Streets meeting on Monday

[OurTulsa]

Wish I could have been there.  I would have liked to express a desire to curb spending on new larger streets.  Divert some of the money we have allocated toward widening existing two lane streets to maintaining what we already have.  At least we could curb back the design.  Instead of a massive 5-6 lane arterial street we could have an adequately designed three lane street 'complete' with good sidewalks, bike lanes and street trees.  Maybe even a median between the two continuous lanes when a turn movement isn't necessary.  What an impression that would make.  It might also draw those living off of it to get out of their car and walk or bike along the main street translating to community building and... ...less wear and tear on the street!  Additionally, good tree planting along arterials will marginally benefit storm water absorbtion and cool the pavement/ city...never mind make the place look halfway decent.

Redesign urban arterials to connect our hoods.  Reduce many of our urban arterials to three lanes and equip with adequate sidewalks (not token like Peoria) and bike lanes.  Again, you reconnect communities, curb storm water, cool pavement, absorb air pollution, and potentially reduce trips taken in car...again, never mind aesthetics.  
31st St. its entire length should not be more than 3 lanes.  
21st St. from Utica to the river and then Yale on east.  
41st from Yale to the River.  
61st St. it's entire length.  
81st St. entire length.
101st St. entire length.  
Pine and Apache for extensive portions.  Cincinnati on the north side should not be more than 3 lanes easily equipped with a good bike lane straight into downtown.  
33rd W. Ave. from I-44 to it's northern terminus near the river.  
Utica Av. between I-244 and 21st St.
Peoria between Brookside and 244 could work as well.

I'm sure there are other streets that are over paved and over accommodating to the auto at the expense of people walking and biking and community aesthetics.  Give people the proper facilities to allow them to choose to not get into their car for simple trips.  
I would easily ride my bike for quick trips if I knew that getting out onto 41st wouldn't mean putting my life at risk.  In Asia and possibly Europe expecting to mingle with vehicles on a bike is sane; drivers are prepared to encounter cyclists.  Asia and Europe, this aint.  In general, drivers in this country and especially this neck of the country are selfish and hostile to any obstacle to their FREEDOM of movement.  I wish I could expect to hop out onto and through 21st and Utica without feeling threatened.  I wish I could feel like I could bike from TU to Brookside and then downtown in the most direct route without thinking that any minute some cowboy is going to gun up on me with a truck that expresses what his pp can't and yell at me to get off the road and leave me litterally in a cloud of exhaust.
Maybe when I got into the IDL I could feel safe on a few streets; I expect to be able to feel safe riding on Boston Av. once it's complete.  But in general, vehicular speeds are too great and there is not enough room and no accommodation to even feel like I have adequate room on the same pavement as cars and trucks.
I would prefer a bike lane on streets where speeds are greater than 25 mph.
I tend to think that bike lanes are a good thing.  Bike lanes send a positive message that our city is bike friendly to those that drive, those that can't and those that wish they didn't have to.  It drives awareness, drivers see the lane and expect to encounter and accommodate cyclists.  The existence of a lane sends a message to all of us potential casual cyclists that will never wear spandex race uniforms or toe clips that the traffic on that street will be aware of and accommodate us.

Crossing busy intersections is tricky whether coming from a bike lane or not; all cyclists should proceed with caution.  

Here's my experience cycling in urban areas.  Easy in Chicago with lots and lots of bike lanes and facilities to park bikes.  Easy in Portland with bike lanes and accommodations.  Absolutely threating as he!! in Dallas and Cleveland without bike lanes (inner city in both).  Less than one mile on arterial streets before my partner and I felt forced into the neighborhood.  No other bikes on the road.  Big cars and trucks cruising by at dangerous speeds so close that I swear if my arm was bent any further out mirrors and I would have physically fought.

In short, better street aren't necessarily bigger streets.      

[Conan71]

I do ride a bike on public streets though not near as often as others.

My opinion is, if you have limited money, resources, and manpower to work with, repair arterials and problem side streets first since the majority of vehicles on the streets are motorized.  Then worry about widening and making them more accessible for bicycles.

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

No matter what continual naysayers Inteller and doubleA try to sell us, I believe they are once again wrong. The committee went out of their way tonight to say how they wanted more input.

Many people attended, over 150 from all parts of Tulsa, proves them wrong. All income groups and any other demographic group you could name  were there.

To those who couldn't make it, send a letter to the Mayor's Action Center...attention "Complete Our Streets".

I wasn't naysaying just for the sake of naysaying. I wonder what the breakdown of salary to hourly workers was for those in attendance? If I could have been there, that would have been one of my questions. I guess Patric didn't make it either, because I didn't hear lighting brought up as a topic of discussion. Actually, I would have asked a question in regards to streets and lighting, not in the familiar context associated with light pollution, in the context of not being able to keep our street lights on  in certain areas and certain expressways at night and what should be done to address this street problem.

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

Two words...Street Commissioner.....And not some friend of Kathy's that has nary a clue...

Two words:

Jim Hewgley

He tells it like it is.

[pfox]

quote:Originally posted by Kenosha

quote:Originally posted by booWorld

I attended, and I found it worthwhile.

Bicyclists were well represented.  I hope the Complete Our Streets plan addresses the ideas for bicycles which were presented at the meeting.

I actually thought bicyclists and broader bicycle interests were poorly represented at this meeting.

About five cyclists them showed up, including Adam, owner of Lee's, (plus Paul Tay). They seemed to be fairly coordinated in their message. Besides saying they wanted smooth streets, and traffic signals that recognize bicycles (seems like a good idea), they spent 80 to 90 percent of their time saying what they didn't want: Bike Lanes.

What a waste of an opportunity.

I fear that some comments I made to the street committee during a presentation on our Bicycle Friendly Community application may have, in part, caused the "no bike lane" comments.  The City of Tulsa recently submitted an application to the League of American Bicyclists to be recognized as a bicyclist friendly community. (Don't laugh!  We do a lot of really good things here on this front).  We were not selected this round for a whole host of reasons: Education, Enforcement (Police issues), Encouragement, AND Engineering.  One of the comments from the National Leauge regarded our lack of "on street accomodations".  This means wide shoulders and/or bike lanes.

The presence of a diverse group of opinions is a good thing.  I think the committee understands that there are divergent points of view, and that the bike lane issue in particular is a "hot button".  Overall, getting in their minds that multi-modalism is a good thing, and that they should be thinking about all modes when designing the street is a good thing.

[buckeye]

At present, what percentage of road-going cyclists are not recreating?  1%?  A fraction of that?  Frankly, it's just not worth worrying about at present.

What's the real purpose here?  I suppose it's to build infrastructure that encourages cycling as an alternative urban transport.  Sounds like a worthy pursuit to me, but shouldn't we spend more time working on funding at this point and more-or-less ancillary concerns later?

The current administration owns the problem, regardless of who created it.  Unfortunately, I have little faith in their commitment or even ability to fix things up.

I scanned the article in the World today.  Several things stuck out:

-give us a _detailed_ explanation of what needs to be done, when it will be finished and how you'd like to fund it
-Do it right!  e.g. don't cheap out with asphalt when concrete would do much better  If it's done right the first time, we'll gladly foot the bill for you.

Makes sense to me.  However, the city should exhaust every feasible funding source before asking for another sales tax or whatnot.  (Without the old dirty trick of "We need money!  Police and fire protection GO OUT THE WINDOW unless you pass a new tax!"  That's horsesh!t and we know it.)

[pfox]

quote:Originally posted by buckeye

At present, what percentage of road-going cyclists are not recreating?  1%?  A fraction of that?  Frankly, it's just not worth worrying about at present.

What's the real purpose here?  I suppose it's to build infrastructure that encourages cycling as an alternative urban transport.  Sounds like a worthy pursuit to me, but shouldn't we spend more time working on funding at this point and more-or-less ancillary concerns later?

There are real benefits, primarily fiscal, to including all modes from the beginning of the project.  Bottomline is, it costs way more to retrofit bikeways, streetscaping, sidewalks, bus turnouts and transit stops in to the overall street design after the fact than to include them in the beginning.

The current percentage of people commuting by bicycle is irrelevant.  We have to reduce the number of single occupant vehicles on our roadways, for a myriad of reasons.  In this case, we are talking about reducing wear and tear on our roadways.  If we can encourage to telecommute, bike, carpool, to use transit, we can go a long way into reducing the impact cars have on our roads.  It is vital to our long term fiscal health as a city to reduce the maintanence costs associated with our roadways.

[Ed W]

quote:Originally posted by Kenosha

Like every good idea, the devil is in the details.

I gotta be honest. I think they were/are wrong on at least two fronts: their strategy and in calling themselves bike advocates in the first place.

Kenosha, your response deserves a thoughtful, reasoned reply, and I actually had one until Open Office crashed on me this afternoon.  I'll have to re-do my outline and try to remember what I wrote.  I'm not a quick-witted writer or speaker.  I write slowly and I write best in the mornings, so this response may not appear until tomorrow evening.

But until then, I give you this:

At Thursday's Tulsa Bicycle Club meeting Patrick Fox, pedestrian and bicycling coordinator at INCOG, and Matt Meyer, executive director of Tulsa River Parks, will both make presentations regarding present and future cycling projects.  They'll take questions also.  The TBC meeting is November 1st at 7PM in the Martin Regional Library, 26th and Garnett.  Since I know Patrick reads this forum, and I value his opinion and goodwill, I'm going there to listen, not engage in a debate.

[medicine_cow]

Sorry folks I want it all;  bike lanes when appropriate, cars to slow down, paths through all the cool secret places in Tulsa: to ride on the streets, and for the streets to be safe to ride on.  I want to take up a lane when I ride my bike.  I want the police to start giving tickets to all the people that are driving their cars or riding their bicycles dangerously.  I would really like to see speed limits dropped within the city limits to a maximum of 40.  I'd like to see bus routes that made sense, and to have the routes and stopping times marked on the bus stop signs.

[Conan71]

Long time no see, good to see you Mr. Cow.[]

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Long time no see, good to see you Mr. Cow.[]

You are saying this to a poster with only 1 post on the forums.  Does not compute!

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by medicine_cow
 I would really like to see speed limits dropped within the city limits to a maximum of 40.  

That is something I totally agree with for arterial streets. There are not that many places where the speed limit is over, but we drive way too fast through town in general.

[Chuck-Davis]

quote:Originally posted by Kenosha

Like every good idea, the devil is in the details.

I gotta be honest. I think they were/are wrong on at least two fronts: their strategy and in calling themselves bike advocates in the first place.

First, you take a historic opportunity to tell people who may be making once in a lifetime decisions about money to be spent on transportation and streets, and you WASTE it by telling them, "Don't do anything special for us", we don't want it.

Second, I understand they want to be treated as vehicles and respected by cars. Fair enough. I agree with that. I understand they want the Police to understand and enforce laws which protect cyclists. Fine. They want access to the whole right lane. OK. They want to increase bike education for riders and drivers. Great idea.

But that's where it ends. Anyone who doesn't ride the way they do; with confidence, in traffic, on EVERY road; shouldn't be riding a bike. If you've ever ridden on a sidewalk, you are out. If you are too scared to ride in the street, you are not one of them. If you think trails, like the Creek Turnpike Trail are a good idea, you're out.

How can they, with a straight face, call themselves bicyclist advocates? Simply put, they are not. They are a special interest group. They care little about increasing bicycle ridership. They only care about advancing their misguided cause.

Now nobody stood up to say they did want bike lanes, mostly because it is not in the forefront of peoples minds who were there, and probably because they were intimidated by the spandex, but rest assured they, they are out there. I have tried to have a conversation with a couple of the anti bike lane guys, but they are not interested in hearing alternative points of view, because they own all of the 'facts'.

But the facts that they use are dated, and skewed, in my opinion.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't think bike lanes belong on every, or even necessarily most, roads.  But I believe each road should be evaluated contextually, based on a variety of criteria and that our city transportation network should accommodate all users; transit riders, pedestrians, and all cyclists, regardless of their tolerance for traffic.

I am in favor of education and encouragement to increase ridership; of increased maintenance for multi-modal facilities; of properly designed intersections with advanced queuing, proper signage, visual detection, signal preference and markings to discourage "the pass and turn" and to give preference to cyclists.  The laws ought to be properly explicit to favor cyclist in a lane or out of a lane.  We should slow traffic down using a variety of traffic calming devices, including reducing (and thus widening) number of lanes on some of our urban arterials.  We should provide facilities for cycling.  We should fund bike ed programs to teach bike safety and proper riding techniques.  We should require bike laws to be questions on driver licensing exams.

By the way, I ride my bike to work.  They don't represent my perspective. And they don't want mine.

FYI, I did not comment because I arrived late and didn't get to sign in, but I do plan on writing the committee a letter expressing my alternate point of view.

Kenosha understands the problem quite well!

[PonderInc]

I understand the arguments on both sides of the bike lane/ shoulder debate.  I used a bike for 90% of my transportation in Tulsa for about 10 years (back surgery has changed that)...and lived completely without a car for several months during that time.  

One solution that hasn't been discussed is the need for overpasses or tunnels to allow cyclists and pedestrians to cross expressways via neighborhood streets.  Typically, the only place you can cross an expressway is on a major arterial street...and these are often the most dangerous places to be on a bike...or on foot.

The Broken Arrow expressway was a big obstacle for me...and it nullified a lot of perfectly good routes through neighborhoods that I would have much prefered to riding on arterial streets.  I would have loved more places like on St. Louis Ave. (I think this is the street), where you can pass under the BA on a residential street.

[booWorld]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

I would have loved more places like on St. Louis Ave. (I think this is the street), where you can pass under the BA on a residential street.

Yes, St Louis Ave passes below the expressway.  During the Savage administration there was a Smart Growth conference and this topic was discussed.  The rule of thumb is that these types of overpasses/underpasses should be spaced no more than 1/4 mile apart along expressways because pedestrians do not feel safe using the arterials.