
…to think about before widening Peoria
Under consideration by the 61st & Peoria Quality of Life Task Force is the widening of Peoria Ave., from 61st to 71st. streets, where Peoria bends and intersects with Riverside Drive. TulsaNow believes that while the area should be revitalized, simply widening the street to four lanes won’t be productive for increased safety and economic growth.
A few items to consider before making the decision to widen Peoria:
Sustainable Development.
Street widening is regarded in new theories of city/urban planning as contributing to sprawl, drawing traffic away from neighborhoods rather than to them, creating waste, reducing density, creating more pollution and overall being an unsustainable way to develop a city.
Modern city development looks at capital investment projects that act as investments: creating new ideas that will increase the sales tax base and create jobs, thereby, “paying for themselves”. This results in what is known as a sustainable return-on-investment (ROI). Examples include mixed-use housing + retail, transit-oriented development, and the creation of entrepreneurship opportunities — all of which would cost lest than putting asphalt on the ground. More information / research:
www.smartgrowthamerica.org
www.strongtowns.org
Comprehensive Plan, and Small-Area planning.
In 2010, the citizens of Tulsa were shown several scenarios for future growth — one of which centered around development for automobile transportation, another which created several neighborhood-oriented concentrations of development called Small Area Plans. Overwhelmingly, those polled chose the plan that created more density, more walkability and included alternative transportation options including pedestrian, biking, and mass transit. More information: http://www.planitulsa.com/
This was passed in 2010 as Tulsa’s new comprehensive plan. A small area plan for Riverwood exists, and was adopted in 2008. It also calls for walkability, density, and a design methodology that is focused at the sidewalk level, rather than creating an automobile-centric neighborhood.
Bus Rapid Transit.
In 2010 / 2011 the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG) which is the regional planning body for the Tulsa Metro area, created both a regional plan for mass transit, as well as a specific study on what is known as the Peoria corridor (read the Fast Forward Plan here).
This plan calls for improvement of transit stops, and an increased frequency of buses along Peoria Ave., which already currently contains the highest concentration of bus riders. Twenty percent (20%) of all jobs in the city are within one half-mile of this proposed bus route. Implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit program (up for a vote in Nov. 2013 as part of the Tulsa City Council’s capital improvement program) would mean more encouragement of citizens to walk, bike, and take the bus in order to get to work — becoming mass transit commuters and what is known in transit circles as “choice riders”.
Support of this Bus Rapid Transit program would call for more sidewalks and the design of 61stto 71stalong Peoria to encourage bike and pedestrian traffic, not automobile traffic.
ADA Compliance.
Also included in the proposed 2014 capital improvements program is a much-needed package to implement improvements to buildings, parks, the bus system, streets, and sidewalks in order to comply with the ADA. The City of Tulsa has initiated an update of its Americans with Disabilities Act Self-Evaluation and Transition Plan. Once again this plan looks not just at the city / neighborhoods being designed for cars, but also for people with special needs.
Complete Streets / Bike-Pedestrian Plan.
In 2012, the Tulsa City Council adopted a policy known as complete streets. Again, the policy states that when a street is considered for widening, it should also include plans for bike, pedestrian, and mass transit. Further supporting this effort is a $4M budget to implement INCOG’s Bike Pedestrian plan.
3-lane vs. 4-lane.
A study by the Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation makes the case that a 3-lane street can carry just as much traffic, but is more safe and helps create a neighborhood that is accommodating to all types of transportation — bus, bike, and pedestrian.
With the high concentration in this neighborhood of families with small children, most of which do not own cars, this design should be strongly considered. It would be a shame to alienate and put in danger those very citizens and residents of the neighborhood this Task Force seeks to help, in the name of making one mile of street more convenient for automobile traffic.
Safety & Security / “Eyes on the Street”.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs describes the creation of safety in a neighborhood as putting more eyes on the street. Today we talk about walkability, diversity, and density to describe the things that make neighborhoods a more safe place to live.
The better you know your neighbors and the more you live outside amongst them, the more of a sense of place, ownership, and pride you have in the place where you live. This sense of place is important in creating a vibrant neighborhood. Streets do not do this. Wide streets set people further apart, create a sense of stress and danger, and create a mood which indicates that the neighborhood was not designed to welcome people.
Street-scaping and the beauty of a neighborhood.
This 61st/Peoria Task Force has cited that it would like to investigate the type of design of places such as the Brady Arts District, Kendall-Whittier, the Pearl District at 6th& Peoria, and Eugene Field. All of those examples embody the philosophy that more density, more eyes on the street, more mixed-use and new types of human-centric design are at the heart of the success of neighborhoods.
Should widening of Peoria be considered, it needs to be considered with these ideas in mind. A bland, straight-line, automobile-centric widening of this street would do far more harm than good. Cities should be designed for people, not cars.
Originally published at tulsanow.org.
