Questions regarding the River Development

[ttown_jeff]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

quote:Originally posted by swake



You want to say we need to improve infrastructure. Fine. Where are we lacking?

Tulsa does not have a big backlog of needed improvements on any type of physical infrastructure. It doesn't exist.

I do not know anything, and I mean zippo about all this stuff but the Mayor and City have formed a panel to look at backlogged street work (T.World's words].

Me too. Tim, we're kindof just the idiots in all of these charades.

I think its really a billion dollar problem AT THIS POINT in TIME, not a $600mm problem, but then again, the river development is supposed to take care of this....
....after the concept is developed and the land has been secured, and the environmental issues are worked out, and the tennants are found, and we can open a Quik-Trip on the Turkey Mountain side of the river so the fatboys can buy their Big Bubba Mountain Dew Slurpies, and a pack of Marlbura reds in box. []

This may be the Mayor's little diversion and fig leaf to the people opposed to the plan.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

quote:Originally posted by swake



You want to say we need to improve infrastructure. Fine. Where are we lacking?

Tulsa does not have a big backlog of needed improvements on any type of physical infrastructure. It doesn't exist.

I do not know anything, and I mean zippo about all this stuff but the Mayor and City have formed a panel to look at backlogged street work (T.World's words].

Way to not pay attention to what my point was. Of course, your shtick is always sensationalism over substance.

The discussion was about what would do more for the local economy, fixing/improving streets or the river plan.

Again, there is no big backlog of street improvements. We have no major traffic issues, our street and highway systems move people quickly and efficiently. What we do have are maintenance needs. But fixing streets, while the right thing to do, will do nothing for the local economy. We have areas where we desire improvements, or where we can improve while completing maintenance but overall, our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

[ttown_jeff]

quote:Originally posted by swake

Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Originally posted by swake



...our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

I'm sure you have some way of qualifying this?

Is this an example of substance of schtick?

[tim huntzinger]

Oswald you are one wierd dude.  You say there is no backlog, our streets are fine, while the City says Tulsans have close to ONE BILLION $ in street repairs we will need.  The commercial is outrageous in suggesting the river tax is a street improvement issue.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by ttown_jeff

quote:Originally posted by swake

Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Originally posted by swake



...our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

I'm sure you have some way of qualifying this?

Of course I do, I'm not some blogger

Fourth lowest commute time for metro areas with more than 250,000 people.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004489.html

Quote:
  In contrast, workers in several cities are fortunate enough to experience relatively short commute times, including Corpus Christi, Texas (16.1 minutes); Wichita, Kan. (16.3 minutes); Tulsa, Okla. (17.1 minutes); and Omaha, Neb. (17.3 minutes). (See city rankings [PDF].)

Data is 2005

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Oswald you are one wierd dude.  You say there is no backlog, our streets are fine, while the City says Tulsans have close to ONE BILLION $ in street repairs we will need.  The commercial is outrageous in suggesting the river tax is a street improvement issue.

Repairs and improvements are two different things, again, try reading what I have posted.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by ttown_jeff

quote:Originally posted by swake

Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Originally posted by swake



...our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

I'm sure you have some way of qualifying this?

Of course I do, I'm not some blogger

Fourth lowest commute time for metro areas with more than 250,000 people.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004489.html

Quote:
  In contrast, workers in several cities are fortunate enough to experience relatively short commute times, including Corpus Christi, Texas (16.1 minutes); Wichita, Kan. (16.3 minutes); Tulsa, Okla. (17.1 minutes); and Omaha, Neb. (17.3 minutes). (See city rankings [PDF].)

Data is 2005

And if you need more evidence, try watching our so called "traffic" reports on the morning news.

[ttown_jeff]

I'm done here for today, which I know will make a lot of people happy, but Mr. or Ms, SWAKE, (if thats your REAL Name) commute times have just a little to do with the quality of the roads.  

It's easy when you are talking about going back and forth from work; to hop on the BA and for 15 minutes be stuck in traffic.  That's a short commute time.

I don't have to deal with that personally, because I ride the bus to and from work. (I'm sure you'll have something smart-*** to say about that.)

They have the highways and 71st and Memorial fixed up just nice.  If all you do is go to work and go home and play video games, fine.  

But try going to 51st and Harvard, or 61st and Peoria or numerous other places. Have you ever sat at 51st and Harvard going South? They need work. not just cosmetically, an engineer needs to work on getting those areas modernized.

The Tulsa World reported our roads rated a "D"  if that is passing for you, You're probably on a football scholarship.

Your are somewhat good at misdirection, but lousy playing it off.

The river development can't fix this soon enough.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by ttown_jeff

I'm done here for today, which I know will make a lot of people happy, but Mr. or Ms, SWAKE, (if thats your REAL Name) commute times have just a little to do with the quality of the roads.  

It's easy when you are talking about going back and forth from work; to hop on the BA and for 15 minutes be stuck in traffic.  That's a short commute time.

I don't have to deal with that personally, because I ride the bus to and from work. (I'm sure you'll have something smart-*** to say about that.)

They have the highways and 71st and Memorial fixed up just nice.  If all you do is go to work and go home and play video games, fine.  

But try going to 51st and Harvard, or 61st and Peoria or numerous other places. Have you ever sat at 51st and Harvard going South? They need work. not just cosmetically, an engineer needs to work on getting those areas modernized.

The Tulsa World reported our roads rated a "D"  if that is passing for you, You're probably on a football scholarship.

Your are somewhat good at misdirection, but lousy playing it off.

The river development can't fix this soon enough.

Commute time is an excellent measure; it measures the relative ability of the street system to move traffic during times when the most traffic is present.

Are there bottlenecks, certainly. But relative to other cities, ours are rare and minor.

The grade of "D" was addressing the condition of the roads, not the quality of the design and the flow or traffic. Again, the goal of a roads system is to move traffic.

I do not dispute that we need to spend more on repairs. But I also do say, again, that the roads in the area that are in the worst condition are the highways, which are not maintained by local government and that the condition of roads has little or no economic impact.

[tim huntzinger]

In the commercial for the tax the geezer at the beginning says this is the first step in improving our roads.  How is that?

[carltonplace]

quote:Originally posted by MichaelBates

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace

Why cant we attract tourists to pay our taxes for us and improve our roads? I bet our river could do that.

A question for you, then: How far out of your way would you drive to experience river development similar to what is proposed in this plan? 20 miles? 200? 2000?

I see this as potentially a nice county-wide amenity, but not a place people will plan vacations around. As many lakes as we already have in the region, I don't even think this will draw significant regional traffic. It will be a nice place to visit if you already happen to be in Tulsa.

(And what's that about QuikTrip building their proposed "gathering place" regardless of whether the tax passes? First I've heard of it.)

I guess I should say "out of town dollars" instead of "tourists".


Yesterday there was large group (150) of petroleum people in town from Houston that had a function at McBirney. They were looking for places to go after that were in proximity but chose to drive to Jenks instead.

I see this happen quite a bit; visitors book in a downtown hotel but then can't find anything to do.

I could be wrong about QT, but the impression I got from the TW and from the speaker at our neighborhood meeting is that QT is moving forward at 41st St.

[Oil Capital]

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by ttown_jeff

quote:Originally posted by swake

Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Originally posted by swake



...our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

I'm sure you have some way of qualifying this?

Of course I do, I'm not some blogger

Fourth lowest commute time for metro areas with more than 250,000 people.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004489.html

Quote:
  In contrast, workers in several cities are fortunate enough to experience relatively short commute times, including Corpus Christi, Texas (16.1 minutes); Wichita, Kan. (16.3 minutes); Tulsa, Okla. (17.1 minutes); and Omaha, Neb. (17.3 minutes). (See city rankings [PDF].)

Data is 2005

Oh, puhlease.  You're playing that one again?  That ranking tells us little more than that Tulsa is smaller than almost every other city in those rankings.  (Almost every city with longer commutes is either a larger city or is a component of a much larger metro area than Tulsa.)  

Personally, I cannot think of a city with a more seemingly random freeway layout, or where the freeway "system" fails to directly serve major activity centers (ie, fairgrounds, shopping malls...)  At times, it seems that Tulsa plans streets, highways, and intersections to create congestion.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by Oil Capital

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by ttown_jeff

quote:Originally posted by swake

Originally posted by tim huntzinger

Originally posted by swake



...our surface transportation system is worlds better than cities that grow many times faster than us.

I'm sure you have some way of qualifying this?

Of course I do, I'm not some blogger

Fourth lowest commute time for metro areas with more than 250,000 people.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004489.html

Quote:
  In contrast, workers in several cities are fortunate enough to experience relatively short commute times, including Corpus Christi, Texas (16.1 minutes); Wichita, Kan. (16.3 minutes); Tulsa, Okla. (17.1 minutes); and Omaha, Neb. (17.3 minutes). (See city rankings [PDF].)

Data is 2005

Oh, puhlease.  You're playing that one again?  That ranking tells us little more than that Tulsa is smaller than almost every other city in those rankings.  (Almost every city with longer commutes is either a larger city or is a component of a much larger metro area than Tulsa.)  

Personally, I cannot think of a city with a more seemingly random freeway layout, or where the freeway "system" fails to directly serve major activity centers (ie, fairgrounds, shopping malls...)  At times, it seems that Tulsa plans streets, highways, and intersections to create congestion.

169 gets people to the shopping malls.  The BA comes close enough to the fairgrounds (31st and Yale) without having an offramp emptying directly into Expo Square.  When the BA was built, downtown was a major activity center AND place of employment.

Where would YOU put the highways?

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace



I guess I should say "out of town dollars" instead of "tourists".


Yesterday there was large group (150) of petroleum people in town from Houston that had a function at McBirney. They were looking for places to go after that were in proximity but chose to drive to Jenks instead.

I see this happen quite a bit; visitors book in a downtown hotel but then can't find anything to do.

I could be wrong about QT, but the impression I got from the TW and from the speaker at our neighborhood meeting is that QT is moving forward at 41st St.

I started telling people not to book downtown because of the complaints. I do my best to keep them in the city and eating downtown during the day though.

[Oil Capital]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

169 gets people to the shopping malls.  The BA comes close enough to the fairgrounds (31st and Yale) without having an offramp emptying directly into Expo Square.  When the BA was built, downtown was a major activity center AND place of employment.

Where would YOU put the highways?

NEXT to the shopping malls, NEXT to the fairgrounds.   (Or perhaps the shopping malls should have been built NEXT to the freeways; either way, what we have is bad planning) The closest 169 gets to a shopping mall is Woodland Hills and it's a mile from that.  It's over a mile from 31st and Harvard to the nearest fairgrounds entrance.