traffic as everyone else which pretty much eliminates their appeal for choice riders.  This is something Tulsa's new BRT system is going to have to grapple with and is the #1 reason why BRT, which is so great in theory, oftentimes underperforms in the United States.  Removing a lane of traffic for a dedicated busway is so politically untenable outside of Portland that BRT systems end up just becoming a fancy version of the regular bus. 

At the end of the day people make travel decisions based on microeconomics.  Make the cost of transit (time, not just $) less than the cost of driving.  If you're doing it with BRT then it means you really need to make them operate like trains with all the BRT bells and whistles that you very rarely see in the USA - prepaid boarding, attractive stations, dedicated right of ways, etc. 

I saw BRT in Mexico City and it had all of that.  It was petty amazing to see.  The bus pulled up and people exited/entered en masse, just like a subway car, and the bus was continuing on its way in 15-20 seconds.

[davideinstein]

LandArchPoke - I was in Charlotte earlier this year. I'm from North Carolina.

[LandArchPoke]

LandArchPoke - I was in Charlotte earlier this year. I'm from North Carolina.

Maybe it's just a grass is always greener on the other side kind of thing since you grew up in NC? My statement above still stands in terms of my reasoning behind my statements.

[davideinstein]

Honestly might be a better discussion for another thread. I've used both public transit systems and from my experience Austin was much better. The big difference is the BRT in Austin is surrounded by a much better Metro Bus system and biking is much more prevalent in Austin.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Completely false that Austin has become a victim of its own success. Last time I was here was in 2004 for ACL Festival and the city has actually gotten better. The public transit is better, the protected bike lanes are more prevalent, there are more music festivals/venues and it is so successful the only thing people from Tulsa can do is retort to the "it's not the same anymore" debate and fill in excuses for why we are so far behind. Just my $0.02

12 years since you have been there....

And how can that possibly relate to anything going on today?  That's like saying there is nothing going on in downtown Tulsa - 'cause I was there in 2004....  improvements AND declines can be massive in 12 years.

I was in Austin in early 2000's, too - used rental car and spent most of time out in Round Rock.  It too has had huge changes in the time since. 

Growth for growth's sake - the very definition of cancer.

[davideinstein]

12 years since you have been there....

And how can that possibly relate to anything going on today?  That's like saying there is nothing going on in downtown Tulsa - 'cause I was there in 2004....  improvements AND declines can be massive in 12 years.

I was in Austin in early 2000's, too - used rental car and spent most of time out in Round Rock.  It too has had huge changes in the time since. 

Growth for growth's sake - the very definition of cancer.

Because I returned there last week when I was posting in this thread...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Because I returned there last week when I was posting in this thread...

Ahhh...and it was just as good as you remembered it?  (I definitely want to go back and visit just to see how things are now....)

Did you rent a car for transportation?   Or have your own?