Stick with architecture you obviously don’t know anything about trees. Dogwoods are not street trees. I am sure you trees in Norman were shaded quite well and weren’t surrounded by concrete.

you don’t need a committee to say, “hey, let’s use native stuff! it will grow well and be low maintenance!” what IS needed is a staff member from the program “oklahoma gardening” as a consultant to whoever does the design. i’ve lived in oklahoma all my life, and i’ve come to love oak trees, bermuda grass, cottonwoods, redbuds, and honeysuckle. i also love the various wildflowers that we’ve been enjoying on highway rights-of way for decades.

this one’s a no-brainer. want it to look good? plant stuff that grows HERE. plus, it costs less to plant and WAY less to maintain.

I agree design-by-committee can be awful, and I know a thing or two about information overload. At the end of the day, I expect world-class professionals to present a well-conceived, well-thought-out, cohesive, unique, and attractive design that meets or exceeds the technical requirements of the contract. I’m not sure what I see here is all of those. I’m not questioning the professionals qualifications or capabilities…just the specific work product I see here. I will admit I am picky, though: average isn’t good enough around here anymore!

From what I’ve been told, streetcar alignments have been considered as part of the overall plan. The new designs should allow for minimal intrusion when the system is built. Disruptions could occur, but they are thinking about them. The problem with hurrying up the assessment is the Federal process. If we want Federal funds, then we have to follow their tedious process…

This whole process is unique. I haven’t done any research (and I think I’ll try this weekend), but this specific case has to be one of the largest TIF funded streetscape projects in the US, ever. The funding agreement, asking OJB to be overall consultant, must also be quite unique. Had this been all GO Bond funding, I would guess that the process would have been much more open. We wanted Devon here, so we had to play ball, for good or for bad. It’s tough too, because we wouldn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth – this change is incredible – but we also don’t want a big change to be diminished by mediocre elements and pedestrian (no pun intended) improvements.

Design-by-committee is a designer’s worst nightmare. Some members of the project team may periodically peruse your blog for entertainment and the stray good idea, but they already have more input than they want without coming here. 95% of the important decisions will have been made by the time the Design Development phase is presented in January. Our biggest opportunity to affect the outcome ended when the design team was selected.

You’re right when you say that many of your readers are professionals of equal standing with the design team, and others are just very interested and knowledgeable citizens. Jeff’s comments about accommodating certain aspects of a future streetcar system are logical. Many good ideas, constructive criticisms, and general complaints have been presented… It is a valuable forum, but there’s such a thing as information overload. The design team is bound by the established project scope (not to mention their contract, and business pressures) and must focus on delivering what they’ve contracted to deliver. We should trust that they are indeed the capable and talented professionals we hired, then sit back and enjoy the results.

In the mean time we’ll continue to bat it around here, because that is what we like to do!

Jeff: You’re absolutely right. Thanks for bringing up a point I hadn’t thought of, that the streets are going to be torn up anyway to install the streetcar lines. If/when MAPS 3 passes in December they’re going to realize that there is no point in completing a streetscape before 2012 if they don’t intend to have the streetcars finished until 2012 as well (which I doubt). If so, then that suddenly become the highest priority project.

Jeff also brought up the bus station contest that I mentioned previously. http://www.okcbusstops.com/vote.php Here on the vote page, even though you can no longer vote, you can see all of the designs that were considered. Now when you look at those designs that were INTENDED for OKC at one point in time, and look at the document Steve jokingly calls the truth we can’t handle, it’s a bit disappointing. Why don’t we just use one of the ones from that design contest that we already had?

http://oktalk.net/bb/index.php?topic=3504.0 Here are several pics of the streetscapes Jeff Speck proposed for downtown just months ago. Why don’t we just roll with those? Personally I’ll admit I am not sure about the idea of a single unitary streetscape for all of downtown. Bricktown is incredibly unique from the Arts District, MidTown is incredibly unique from the Deep Deuce area, and so on. MidTown has actually got the beginning of what could be a very cool, bold streetscape design. Bricktown’s is also very nice, except for Reno Ave.

Speck had some excellent ideas as well. His proposals for Couch Drive and E.K. Gaylord are excellent. I like the idea of a grand entrance to the CBD at Robinson. The paving art is also a cool idea, which isn’t something we’ve done a whole lot, save for some circles and stuff in Auto Alley and a huge star in the Film Row streetscape’s intersections. This is an actual full-color image representing something about Oklahoma. I like. You’ve got to appreciate Speck’s other proposed enhanced urban plazas, art to adorn skyways, and alley gateways.

As for the actual specifics of what streetlamps we get, what streetlights we end up with..I actually like what I see from the document in this blog post. I don’t want to see them stray from anything that’s not black. I’d also prefer they avoid a really modern design just because what was modern for 1980 is no longer modern. Case in point: what the interior of KMG Tower used to look like. And as for the “acorn” streetlamps, I actually like those. I had never even noticed that they look like acorns until I heard people bitching about those. The fact is that they look good, and unless someone tells you they look like acorns, they really resemble the quintessential old-fashioned streetlamp. To me they look good. As long as they go with a classic design, and avoid painting metal any particular color, I don’t think they can go too wrong. I’d hate to see all the investment in the Bricktown streetscapes go to waste. With the streetlights, I think typically horizontal streetlights look better than vertical streetlights. I’ve just seen more horizontal streetlights in well-done downtowns or nice suburbs that I liked.

To sum up a really long post: We need to stop approaching this task like the Great Streetscape Project of 2012 is an independent project, or that the only other factor is Devon Tower. There are a million other factors that are being ignored. Not all streetscapes in downtown are bad, some are actually good. In a lot of places there has already been a plan (granted the CBD has been in need of a “plan” like MidTown and Bricktown) that is already well-underway. A lot of these plans have just been waiting for more funding. So now that the funding is there we just go straight back to Square 1? I don’t get it.

The rest of the trees are great.

Nick, Dogwoods do not grow well in OKC, they needs almost full shade to do well in OKC. The do great in Tulsa and Stillwater with some shade.