Highway corridor planning (US 169, US 75)

[bacjz00]

**Warning...I may rant a little**

I grew up in Tulsa and make my family's home here now.  However, I have travelled and lived in many other cities.  One thing that bothers me about South Tulsa and really Tulsa in general is the blatant lack of foresight and ingenuity that our highway and street planners seem to have.  

For instance...

Why does Tulsa not use frontage roads along their main highway corridors, especially in areas of heavy commercial and retail use?  Frontage roads are a proven design element that allows local and through traffic to share the same basic corridor and creates a VERY visible and accessible retail environment.  

For example, planners had ample opportunity to design a proper 169 corridor south of 51st before the extension was completed in the 80s.  Wide frontage roads, U-turn lanes and modern signage are all staples of properly designed corridors in other cities.  Austin, Kansas City, Dallas, San Antonio.  Instead of having this type of scenario around 71st Street and 169, we have a highway that literally DUMPS all of it's traffic onto a single arterial street (71st), where people simply want to drive a block East or West and THEN travel parallel to the highway to reach storefronts.  Look at 71st in both directions from 169 and you'll see the absoute absurdity of the situation.  Most of the people gridlocked on 71st are simply trying to get from the highway to a store that is within a stone's throw.  In order to do that, they HAVE to travel 71st street.

Another example, look at the concrete barriers they had to put up in the left turn lane on westbound 71st street in front of the new Target.  This was done less than a few months after the construction was finished and the the city basically admitted "well we screwed this one up".  Now instead of seeing the nice bricked medians that make 71st at least a LITTLE bearable to look at in places, we see large concrete construction barriers that have become permanent I guess(??)  Any plans here Tulsa? Geesh

And let's talk about the 81st Street and 169 interchange.  Within 5 years of completing the 169 south extension to the Creek Turnpike, engineers decided to completely RE-DESIGN this interchange.  Granted the new design makes better since, considering the amount of traffic the area is expected to carry, but WHY NOT DESIGN IT THAT WAY FROM THE START?  It's pretty bad when you can still see what was the grassed over on and off ramps on the south side of 81st street.  Tax payers essentially WASTED money on the original construction of the southside ramps at this intersection.  And then we turned around and paid more to fix the engineering mistake.  

For those of you who have not seen the 71st Street and US Highway 75 interchange, please know this.   That area is about to take off about as fast as what the other end of 71st street did about 5 years back.  City planners, hear me out...BUILD FRONTAGE ON HIGHWAY 75 NOW WHILE YOU STILL HAVE THE CHANCE!  61st, 71st, 81st, 91st.  These arterial roads will thank you and those who wish to travel locally will not have to enter and exit the highway just to travel a mile down the way.  Tulsa is about to see a boom on the west side like it's never known.  What is holding us back!!!??

If it's money, then people we have got to do better than this.  We're Oklahoma's second largest city and yet our highway planning is an absolute joke.  I don't know if the same people are making decisions that were 20 years ago, but clearly we need to make sure our leaders understand the importance of the Highway 75 corridor.  This is a major route through the city (Dallas, Topeka) and if designed properly can bring added growth, jobs and dollars to that part of Tulsa.  I'd just hate to see it turn in to what 71st Street did on the southeast side of town.

Rant over...g'night.