Bike Walk Tulsa

Councilors: Personality, Transit Critical to Health of Cities

bikewalkadmin — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:21:08 +0000

Oklahoma City Councilman Dr. Ed Shadid and Tulsa City Councilor Blake Ewing address workshop attendees at Tulsa’s City Hall in February.

Last month, Tulsa City Councilor Blake Ewing and Oklahoma City Councilman Dr. Ed Shadid both gave keynote speeches at “Navigating MAP-21″, a workshop designed to help advocates and officials learn how to maximize underutilized federal funds for local bicycling and walking infrastructure projects. Facilitated by Advocacy Advance, the event drew participants from a variety of Oklahoma communities to Tulsa’s City Hall. The full text of the keynotes and Q&A session is included below.

Blake Ewing

How is everyone doing this morning? Man, you guys seem really excited to be here. Who else rode your bike? Ren? Of course, we have two hardcore bike-to-workers. I thought about it. For a second. Because I thought it would be really cool to get up here and say that I did that. Then I remembered that I was, you know, fat. And it’s really cold. Didn’t know if my tire was aired up right.

So you’re going to hear things throughout the day, and you will hear from advocates for pedestrian-friendly cities and bike-friendly cities about the benefits of providing those things as it relates to health, as it relates to saving the streets from the wear and tear of a car and those types of things. I’m not even going to go there. Because nobody wants to hear a fat guy talk to them about the values of a healthy city. I’ll let Councilor Shadid do that. He’s thin and he’s a doctor. So, what I want to talk about is something that I know a little bit more about.

Before I do that, I’ve got a question. Who lives in the city that you live in because that’s where you grew up? Get ‘em up high. I gotta know. Who lives in the city that you live in because a job brought you to that city? Who lives in the city that you live in because that city just excited you and blew your mind, and you chose to live there because all of the offerings of that particular city? Ok. Did you guys get a look?

We make the decisions that we make about where we live based upon a couple of things, primarily: our job takes us there, we grew up there. And that’s been the way it’s been for forever. We just grew up in a place, and the kids grew up in a place. And every generation it’s been less and less that way as we became kind of a global, easy-to-get-around-in world. People started making decisions on where they were going to live more based on other things.

I will tell you this definitively: the next generation of adults will be more likely to make a decision on where they live – than any generation before them – based upon what that city has to offer. So we’ve made our decisions based upon the “who.” Like, my wife took me there or my husband’s job took me there, right? We’ve done that thing. We make our decisions about who we marry based upon— We are intentional about almost every decision we make in our life except where we live. That’s a decision that drags us. We end up somewhere. We don’t go, “I’m a Denver. I belong there.”

“I’m a Seattle. I belong there.”

“I’m a Muskogee.”

Do we have a Muskogee here? I knew we did. I actually am a Muskogee. You guys remember Andy Ewing? Yeah, that’s my grandpa. Remember the ad? I was the little boy in that commercial. That always delights people from Muskogee. Anyone else remember that? You guys know that right? He’s a superstar in Muskogee, my grandpa.

So, there’s this guy Richard Florida. Anyone heard of him? Yeah, he wrote this book — it’s on my night stand and that’s why I’m talking about this – called “Who’s Your City” and it’s something that I’ve recently read. And he’s suggesting that, more and more, cities are starting to decide we’ve got to make a city a place people will choose. Because a city has a personality like a person has a personality. Those of us who are city builders are actively participating in defining the personality of our city. I believe nothing defines the personality of a city more than what happens in and around the dense part of the city.

So, who’s been to Portland or Seattle? Who’s been to Austin? Those cities that everybody thinks are really cool? You drive 20 minutes outside of the core of any one of those cities, and it looks like 71st & Memorial, right? Now that’s not to knock 71st & Memorial. There’s a lot of nice stuff there, like a Best Buy and a Cheddar’s. But the reality is, that look is the same at almost any city you go to in the world. We’ve all got that thing, that strip of suburban mediocrity. That’s a common thing, but what’s very different from Tulsa to Oklahoma City is what’s happening in and around our downtown areas. Now, we both have very exciting things happening. But they look really different. And I think Councilor Shadid will be able to talk about exciting things happening there that look very different from the exciting things happening here. Our building stock is different. The things that have happened historically in our cities are different. And so as they’re coming back to life and their personality is growing, it’s happening in a different way. Just like some of us grow up in the same house as our younger brother or older brother, or younger sister or older sister, and somehow as adults we turn out very different. Same influences, same parents, we ate the same Cap’N Crunch as children, but somehow we developed and evolved in a very different way and have very different personalities.

So, why I’m an advocate for these types of things you’re going to hear about today is because I believe wholeheartedly that nothing is more important to the future of a city than how it develops its personality. And things like this are largely responsible for personality development. If it’s a place that people can walk around, that they can interact with buildings on the street, if you can ride your bike to work, those things are unique, that’s the unique experience of the core and the heart of a community.

So, this kind of comes from my restaurant background. I could have made, when I did Joe Momma’s, a concrete floor, cinderblock walls, metal decking, metal aluminum whatever chairs, and folding fellowship hall church-style tables, and painted everything white on the inside and sold the exact same product, and do you know what would happen? I would go out of business. My product isn’t that good. Not good enough to make up for lack of atmosphere. When we make our choices about where we go, and what we do, and where we eat, and the things that we interact with, whether we’re doing it consciously or not, we’re making those decisions based upon what our other senses experience. What do we see? What do we feel? What do we hear? And we like the great restaurants that we like not just because their food is good. We like them because that atmosphere is offering us something. Something to look at while you eat. Something to smell. Something to hear. What kind of music is playing. You guys probably don’t think about it as customers unless you’re in this business, but I’m – as a restaurant owner – trying to think about every single one of those things at all times. I can walk in to one of my places and within five seconds tell you if the music’s on the right station, if it’s too loud, if the shades need to be pulled. All of those things have become instinctual in my mind about what kind of atmosphere I want, and what I want the guests to experience because those things matter to you. And you might never walk in and go “Oh man, they should change the music station in here.” But there’s a big difference if I’m playing oldies music or if I’m playing death metal music. That will affect your experience.

And so, as we decide what kind of city we want to be, what kind of policies we want to make, what kind of investments we want to make in our infrastructure, my suggestion today is going to be that this is the most critical decision your city can make today. What kind of personality are you going to cultivate? You can continue to do what your city has done for probably the last 50 years, and that is to sprawl toward the edges of town, with a very conventional, aesthetically boring type of development pattern. Or you can embrace what’s happening all over the United States and the world. And that is a new investment in the core of the community. And active decisions that say, “How we do this matters for life.” Because this next generation of first-time homebuyers, this next generation of our spenders, they don’t want to live that life that their parents lived. They want the excitement. They want the personality. And they’re choosing where they live based upon those offerings. Not based upon whether a job took them.

I read some statistic that Portland has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. People talk about Portland and how great it is all the time, but it’s unemployment rate is in the double digits. You know why? Because people just move there. With no job. They just get in a car and drive to Portland. And then they get out and they go, “Here I am, Portland.” And they’re sleeping under bridges in Portland because they don’t have jobs there. But the city is doing something that’s attracting them. It’s got a personality so bold and so vivid that people are hearing about it from across the country and are going, “Man, that’s a place I want to be.”

And we’re lucky those of us who live in this state that our two cities are both actively reinventing themselves. It’s exciting to me to drive down the turnpike and see an Oklahoma City that has been reinvented. And we’re in the Midwest. And we’re not just embracing kind of an interesting downtown. We’re embracing creative people. We’re embracing arts. We’re not great at it yet, but we’ll get there and we’re getting there. So, I encourage you to help be a part of that. If you’re in Tulsa, I can’t encourage you enough to help us do that here. Help make this a great place for people to walk and to bike and to live in close proximity to where they work, and to enjoy the personality of our city. And if you’re in one of our regional partners, a small town, outlying communities, you may have it easier and better than we do. Your Main Streets are probably largely intact. Your interesting old buildings are probably still active in many ways. I know there’s people here from Bartlesville and Muskogee. I’ve seen what’s happening in many of those cities. And that’s exciting to me. So, keep up the good work.

And with that, I will introduce a gentleman from down the turnpike as I just referenced. He’s a city councilor in Oklahoma City. He ruffles as many feathers down there as I do up here I think. Only he does it with a suit on and a lot more class. And I know that Councilor Shadid has been a big advocate for these types of things and largely responsible for a lot of things happening in Oklahoma City so with that let’s give a warm welcome to Councilor Shadid.

Dr. Ed Shadid

I think Blake and I do have a lot in common, and I always enjoy listening to him speak. We have similar interests, and mine really started out of a career as being a spinal surgeon. I was that first and foremost, and what pulled me into city politics was public health, and the fact that, in both of our cities, we’re really off the charts. We’re outliers in terms of being at the bottom of basically every adverse health indices whether it’s obesity or hypertension, physical activity, the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed. All of it. Smoking. It’s off the charts, and so I came to a realization that really the built environment is a key player in these public health numbers. And the way that we build our cities has tremendous impact on these numbers.

So, for example, in Oklahoma City we went 40 years – 1960 to 2000 – we didn’t build any sidewalks in our city. That has a tremendous impact on public health. We have with ruthless efficiency completely engineered walking out of our lives. It led to Prevention Magazine ranking 500 cities on walkability – put Oklahoma City dead last. And that has to be a major red flag for us. It has to spur us into action. Because I don’t think the activity part is all that complicated. It’s really about walking. Biking is another component, it is an important component. But really, we are built to walk. All of our organs in our body are designed to function optimally when we are walking on two legs. If we’re not walking, we’re dying. Ok, so after surgery it doesn’t matter. We want to be sympathetic to how much you’re hurting, but you’re going to get up and walk. The only thing that comes out of lying in bed is blood clots and pneumonia. So we’ve got to get you up walking. Walking is the key to health. We are designed to walk about 10,000 steps a day. That’s what we all need. And unfortunately we’ve engineered that out of our lives. We’ve built cities where we’re dependent on the automobile to get basically everywhere we need to go.

So, like Tulsa, Oklahoma City has, in our downtown is built, much more capacity than we need for the automobiles. Basically, a rule of thumb is that you really shouldn’t widen the street to four lanes until you hit about 10,000 vehicles per day. Well, Oklahoma City is just full of wide, wide streets that don’t approach that. And we’re making massive investments in streets that really shouldn’t be widened. To get to some of our streets downtown where we’ve got six and eight lanes, it really doesn’t make any sense from an infrastructure perspective. And it’s very hostile to pedestrians. It’s very hostile to walking. And it just wasn’t on people’s radar. I mean it’s not right and wrong. Good and evil don’t belong in politics. It’s just not effective. It’s just not healthy. And I wish that those that were in public health and those that were in healthcare delivery had been involved in the built environment earlier. I think we could’ve influenced things.

The pedestrian is just not on people’s radars when they’re building the infrastructure when you’ve got high speed – this is one of our major corridors downtown – I mean there are cars going 50 miles per hour, and to have pedestrians trying to squeeze through the steps, it’s not safe. So, there have been four pedestrians hit in this area in the last 12 months.

This, it doesn’t seem like it, but this is near Bricktown. I mean this is a major – we’ve got tons of pedestrians walking through here. And, how do we retrofit that? I mean there’s so much – even if we wanted to put sidewalks we have put so much stuff in the way it’s going to be very difficult and very expensive to come in after the fact and try and retrofit these areas for pedestrians.

Courtesy Ed Shadid

Meanwhile we make massive investments on the far periphery of our city widening streets like this where nobody’s living yet. Developers are clamoring for it. They want the street widened. But this road has vehicles per day of about 2,000. I mean it’s not even close to the threshold, which is the standard across the country of about 10,000 vehicles per day. But we’ll spend $3 million dollars widening this street. There are 15 streets just like this in this area. We’re going to spend $50 million, as a city, widening streets like this that we have no business widening. It’s a massive misallocation of resources.

Meanwhile, this is how we built the core of our city for decades. This is what so many of our neighborhoods look like. It is so hostile to pedestrians. There’s one lane for cars going both ways. There’s no way that you would let your kids walk on that street. And they don’t. And so our obesity rate is rising faster in this state than anywhere else in the country. Twenty years ago it was 14%. Ten years later it was 21%. Couple of years ago it was 31%. Now it’s 34%. It’s the fastest rising public health epidemic in the history of the United States. You cannot move that many people, to move the numbers that far and that fast without something happening structurally. It’s frightening and it’s absolutely unsustainable. And I know that word gets overused, but economically – in terms of healthcare costs – that is absolutely not sustainable.

Courtesy Ed Shadid

Transit is a public health issue first and foremost. If you build a city that you have to [drive] everywhere, but then you’ve got roughly 100,000 people in the greater Oklahoma City metro area who don’t have access to a car or basically they can’t drive a car, then what have you done to them? You’ve isolated them. So, then if you spend less than virtually anywhere else in the country – Oklahoma City is also dead last in terms of its public transit ridership – you’re creating the same problems. The benefit of transit is that it always has a walking component at the beginning and the end. It’s the opposite of the automobile, which is clearly correlated with the more time we spend in an automobile the higher our obesity rates individually. The opposite is true for transit. The more we use public transit, the less obesity we have. And it’s because of that walking component.

Bus bench behind shrubs. Courtesy Ed Shadid

But we are very hostile to the pedestrian. We’re very hostile to the disabled. This is frankly a sick joke. To have the disabled try and move through cars and then get to this [bus bench] makes no sense. The message we are sending to our transit riders is basically, not just that we don’t respect you; you have no value to us as a city. We don’t value you. When we throw bus benches – concrete and 2X4s that may be uneven – what is the message that it sends to the pedestrian and the disabled? To those who would like to use public transit? Or this, you can walk through the shrubs to get to your bus bench. What does that say? If it’s raining and there’s puddles and the cars are splashing you with water. What is the message that we’re sending to the pedestrian, to those that would want to use public transit?

Courtesy Ed Shadid

The average amount that it costs in this country to have an automobile is about $10,000 to $11,000 a year when you figure the insurance, the payment and the interest and the gasoline and the maintenance and whatever fender bender you get into. It’s a lot of – I mean people – and increasingly younger people, record amounts of those that are 24 – it’s almost one in four don’t have a driver’s license. People don’t want to drive. I’d rather spend $10,000 to $11,000 a year on something else. We don’t make that easy. And the message that we’re sending, we’re not making the investments. For a relatively small amount we could make things much more respectful and much more easy for the pedestrian.

So there is this movement, and it’s happening in Tulsa and it’s happening in Oklahoma City and it’s happening across the country, where we’re starting to think about Complete Streets. And thinking about how do we build our built environment and our infrastructure for something other than the automobile – for the pedestrian and for the bicyclist, for everyone. For all modes of transportation including transit and transit stops. How you define that is a little subjective. I mean, technically this would be, you know, you could make an argument it’s a Complete Street. It’s got sidewalks, it’s got trees, it’s got lighting, it’s got – but it’s not. I mean nobody’s going to be enjoying walking here. So I think there’s something missing. And that’s that – and I think you can do this better than in Oklahoma City, this is what we’re really missing – is that it’s not just to build a street that facilitates walking. People like to see other people. Pedestrians like to see other pedestrians. And so, it’s trying to create some corridors and some streets that have a sense of place. It’s a place that you can go to and I’m going to go to this area, and I don’t really have any store in particular that I’m going to. I just want to go to this area and walk around and see other people. I think that’s – I mean you can’t transform the whole city, but I think that’s where you start. You try and create senses of place. You try and create places where pedestrians can be with other pedestrians, they can window shop, and that I think is the key.

The way that we build our streets, again, we just prioritize the car. But to start to think on some streets about ways that we might facilitate others. For example, we give the primary area here to cars, what would happen if we start to get people out? I mean this is an area that you’d want to walk. That you’d want to sit. That you’d want to eat. And small changes in our built environment can facilitate that.

This is an intersection in New York City and, again, by making small changes, by making bulbouts, by making the distance shorter that pedestrians have to walk across the intersection, by painting – just simple paint on the street can make big differences, we can facilitate things for the pedestrian. I think that’s what I wanted to say in my 10 minutes. I’ll go wherever you guys want to go from here in terms of questions.

Q&A

Question: Do you feel like you’re a lone voice in Oklahoma City or do you have support for your view?

Shadid: I have support for my view. It’s growing, it’s changing. I’m not a lone voice, especially among younger segments of the population. But definitely in public health, people get this. Physicians get this. We’re drowning. We can’t – It’s not – we can’t continue.

You know I think that we have this crisis of the lack of primary care physicians in Oklahoma. We don’t like to say this because you’re supposed to treat it – but people are getting tired. I mean, when you got obesity rates and diabetes rates, and smokers it’s – you know, people are crying for help and for interventions. And so, I think that this is a growing movement.

We’re going to have a town hall meeting. A gentleman from Portland, Jarrett Walker, who’s going to come and talk about public transit. We’re expecting hundreds and hundreds of people. So there is movement. And I don’t feel like a lone voice.

Question: At the state level, a lot of funding has to come through the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. And, my name is Bill Leighty, I serve on the local Transportation Advisory Board that makes recommendations to our City Council and our Mayor on land transportation. We helped propose the Complete Streets policy that was adopted recently. And we’ve also tried to advocate some for a state Complete Streets policy, but we’re going to need the help of a lot of people, including the elected officials at the municipal level, to start lobbying to try to get that done and in place because when the funds are threatened – federal funds that come through the state – it becomes a discretionary thing on the part of the state Department of Transportation that hasn’t been very sympathetic towards bicycle and pedestrian things. If we had something in writing, and it was a state law that mandated a certain amount it would be good. So I’m encouraging both councilors here in Oklahoma City and Tulsa to do what they can to help lobby our state representatives and our legislators to make the changes needed to get the Department of Transportation aware of the needs that we have to try to change the culture.

Ewing: Is that a question?

Question: [inaudible, paraphrased] What kind of opposition have both of you encountered when it comes to trying to advocate and what are some things we as advocates can do to alleviate that?

Ewing: You know, I don’t know that the opposition in Tulsa is an intentional, organized opposition. It’s just kind of a – the opposition is “the way we’ve always done it.” Right? And so it isn’t that there’s this group of people around going “I hate pedestrians!”, “Those bicyclists!” You know? But we do live in a car-centered place here. So those of us who have been to Boston or somewhere where it’s kind of like – I had a friend that went to college in Boston and spent a semester there and then she brought her car back and just gave it to me, which was awesome. She was like “I will never need this again”, “I realized I will never need this again.” And in Tulsa, like, you can’t live without one in a lot of ways. Unless you live, you know, close to where you’re working and close to where you’re playing. You gotta be able to get around. Our public transportation is atrocious. No offense. But let’s be honest. You know, this hasn’t been a good city to live in in that sense.

So we really deal with tradition. Like, bad tradition. Which is sprawl-oriented, let’s eat up as much land as we can, let’s get as far away from, you know, poor people as possible. And so you keep having this kind of new wave of new McMansions being built, and we have to accommodate that because those people spend sales tax dollars, and it’s just a very simple way of thinking that says let’s build the new Target really far away from downtown, and those rich people who live out there will shop in it, and that sales tax revenue is important because it will help us to pay for the streets that will serve the people who live out there.

You know, so we’ve overbuilt – the other thing is that – I’m going to way overtalk here, Ed – I think that the other opposition is this. We live in a very red state. And we can just be honest about that. That for some reason, sustainability or New Urbanism, these pedestrian and bicycle-oriented things have become a blue issue. Like, that’s a Democrat thing, which is absolutely ridiculous to me. And so, by default almost, it’s like “Well, that’s those liberals and their crazy bicycles.” You know? And I think we have that. There’s kind of a mentality in our state that just says it must be bad if they like it. You know? And what I really think is we got to start doing a better job of framing up the conversation to conservatives, especially our conservative elected people in our communities. That this isn’t just conservative. It’s the most conservative thing you can do in a community.

Instead of spending our huge coffer of money on widening some new street that we will then have to maintain for the rest of eternity, how about we focus on what we do with the streets that we have? Instead of sprawling out and eating up new land that’s going to require new tax revenue to maintain, why don’t we work on infill development? So, we’re doing kind of these crazy things with our money as cities where we’re building all this new infrastructure that we can’t maintain. And when you accommodate suburban-style, low density subdivision after suburban-style, low density subdivision, the burden that that puts on our police departments, our fire departments, our public works departments, is tremendous.

If you build a neighborhood full of cul-de-sacs and no entrances in and out of the neighborhood you have to have significantly more fire services in that part of the city than you do in a neighborhood that has 10 entrances and exits on every mile side of the road on a traditional grid system with no cul-de-sacs. We want our fire trucks to get somewhere in four minutes inside the City of Tulsa. When you build those neighborhoods like that you gotta build more fire stations to be able to get there in four minutes or less. Am I right, four minutes or less? Ok. So, we’re doing something that is the opposite of conservative in our traditional pattern. And I think it’s time that we start – and maybe it’s the advocates of you – we need to start using terms like “responsible” instead of “sustainable,” or “efficient” instead of “environmentally-friendly,” or whatever. If they don’t care about health, and they don’t care about the environment, let’s talk about some things that conservatives do care about. And that’s fiscal conservatism. Financial responsibility. Low spending. You want to keep taxes low? Stop spending so much money. Stop building so much infrastructure. My soap box. I’m finished.

Shadid: I would echo all of that. I would say that, in Oklahoma City just like so many cities across the country, you have some conflict between your public works and planning department. And then your transit department is just completely marginalized. They don’t even have a seat at the table. But getting those two entities working together better I think is a key. And Oklahoma City has been very public works driven. And public works has been about moving the greatest number of cars at the fastest speed, decreasing people’s commute time. That has been the paramount goal and that drives everything. And then you have developers on the periphery of the city who are clamoring and they don’t want people to wait at intersections, and they want resources spent.

We build our city with a bond roughly every 10 years. Nobody knows about it. Very, very small number of people are involved. The developers are the ones who overwhelmingly show up to these meetings, and advocates like yourself aren’t there, or haven’t been there. And so that’s where the city’s infrastructure goes.

But, as Blake was saying, nobody knows how this unique American experiment is going to play out. This has never been done before. We’re only two, three generations into it where we spend massive amounts of money on roads. I mean, Oklahoma City has 620 square miles. We’re three times as big as Tulsa. It’s enormous. We have 15,000 linear miles of roads and we’re building more. And we’re widening more. And nobody, if you ask, there’s no one who can say what do you think this will cost to maintain over the next 30 years? Nobody can answer that question. And that’s horrifying to me. I mean, it seems like we should get our arms around that first before we build new ones. But we don’t. We just keep spending more and more and more.

And so, I would argue as Blake argued, in terms of what’s fiscally conservative and responsible, it’s to try and get a handle on what the maintenance costs are going to be, and to not build more until you do that. And that, clearly what we’re seeing in city after city – Austin, I think Blake talked about Portland – is that, creating a sense of place, creating place for pedestrians and bicyclists leads to economic development. This concept of transit-oriented development is understood in cities across America. It’s not really understood here. But public transit investments can lead to massive economic development. We have massive food deserts. The public health numbers and the poverty are all really concentrated in about 10 ZIP codes in Oklahoma City. And if you can make changes in those areas you can move those numbers.

Ewing: That was the longest answer ever between the two of us. And I don’t even know if we told you what you can do to help. I think, Ed alluded to it. Show up at those things. We’ve got the Fix Our Streets, whatever we call it thing happening in Tulsa this year. And you know who’s going to be at the table. Like Ed said, the same group of people are going to be there lobbying that we spend and build new things. And I think if that element of our community that desires that personality to continue to be developed, and new amenities inside the core, if those folks don’t show up, then the voice continues to go unheard. And I would say that in Tulsa that we’re very fortunate to have some passionate individuals working on this. I can’t say enough about what Stephen does and what Ren does. I see familiar faces here who are making this a bicycle-friendly community. We’re really lucky. So follow their lead and keep doing that type of thing. It’s good for all of us.

Shadid: One thing I would add – I’m sorry my memory’s failing me – is every city doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel. There’s a manual, it’s green. I think it’s the ITE but it’s “Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares.” It’s a standard of how to create these streets, how to do Complete Streets. And it’s by transportation engineers, it’s by engineers, and so it has some legitimacy with public works. Every public works department doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel. Cities after cities – Fort Worth, El Paso – are using this manual and it’s standardizing things, standardizing changes when we build new streets, when we build new corridors. It’s standardizing things so that everybody doesn’t have to spend a lot of time re-inventing the wheel.

Question: My question is for Councilor Shadid. I don’t know if Oklahoma City has the same issue, where Tulsa is a very – where people will say, oh, this is a downtown issue, this is a Brookside issue, this is a Cherry Street issue, and if they don’t live near those areas they kind of give it the brush off. So has Oklahoma City had to face those same challenges with people think it’s just a Bricktown issue or a downtown issue?

Shadid: That what’s an issue?

Question: Like making streets more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. That people that don’t live in downtown Oklahoma City or near those areas. Do they think it doesn’t apply to them or they don’t really care? How do you get those people on board?

Shadid: So, we certainly have this tension between downtown and – we’ve got 2,000 people living downtown and 600,000 people not living downtown. And we’re making massive investments in our downtown. So you’ve got this tension between where some of these infrastructure – like MAPS3 capital projects. But absence of sidewalks is so pervasive and so uniform throughout the whole city that basically everybody gets that. People are coming to Oklahoma City for other parts of the – you know, we went from 1930 to 1980 we had no population growth. Now, we’re growing. And people are coming from other parts of the country and they’re like “you have no sidewalks here.” I mean, that’s wherever you are in Oklahoma City. Unless you’re in the newer development on the periphery of the city, if you’re in anything that was built in the decades and decades in the core of the city there’s no sidewalks. And everybody gets that. So, I think that’s pretty uniform. And now, then you get into, well, I want sidewalks on my street. Our kids are walking in the middle of the street. It’s ridiculous you got this guy in a wheelchair going down the middle of the street. Now everybody’s had this epiphany and they’ve woken up and now everybody wants it and there’s not enough funds. So everybody’s clamoring, and it’s more of a conflict over who gets the improvements. But I think everybody gets that improvements need to be made.

Question: Talk about retrofitting streets in neighborhoods. I mean, do you have numbers to correspond with all of that? Because you’re trying to compare the cost to do new or to widen with retrofitting to make things more friendly for bicyclists and people, so do you have numbers so that you can actually present that? And if so, what are they?

Shadid: It depends on how wide you want to make your sidewalk. If you want to make it 4, 5, 6, or 12 feet would be wildly different costs. But if you want to do 5, 6 feet, we promised people in MAPS3 we were going to spend $10 million on sidewalks and get them 75 miles of sidewalks. We ended up getting like a third of that, 25 miles, and for $10 million. And the reason is you’ve got all this stuff in the middle of the street that has to be moved: utilities, signs, you know and making it ADA-compliant. And that’s without even thinking about transit. I mean, trying to make a pad and then putting a shelter where you make the moral decision to protect people from the Oklahoma wind and rain and snow, you’ve got to put that on a pad that then connects with the sidewalk, and that’s not even on anybody’s radar or cost estimates. But basically we got about 25 miles for $10 million.

Ewing: And I would say here we’re working on that, I know in Tulsa, to try to be able to make that case. It’s been suggested that we do a study, here. Which, we haven’t done enough studies. And so, this is one – I’ve been bemoaning them for a year and a half and this is the one I’m advocating for – I think we have to be able to have those numbers to be able to make that case. I heard a number that’s like that once, that the cost of making rail from Oklahoma City to Tulsa viable is the same cost of widening one mile of I-44 through Tulsa. Right? We could have passenger rail connecting our two cities for the same price of widening a mile of I-44. So that’s a compelling statement, right? When you hear that, it actually makes you kind of offended that – and I’d hope that we could have some kind of numbers like that. For the cost of widening some road in South Tulsa we could have – you know, and I know those numbers are out there. I want to be able to quote them like it’s my job.

Question: [inaudible, paraphrasing] How do you perceive the statewide leadership’s role in changing the conversation about active transportation as a worthy investment?

Shadid: Uh, my mother always said if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything.

Ewing: Mine didn’t say that. I learned this from my mother. Anyone in my age range watch the Fraggle Rock show? You guys remember Fraggle Rock? Anyone? Ok. So on Fraggle Rock, it was this Jim Henson show that I watched as a kid, and the Fraggles were these little Muppet creatures that lived underground. And they had these little green construction guys, the Dozers. Remember the little green Dozers? They didn’t really talk much. All they did was build stuff. They would build these little things, and the Fraggles would inevitably knock them over, and I think the Fraggles could even eat what the Dozers built. The Dozers would be like, “Mah.” And then they would go back to just building more stuff. I think we got a lot of guys in Oklahoma that are like Dozers. And if they have a chance to build something, they’re going to build something. And that’s the way it’s been done for a really long time. Just, “Mah, build more road.” And I think in our Department of Transportation that’s prevalent.

I don’t know what really happens behind the closed door when there’s federal funding for public transportation and when there’s lots of encouragement for public transportation. But I do know that we aren’t seeing any results at the state level as it pertains to public transportation initiatives and pedestrian and bicycle-related things. And I think it speaks to that thing that I talked about before. We have elected people at the Capitol, more from rural communities than urban communities – Or at least it’s close – and significantly more kind of like conservative types who see these things as liberal agenda. And until we can de-politicize some of that and make it about things like health, and make it about things like interesting, attractive cities, we’re going to continue to see what I believe is the most important issue in our state be marginalized and sloughed off as something for the Democrats to play with.

So those of you who are advocates, I can’t say it enough, we’ve got to start changing the conversation. You can talk to other liberals about sustainability and about protecting the environment and about those types of things, and they’re all like “Yeah, I know, the environment’s awesome.” But some rural Republican congress person representative from Podunk, Oklahoma is going “What do I care about sustainability?” You know? They got different issues. We’ve got to be able to make the case that this is what’s financially responsible for our state, to stop spending money on infrastructure the way that we have. And I don’t see anybody doing that. I don’t know if it’s our bureaucrat-types are driving the bus, no joke intended, or if it’s just that our elected people don’t care.

That wasn’t that mean.

Shadid. I agree. ODOT traditionally has been about highways. I think they’ve got two employees for rail, and that, I think their focus is primarily on how rail interfaces with the highways. So, it’s not truly a rail division in terms of transportation.

But the dynamics are changing. You know, we just had this battle of building a $100 million “boulevard”, it’s more like a high-speed expressway through the middle of our downtown, and a lot of the public was asking for, you know, what is the impact on walkability? What is the impact on placemaking? What is the impact on economic development? What are the alternatives to just moving the greatest number of cars the fastest speed through our downtown? And we wanted some study of different things. And basically it wasn’t done. And a lot of members of the public asking for this, and it wasn’t done. And I think, you know, one thing that levels the playing field a little bit is that when you start having federal funds, and there’s a federal process, there’s the court system. And the court system is a great equalizer, especially for segments of the population that become increasingly sophisticated.

That’s what happens in big cities like Chicago and San Francisco. If somebody just tried to ram something like that project through the middle of downtown you would have public opposition, and if the process wasn’t adhered to, you would have court action. I think that’s likely where we’re headed in Oklahoma City. And I think it’s going to be a painful lesson for Oklahoma City, for ODOT and for the state, as that thing sits unbuilt for several years. But it’s not the fact that people spoke up and asked for other things like the pedestrian and transit and bicycling and all those things to be considered. That’s not what delayed it. It’s that the process wasn’t followed. It’s a NEPA process that has to be adhered to. And the opposition got sophisticated enough to understand that process really better than some City and ODOT officials. And they outmaneuvered them. And it’s really, you’re in this awkward position where ODOT’s trying to figure out is this really checkmate? No, there is no move. So, Mr. Ridley on his way out is saying, you know, I don’t think this thing is going to be built until 2016. And it’s not. Because the public got sophisticated and used the legal system to make sure that the process was adhered to when these considerations that are important to so many people were not considered.

For more from Ed Shadid, watch his presentation from this Feb. 26 Public Transit Town Hall in Oklahoma City. Public Transit Town Hall – Ed Shadid from Ed Shadid on Vimeo.

Tulsa, OKC City Councilors to Keynote Bike/Pedestrian Workshop

bikewalkadmin — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:14:33 +0000

Blake Ewing (left) and Ed Shadid (right) are scheduled keynote speakers at the Feb. 22 workshop at Tulsa’s City Hall.

TULSA – District 4 Tulsa City Councilor Blake Ewing and Ward 2 Oklahoma City Councilman Ed Shadid are the scheduled keynote speakers at next month’s free bike/pedestrian federal funding workshop at Tulsa’s City Hall.

Designed for elected officials, government agency staff and bicycle/pedestrian advocates, the Navigating MAP-21 workshop will help attendees develop the knowledge, skills and resources to access untapped or under-utilized federal funding sources at the state, regional and local level to build bicycling and walking infrastructure and programs.

Scheduled for Feb. 22, the Navigating MAP-21 workshop is being facilitated by Advocacy Advance — a partnership between the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking & Walking. Funding surface transportation programs at more than $105 billion, MAP-21 is the first long-term transportation authorization enacted by the federal government since 2005. The funds provided by this program can help the City of Tulsa and surrounding communities implement bike lanes, bike trails, sidewalks, safe routes to school, and other bike/pedestrian infrastructure and programs.

Attendees to the workshop will learn about under-utilized funding sources that exist for biking and walking projects and programs, which the region has not yet tapped into; learn the key characteristics, requirements, and opportunities of those sources and best practices from around the country; discuss favorable factors for bicycling and walking investments; understand the important role of elected officials, government agency staff, and advocates in securing this funding; and share knowledge and experiences in the local context, working together to develop a list of local priorities and strategies for funding bicycle and pedestrian projects and programs.

As the City of Tulsa works to renew the Fix Our Streets capital improvement program, Ewing and other councilors — in light of last year’s unanimous council approval of a Complete Streets resolution — have expressed their intent to make any new funding package a more comprehensive transportation package that will include bicycles, pedestrians and transit.

Ewing has been a staunch advocate for urban infill and walkability. Nowhere was that more evident than his vote against last year’s QuikTrip Planned Unit Development application for the expansion of the company’s 11th & Utica location. The PUD sought to close 10th street so the new store and gas pumps could be built across the public right-of-way, breaking up the walkable grid of the neighborhood and violating the neighborhood’s pedestrian-friendly small area plan.

In Oklahoma City, Shadid has been at the forefront of a battle that has been brewing over the new OKC Boulevard slated to replace the old I-40, which was moved to the south last year. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation initially planned long highway-like elevated sections of the boulevard in an effort focused on primarily moving as many cars as possible quickly through downtown Oklahoma City.

Shadid has been leading an effort to change ODOT’s plans and instead make the space vacated by I-40 more walkable, bike-friendly and more suitable to placemaking. In an editorial on the OKC Boulevard last year, Shadid expressed the importance of cities thinking beyond the automobile.

In terms of the design of our city, one principal guides me as much as any other: one gets more of the behavior for which we design. If a city builds more bicycle trails, it will get more bicyclists riding longer distances. If one builds complete streets and sidewalks which facilitate pedestrian activity, the city will see an increase in the number of people walking the estimated 10,000 steps a day which we all need. If the City exhibits tunnel vision and focuses almost exclusively on moving the greatest number of vehicles through limited access points, it will not only get more people driving automobiles through the type of congestion it sets out to solve, but we will limit our economic development potential and the ability to create that which we all so innately crave; the development of community.

Sponsored by Tulsa’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee, the free one-day workshop will be held Feb. 22 in the 10th Floor South Conference Room of Tulsa’s City Hall, located at 175 E. 2nd Street. Those interested in attending can register for the Tulsa workshop at the following link: http://www.advocacyadvance.org/trainings

News On 6 Reports on Bicyclists & Drivers Sharing the Road

bikewalkadmin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:14:43 +0000

TULSA – With the Tulsa Tough cycling race and ride event right around the corner, News On 6 reports on bicyclists and motorists sharing the road.

In Oklahoma, attorney Malcolm McCollam says the rules of the road are simple: The same rules that apply to a motorist, apply to a cyclist.

“You ride on the right-hand side of the street; you stop at stop signs; if you’re going make a left-hand turn, you’re going get in the left hand turn lane,” McCollam said.

Bikers should ride as close as they feel is safe to the curb, but whether on two wheels or four, sharing the road is key.

Find the Nearest Bike Rack in Tulsa With the Bike Parking Locator

bikewalkadmin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:38:38 +0000

TULSA – Bike Walk Tulsa has created a bike parking locator map to help Tulsa area bicyclists find bike parking near their final destination.

The map, located at bikewalktulsa.org/tulsa-bike-parking-locator/ and accessible on the site’s sidebar, provides directions to the nearest mapped bike rack when users enter their final destination street address in the search box at the top of the map.

Bike parking at the University of Tulsa. (photo: Lassiter)

Bike racks are marked for the public, customers, or tenants. Some office buildings downtown have bike racks for building tenants and their employees, so it is important to distinguish which racks are available for anyone to use and which racks are exclusive.

The initial bike parking map contains nearly 60 locations with more than 650 parking spaces for bicycles. Many of the locations, when clicked, are accompanied on the map by a photo to provide a visual cue as to what the bike rack looks like and where it is situated.

Of course, bike parking is extremely elusive and hard to spot, so we know this is not all the bike parking in Tulsa and the surrounding communities. That’s why we need your help.

Bike Walk Tulsa wants to map all the bike parking locations throughout the metro area. Not only Tulsa, but we also want Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Jenks, Bixby, Owasso, Sapulpa, Catoosa and more. If you see a bike rack somewhere in town, take a picture and email the photo and the location information to us at parking@bikewalktulsa.org. We’ll get it added to the map.

View Tulsa Bike Parking in a full screen map

Transportation Progress in Tulsa People

bikewalkadmin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:27:07 +0000

TULSA – Seven out of 10 Tulsans spend more than 45% of their income on transportation and housing combined, according to a study by the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG). If you’re looking for ways to get that number down (who isn’t?), you might be interested in an article in the June edition of Tulsa People on the progression toward more transportation options in our city.

Buses, bicycles and walking can provide Tulsans the ability to reduce their car dependence and save money. (photo: pedbikeimages.org / Dan Burden)

Written by INCOG’s Transportation Projects Coordinator James Wagner, the essay touches on what’s being done to improve bus service, how the city is working toward Complete Streets, and the long-time-in-coming-hopefully-sometime-soon addition of city-installed bike racks around the city.

Back to that statistic on the portion of income Tulsans spend on transportation and housing, Wagner explains the impact transportation costs have on families in the Tulsa area:

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is using this new measure of housing plus transportation cost to determine the relative economic impact of the “drive till you qualify” phenomenon, in which would-be homeowners ventured farther into the suburbs to find houses they could afford, only to pay higher transportation costs.

HUD noticed that transportation costs often outweighed the cost of similar housing closer to work, resulting in a net loss for families trying to keep their housing costs low.

More transportation options in Tulsa can help families save money. A city focused solely on the automobile — a mode of transportation that, per vehicle, can cost as much as $8,000 – $10,000 per year to own and operate — is not serving the needs of families who are looking for ways to reduce that 45% statistic. Better transportation options will provide Tulsa families the opportunity to choose the right mode of transportation to fit their budget.

Urban Tulsa Cover Story Highlights Bicycling

bikewalkadmin — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:57:50 +0000

Bicycling spotlighted on May 30, 2012 Urban Tulsa Cover. (Source: Urban Tulsa)

TULSA – In this week’s Urban Tulsa cover story, Matt Nelson provides an overview of Tulsa’s burgeoning bicycle culture.

Nelson points out that, for a city of its size, Tulsa has a treasure trove of bicycling amenities — think RiverParks, Turkey Mountain, Tulsa Tough, Tulsa Bicycle Club, Wednesday Night Rides — accompanied by a diverse community of bicyclists:

Over the past few years there has been a rising trend in the so-called “hipster” cycling community that values a simple, no technology approach to cycling because they believe cycling is just the right thing to do. Ask someone on their technologically advanced carbon-fiber bike wearing their team-sponsored cycling jersey and they’ll tell you it’s about the competition and fitness. Ask someone on their cruiser headed down Riverside, and cycling is an opportunity to get outdoors and enjoy time with friends or family. So who are the real cyclists? The answer is YES!

The cover story hits newsstands today. Pick up your free copy this week or read it here.

City of Tulsa Produces Video of Bike to Work Week Event

bikewalkadmin — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:40:16 +0000

TULSA – With two days left in Bike to Work Week and a long bicycling season ahead, the City of Tulsa released a short video documentary of Monday’s Bike to Work Week event with Mayor Dewey Bartlett and Councilor Skip Steele.

Let’s hope this willingness to participate in bicycling events progresses from talk into action in improving Tulsa’s streets for bicycling.

See ART BIKE Tulsa 2012 at Mayfest

bikewalkadmin — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:17:04 +0000

"Riding for Brighter Days" by Jan McKay on display at ART BIKE Tulsa 2012 during Mayfest. (photo: Lassiter)

TULSA – The National MS Society is presenting ART BIKE Tulsa 2012, an installation of colorful, uniquely-designed bicycles transformed by some of Tulsa’s leading artists and high school students to bring awareness to Multiple Sclerosis.

The art bike installation has been on display in the lobby of the Williams Center Towers at One West Third Street since May 9 and will continue to be on display at that location through Mayfest. The exhibit will then move to Tulsa International Airport where it will be on display through September 14 leading up to the Bike MS: The Mother Road Ride, a two-day ride from Tulsa to Oklahoma City along Route 66.

"Neon Okie" by Kate Johnson on display at ART BIKE Tulsa 2012. (photo: Lassiter)

HBO Documentary: Walking, Biking Part of Cure for Obesity Epidemic

bikewalkadmin — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:18:44 +0000

The four-part HBO Documentary “The Weight of the Nation” prescribes more walking, biking and other forms of physical activity as a cure for the U.S. obesity crisis.

Oklahoma is the seventh most obese state in the nation, but it’s number one in adult obesity growth rate. That means we are better at getting fatter faster than anyone in the country.

The HBO documentary delves into our nation’s weight problem and finds that increases in calorie consumption coupled with a lack of physical activity are the root cause. Better diets will help you lose weight, but physical activity is needed to keep that weight off long-term.

“The question is what changed in the last 30 years to make this obesity epidemic happen,” says Robert Lustig, MD, a Neuroendocrinologist with the University of California, San Francisco.

The increase of car-dependency in our communities is a major factor in the reduction of physical activity.

“We don’t walk, we don’t bike, and it’s cut off hundreds of calories of physical activity,” says Barry Popkin, PhD, an economist and Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

More than 75% of Americans drive to work — a 300% increase since 1960. In 1969, 42% of children walked or biked to school. Today, more than 80% are driven to school. Currently, less than 5% of adults meet the minimum guidelines for physical activity.

“In fact, roughly one in four adults gets no physical activity at all,” says Eric Finkelstein, PhD an economist at Duke University.

“We’ve engineered physical activity out of our everyday lives,” According to William Dietz, MD, PhD, the Director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Our work as adults has been increasingly sedentary.”

Much of our sedentary lifestyles comes about from the built environment, one that prioritizes the moving of motor vehicles as fast as possible while ignoring more active modes of transportation.

Cars dominate so much of our lives that one child in the documentary who lives in a poor community with few parks nearby laments, “all these parking lots are, like, kind of the park we have.”

Karl Dean, Mayor of Nashville, is working to change his city into one that makes living a healthy lifestyle “the easy choice.”

Dean isn’t just talking either. He’s walking the walk by pouring $13 million into sidewalks. Nashville also has received $7.5 million in grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for obesity prevention efforts, building on their work of improving bike lanes, sidewalks and parks.

“We have to invest in quality of life. People want to live in a city that’s healthy, that’s clean, that’s walkable and bikeable, that’s full of places where they can exercise and enjoy fresh air,” says Dean.

“We know that to be healthier we need to eat better and exercise more. And how you make that part of the city is really the challenge.”

Mayor, City Councilor Bike to Work

bikewalkadmin — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:54:08 +0000

Mayor Bartlett (middle) and Councilor Steele (right) ride their bikes to City Hall to kick off Bike to Work Week. (photo: Wagner)

TULSA – Mayor Dewey Bartlett and City Councilor Skip Steele kicked off Bike to Work Week this morning with a bike ride from The Coffee House on Cherry Street to City Hall.

After speaking with media and attendees, the Mayor and First Lady, Councilor Steele and other bicyclists rode their bikes to work, complete with a police bike patrol escort.

Easels displayed aerial imagery showing the location of bike parking to be installed around Tulsa later this year. (photo: Lassiter)

Bike to Work Week runs from May 14 through May 18 and is part of Tulsa’s celebration of National Bike Month. Monday’s event, hosted by the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG), offered free breakfast pastries, juice and snacks for commuting bicyclists while also providing a glimpse into the location of bicycle racks the city plans to install later this year.

Maps showing the locations of the racks were displayed on easels outside the Coffee House. Several on-street bike corrals will be located on Cherry Street. Bike corrals replace a car parking spot with a series of bike racks that can park 10 bicycles in the space of one car.

Bike to Work Week runs all this week and ends with a celebration on Friday at Joe Momma’s at 112 S. Elgin from 4:30p to 6:30pm. There will be prizes and music and you can enter the Bike Commuter Challenge.

Mayor Bartlett and Councilor Steele are interviewed by Fox 23 at Monday's Bike to Work Week kickoff event. (photo: Lassiter)

Mayor Bartlett (middle left) and Councilor Steele (middle right) ride on Norfolk Ave south of 11th Street. (photo: Wagner)

Bike to Work Week kickoff at the Coffee House on Cherry Street, Monday, May 14, 2012. (photo: Lassiter)

Councilor Steele and Tulsa Police ready to go. (photo: Lassiter)