A bit more about NE 2
The Oklahoma City Council tomorrow will be asked to spend $168,000 to make a pedestrian passage more “inviting” and “aesthetically pleasing” for visitors.
This news might please the hundreds of residents who call Deep Deuce home and see a large fenced in grate along NE 2 that blocks their path to and from the central business district. Maybe, just maybe, this improvement is aimed at moving the water meter under that grate and restoring it as a normal sidewalk. Developers investing tens of millions along the street to build a hotel, apartments and a grocery can’t be blamed if they get excited thinking this city-created eyesore is about to eliminated.
As reported previously, the grate along NE 2 just west of Oklahoma Avenue was installed about five inches above the sidewalk surface when construction plans for the adjoining Second Street Lofts didn’t match up with those of the Oklahoma City Water/Wastewater Department for installation of a water meter below the grate.
Water utilities director Marsha Slaughter said the grate level couldn’t be altered without endangering her employees. She said the fenced area, which blocks off the center of the sidewalk, was the best solution, and that to move the water meter would cost “about $100,000 and a high annoyance factor during construction.”
Aesthetics, she said, did not merit that sort of investment to fix the mistake.
So what area is more important in terms of aesthetics – at least in the minds of city staffers who are submitting this proposed $168,000 expenditure?
The rest of the story is as follows: when voters approved MAPS 3, they approved spending $120 million on a park in the area known as “Core to Shore” (the area being focused on, however, is really between the current Interstate 40, the new highway alignment, Shields Boulevard and Walker Avenue).
The park will be built west of Robinson between a boulevard that will replace the current highway and the new highway. No other investment for the area has been announced to date. The area is blighted, has no housing, no retail and soon, no offices or agencies other than the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority, which is in the historic Union Station.
To date no developers have pitched plans for the area. The downtown development community has been, and continues to be, most interested in Deep Deuce, Bricktown and MidTown.
If the city council agrees with city staff today, the $168,000 will be spent on an ornate arch design for a pedestrian tunnel that will go east under Robinson Avenue to an area that at this time has no definite future use.
Eric Wenger, director of the MAPS 3 office, points out by making this investment (the tunnel is being paid for by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation), the crossing will be more “inviting” and “aesthetically pleasing” to pedestrians – the very sort of investment deemed unworthy for Deep Deuce.
Tomorrow we’ll find out if the city council agrees with city staff’s judgment and priorities.
Thank you for joining our conversation on OKC Central. We encourage your discussion but ask that you stay within the bounds of our commenting and posting policy.
Comments
Steve, there is a question that is 100 times more important than comparing it to NE 2nd Street. I am deeply disturbed as to why Robinson will be in need of an underground pedestrian tunnel to traverse???
That’s a scary thought.
You know. The city could ramp the sidewalk 5 feet for 5 inches in the direction of travel on the east and west and Put up a handrail on the sides. Far cheaper than $100,000. If you’re only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
That’s what I’m thinking too. Why the heck does Robinson need a tunnel?
Now I’m terrified of what Core 2 Shore really is. This city just does not get urban at all.
steve lackmeyer is making more sense than just about anything else i’ve read or heard in a while.
don’t be scared, nick. embrace the future.
Concerning your buffoon, if buffy had been on the titanic buffy would have said no problems…no worries just a slight disturbance. nothing to see. go about your business.
This is from memory and possibly making it up BUT from what I recall, the Pedestrian “Tunnel”doesn’t go “under” Robinson per se but is a tunnel going thru one of the one/off ramps of the relocated I-40??? ODOT is paying for the tunnel so that makes since to me and the arched or squared entrance is an aesthetic one that grants access to the MAPS 3 park???? Going arched or squared won’t effect load/weight limits etc (that was asked by a Council person)
I can’t believe the City has been so stubborn and pigheaded with respect to this. Why can’t they just admit they made a mistake and fix the darn thing already?
Maybe that’s the real issue, however. Perhaps we can think of a great cover story for Marsha Slaughter that doesn’t make her out to look like an inept buffoon. Maybe if we blame the whole thing on developers and/or the streets department that were so thoughtless as to avoid placing the sidewalk at an elevation deemed more suitable to the Water Department?