New I-244 Bridge

[bugo]

Funny you should mention that ...

A number of cyclists and other states have been really increasing their efforts in the last few years to either build new bike trails, convert abandoned railroad beds, or convert abandoned segments of road next to or near Route 66. Illinois already has built segments for the Route 66 Bike Trail, and are building more. Other states on Route 66 are looking at the same thing.

So I think your idea for the Avery Bridge has merit, and I suspect the idea will gain traction.

I walked across this bridge earlier today:
http://www.bridgehunter.com/ar/pulaski/junction/
It was amazing.  They did an excellent job converting it to a ped bridge.  And mostly left the structure alone.

[waterboy]

I'm not advocating tearing down the railroad bridge and the Avery bridge but was interested in what their uses will be once the new I-244 bridges are finished.  If any bridge needs to be demolished it's the SW Blvd./11th St. bridge that hides the Avery bridge.  If the Avery bridge was more visible I'm sure there would be more effort put into restoring it at least for bike/pedestrian traffic.

I don't understand the need for a bike/jogging trail underneath the bridge when you could use the Avery bridge for that purpose.  In that case it would be nice to see the east and west bank trails go underneath the SW Blvd./11th St. bridge to connect to the Avery so you wouldn't have to cross the busy street.  It looks like that is similar to what is proposed by INCOG: http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/recovery/tiger/tulsa_i244/pdfs/trail.pdf

Cyrus Avery Bridge (courtesy of curry_allison at flickr)

Sorry if I misunderstood. I see both bridges, the old rail road and the old 11th street mostly from the river looking up as I float under them. I just don't want to see us mistakenly tear down more of our history unless necessary. Tear down the Southwest boulevard bridge first.

[pfox]

I have read several comments here about opening up the Avery Bridge to Ped traffic, which seems logical, however, the width of the bridge and the potential capacity the bridge could physically carry is the problem.  Cars and Trucks produce a specific type of load on a bridge; pedestrians produce quite another.  The concern is that you could get too many people on that bridge, and in some cases they might be running.  The type of waves/vibration produced by this rhythmic sort of impact is actually more dangerous than filling it with cars driving across.

Anyway, I think the price tag to get the bridge to engineering standards was about 14 million dollars, 5 or so years ago.

Also, when we first proposed this Multi-Modal Bridge (the idea actually came out of INCOG when we were doing our Transit Studies using the existing railway lines), we were looking at different ways to get across the river...we looked at Southwest Blvd, Avery (No way, BTW) and the idea of building a new RR bridge.  We realized that the easiest way for this to happen was to hang new rail under one of the 244 bridges, which we knew needed replacement...this was Pre-35W Minneapolis bridge collapse...after the collapse we knew they were going to have to address this.  We just didn't know it would be this fast.

As far as the SW Blvd idea, it is not a bad one...I loved the idea for streetcar.  We looked at using the railway ROW  past OSU Medical from West Bank, (forseeing development there..alternatively, you could stay on street up 23rd and turn right on SW BLVD) coming up SW Blvd past the RT 66 memorial, past Regional/OSU Med center, cutting through the western edge of the State office building parking lot, and up third street, past the Convention Ctr addition, The BOK Center, Crowne Plaza/Main St./PAC, and turning around in the Blue Dome/East Village (Greenwood-ish). But...you need at least 12-18 inches of slab to inlay rail into the roadbed.  I don't think it was ever determined how thick that bed is...and certainly the bridge would need an engineering analysis to determine feasibility.

[nathanm]

I was just thinking how nice it would be to have streetcars when I was driving on 13th street yesterday.

As far as using the Avery bridge for pedestrian traffic, so long as we don't get any marching bands or armies walking across it in lockstep, higher order vibrational modes are pretty unlikely. Not that there shouldn't be an engineering study done to make sure it can support the weight of our lard.

[sgrizzle]

According to this TW article from last August 17th the Kaiser Foundation has provided an architect for the bridge.  That's all I know.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20090817_16_A1_TheGeo807746

GK sent Jack Crowley, who worked on the multimodal plan for the bridge instead of it being a straight vehicular bridge. Nothing aesthetic was planned at that time. They were also shooting for simultaneous dual bridge replacement instead of just the one.

[Red Arrow]

I was just thinking how nice it would be to have streetcars when I was driving on 13th street yesterday.

As far as using the Avery bridge for pedestrian traffic, so long as we don't get any marching bands or armies walking across it in lockstep, higher order vibrational modes are pretty unlikely. Not that there shouldn't be an engineering study done to make sure it can support the weight of our lard.

According to "When Oklahoma Took the Trolley", 13th between Delaware and Louisville had trolley tracks way back when.

Wait a second for me to put on my flak jacket....

How about asking the pedestrian and bicycle communities for donations to repair/upgrade the Avery bridge. It could be turned into a toll bridge to help maintain it.  Maybe the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would be interested.

[nathanm]

According to "When Oklahoma Took the Trolley", 13th between Delaware and Louisville had trolley tracks way back when.

Yeah, I was thinking about it because there are several places between Delaware and Harvard where the former location of the tracks is plainly obvious.

It seems the asphalt over the old track bed deteriorates at a different rate than the rest of the street, so it doesn't get replaced all at once, leaving a strip of asphalt down the middle of the street that's a different age than the rest of the street.

Was the track west of Delaware on 11th or 6th?

[Red Arrow]

Yeah, I was thinking about it because there are several places between Delaware and Harvard where the former location of the tracks is plainly obvious.

It seems the asphalt over the old track bed deteriorates at a different rate than the rest of the street, so it doesn't get replaced all at once, leaving a strip of asphalt down the middle of the street that's a different age than the rest of the street.

Was the track west of Delaware on 11th or 6th?

The tracks turned west on 11th.  Those were the Oklahoma Union Traction tracks.

The Tulsa Street Railway had tracks along 4th, east to Madison, north to 1st, east to Lewis, south to 7th then east to the TU area.

Michael Bates posted a nice map of the trolley lines but I don't remember the thread title.

Edit: found the post/link

http://www.batesline.com/archives/2009/12/tulsa-streetcar-and-interurban-l.html

[nathanm]

Edit: found the post/link

http://www.batesline.com/archives/2009/12/tulsa-streetcar-and-interurban-l.html

Excellent! Thanks for looking it up.  

[sgrizzle]

According to "When Oklahoma Took the Trolley", 13th between Delaware and Louisville had trolley tracks way back when.

Wait a second for me to put on my flak jacket....

How about asking the pedestrian and bicycle communities for donations to repair/upgrade the Avery bridge. It could be turned into a toll bridge to help maintain it.  Maybe the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would be interested.

If I remember right, "fixing up the bridge" was supposedly a 7 digit number. That'd be a heck of a bake sale.

[Red Arrow]

If I remember right, "fixing up the bridge" was supposedly a 7 digit number. That'd be a heck of a bake sale.

It might take 2 or 3.

[Conan71]

Yeah, I was thinking about it because there are several places between Delaware and Harvard where the former location of the tracks is plainly obvious.

It seems the asphalt over the old track bed deteriorates at a different rate than the rest of the street, so it doesn't get replaced all at once, leaving a strip of asphalt down the middle of the street that's a different age than the rest of the street.

Was the track west of Delaware on 11th or 6th?

I'm curious if that's the reason for the odd curbing on 13th at about Evanston or College.  Would there have been a trolley station or turntable at Louisville?

[Red Arrow]

I'm curious if that's the reason for the odd curbing on 13th at about Evanston or College.  Would there have been a trolley station or turntable at Louisville?

\

My guess would be there was a short section of double track to allow trolleys going in opposite directions to pass each other.

I looked at Google street view.  A stop is a possibility too but a stop by itself would probably stay single track.

Turntables were, at most, rare on trolley lines.  A lot of trolleys were double ended.  They could be driven "forward" from either end of the trolley by pulling down one trolley pole and putting the one at the other end of the trolley up.  Some early single truck trolleys had a single pole that looked like it would swing around.  Single ended trolleys usually had a loop at the end of the line.  Since trolleys can turn a lot shorter radius than a regular main line train, the room required wasn't too much since they would be slow.

[Transport_Oklahoma]

The Frisco bridge has an intersting history, too.  Notice every other column is cut stone.  Those are the original.  The original design had long truss sections on top of these.  I think it was single track. 

Some time around the first world war or before they added the cement columns between the originals, removed the truss sections, and placed plate girders atop all the columns to form the double track bridge that is there today.

In the 1986 flood I remember them parking car loads of rock on the bridge to keep it from being swept away. 

It is not practical to use the existing bridge for frequent passenger operations because not only is the bridge used for through freight, interchange, and industry trains, but also because switch engines are dragging long cuts of railcars out of the bowl tracks partially over the bridge in order to shove into the departure tracks to make up trains.  This switching goes on 24 hours day.  And except in a recession, 365 days a year.   

There are alternatives  IMO, but building a new rail crossing for passenger ops is the ideal solution.

Now as far as streetcars crossing the Arkansas River, look at these picture to see how it is done in Little Rock.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3129050457/

This was a pre-existing automobile bridge and they removed a lane and/or a sidewalk and added the necessary slab.



And Tulsa wouldn't have to deal with a curving, hog back bridge.

[SXSW]

Garver, LLC was selected as the engineering firm for the new westbound bridge:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100302_11_A3_TheOkl310767&archive=yes

If we can't get something with an arch or cables I do hope they at least give some thought to the lighting, like Minneapolis' St. Anthony Falls Bridge: