A Question of Priorities
Walker Avenue now coverted to two-way traffic between Reno and Sheridan as part of Project 180. Opened this week.
Eight traffic lights.
That might not seem like a big investment for a city the size of Oklahoma City with a $919 million annual budget. But we’re told times are tight, and with shortfall on funding for Project 180, the apparent inability to pay for eight traffic lights means we’ve may have to wait years before we’ll see the long-promised conversion of downtown streets from one-way to two-way traffic.
To be blunt, the conversion, which we thought was a sure thing with Project 180, and was promised would take place by 2014, is not a sure thing at all anymore. It is now an unfunded project.
Once again, we’re slowly learning the true extent of the cuts to Project 180. And when the area around NW 5 and Walker was cut from Project 180 at the insistence of developer Rick Dowell, it not only saved Project 180 millions of dollars – but it also had the unintended consequence of leaving the sections of Hudson and Walker as one-way corridors between Robert S. Kerr Avenue and NW 6.
Going through an extensive project update with Public Works director Eric Wenger, I learned the city still has money for traffic controllers for these intersections, but no money for the actual traffic lights.
Wenger said a study not yet done will determine a new timeline and potential funding. Note that the city council instructed the public works department to begin a study to convert downtown’s one-way streets to two-way traffic back in 1999. History shows that at City Hall, a study can translate into a years-long delay (consider the progress to date on a quiet zone on the railway tracks parallel to Automobile Alley).
What this means is the plan now in place would result in Walker Avenue being two-way traffic south of Robert S. Kerr Avenue, one-way traffic between Robert S. Kerr Avenue and NW 6, and then two-way traffic again north of NW 6. Ditto for Hudson Avenue.
Got that?
These are corridors heavily traveled by visitors to our town. They are streets that lead up to our central business district, to the Myriad Gardens, to the Oklahoma City Art Museum, to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and to a small new office complex known as Devon Energy Center. They are streets that go straight to our City Hall, to the Civic Center Music Hall, and to the County Courthouse.
I’m curious how walkability consultant Jeff Speck might react to this set up.
I was going to delay this post until after my story, (I call it “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Downtown But Didn’t Know Who To Ask”), appears in the paper and on NewsOK. But then I realized – this isn’t a problem in the far-off future. It’s with us now. This week Walker Avenue between Sheridan Avenue and Reno Avenue was converted from one-way to two-way traffic. That two-way conversion will continue northward to Robert S. Kerr Avenue. And then it will stop. The road will be one-way again – for four blocks – until it hits NW 6 when it goes two-way again.
We can curse this situation. We can question the sanity, the planning and judgment of the city’s engineers. Or we can look for a light bulb. A well-used, but to my knowledge, a still perfectly functional and safe lightbulb.
This traffic light stood at Reno and Harvey before Project 180. It has since been removed and replaced. Is it in storage? Or did the city sell it for scrap? Why not use it to complete the two-way conversion of Hudson Avenue?
If the question is simply a matter of this city with an annual $919 million budget can’t afford to buy eight new stop lights for its downtown, then why not just re-use the traffic lights that were removed from streets that have undergone Project 180 reconstruction?
I realize, some of them weren’t very pretty. But when it comes to safety over visual appeal, what’s more important? And yes, I do see confused motorists driving the wrong way on one-way downtown streets on a weekly basis. And yes, we’ve had people killed crossing some of these extra wide one-way streets.
And actually, if one uses Google Earth to explore downtown streets (circa 2009), one will discover some newer traffic lights have been replaced as well – most notably ones at Main and Lee, on Reno in front of the Chesapeake Energy Arena, and at Main and Hudson.
This traffic light stood in front of the Chesapeake Energy Arena and was only in place for a few years before it was replaced by a newer Project 180 traffic light. It is nearly identical to lights already in place along the portion of Hudson Avenue now remaining as a one-way street for the indefinite future.
One must also wonder about the “priorities” set by city staff planning Project 180. I didn’t once hear them explain that they were proposing to council that a revamp of Bicentennial Park be a priority over completing the two-way conversion of these streets. I never heard them warn council members that by eliminating the area around NW 5 and Walker they were creating an ongoing hodge-podge of two-way, one-way, two-way traffic sequences on downtown’s busiest streets.
Here’s my promise: I will be keeping a close eye on accidents along these corridors. I will remind readers of this decision. One must wonder if any lawyers read this blog…
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Comments
this would be terrible … moving all the streets to 2 way as quickly as possible should be one of the top priorities.
Thanks for this, Steve. You know I’ve been raising the same points on OKCTalk for months, when we first learned about the massive P180 shortfalls.
The most outrageous part of this is that the City Council only learned of these shortfalls a couple of months ago and even then it was presented in a way that was incredibly deceiving, i.e. “we’ll complete this in the next phase”; never mind there is absolutely no money to make it happen.
So, virtually all the money for P180 was already committed by the time it was brought to the attention of the public or the council, so there was little that could be done. In fact, right after that presentation they were soon tearing up the streets around the Civic Center… This is a bigger priority than the major corridors in the CBD, many of which will either be unfinished or completely untouched?
And why re-do streets like Reno which had been recently resurfaced first out of the gate?
The bottom line is this was all rushed forward (we have to finish by 2014!!) and very, very poorly managed, not only for a budget perspective but also in terms of planning.
I don’t mean to be dramatic, but this whole project is almost scandalous.
I am grateful for your work; your questions are critical to the process.
I believe this Council is strongly committed to the goals outlined in the 1999 T.E.C. study as well as Jeff Speck’s recommendations that these streets be converted to 2-way.
The barriers to implementation go beyond traffic signaling (of which the City does have enough traffic poles and traffic lights in storage if and when we were to need them).
As you state, the sections between Kerr and 6th are not part of P180 or the ’07 Bond issue and will need to be dealt with by the City in house.
Perhaps the greatest barrier is that so many driveway designs along Walker and Hudson have taken advantage of the 1-way street design to make them oblique. Surveys need to be completed to assess which driveways would need to be straightened out to make them perpendicular to the new 2-way street. In addition, restriping would need to be done. Many of these driveways are owned by the County. The obstacles on Hudson are worse than they are on Walker.
Additional funding will be necessary to complete the downtown master plan but prior to that we need to survey those areas and study the geometry and design of 2-way streets in those areas.
The conversion of 2-way streets up to Kerr is still some time away. The conversion between Main to Couch will occur by the end of the year and the conversion from Couch to Kerr will occur after that, possibly into the beginning of 2013.
Pete you and I are in total agreement. I believe that P180 is a complete boondogle/debacle in its management. I strongly suspect that those in power KNEW FROM THE START that cost overruns were going to doom the full completion and they went ahead anyway.
Typical behavior for the city in that they overpromise and underdeliver. Situation normal All Farked Up. Scandalous is on the low end of the scale the conduct so far is borderline criminal.
While there has been an apparent “shortfall on funding for Project 180″ from the Devon TIF(?) That doesn’t mean that the City can’t afford it. In fact, the Mayor had to say this about the City’s finances in his recent State of the City speech given last month…
http://www.okc.gov/council/mayor/state_of_city/2012/index.html
“From a revenue perspective, our city is in a very envious position. While most cities are still trying to get back to pre-recession levels, we have been above our pre-recession numbers for over two years. We are recording record revenue.”
Unfortunately, the City’s financial numbers for the years in question don’t back this claim up. We are just now approaching where we were pre-recession and according to the forecast, will only be back above the pre-recession levels next year in 2013.
Ed thanks for responding. It sounds like you’ve talked to city staff. The answer, however, confuses me more. The public works department stated in 1999 they were launching a study on what needed to be done to get the one way streets converted to two-way traffic – this was at the direction of the city council. It was definitely something that then-Public Works director Paul Brum was not eager to do. How many more decades are needed for this study to be completed?? I just drove a section of Walker Avenue and I found no examples of where private property egress was any different for one-way traffic than it would be on two-way streets….
Haven’t ENOUGH studies been done already? Ed what is so hard about the City Council making a decision and moving on. I would have thought that this had already been “studied” and the time for a definitive decision would be at hand.
Ed, I know you’re trying to trust city staff… but stick with me here. Look at Google Earth. I see NO such entrances along Walker Avenue that would be any different than what is currently located along major two-way downtown streets like Broadway, Sheridan, Reno and NW 6. As for Walker Avenue – the only county property I see that fits what you’ve been told is the county parking garage. It has an entrance/exit much like the Santa Fe Garage, which is on a two-way street (E.K. Gaylord).
I again ask – what is the bigger priority? That the Civic Center park be rushed into a makeover in the next 8 months, or the function and safety of two of downtown’s biggest streets?
Mr. Shadid, I would humbly submit that for the good of the city and the voters, you begin to look for a replacement for Eric Wenger. His leadership on Project 180 has made obvious that he has no understanding of how to manage a municipal project in a way that maximizes value. In your search, the most important things to look for is a track record of delivering projects on time and on budget. To this end, an aggressive cost cutter from the corporate world maybe more desirable than a government bureaucrat, a “professional engineer” like Wenger. He has shown no accountability and this city can do ten times better. Thanks for reading.
Irrespective of whether the comments regarding Wenger are on target or off the mark, the suggestion to send him packing raises some questions:
is such a replacement decision well outside of the council’s purview?
was Wenger not recently promoted by his superior?
is the person who promoted Wenger holding an employment status that is within the council’s purview?
is there a larger problem to address than Wenger’s employment status?
There is at least one instance where the city’s Project 180 map at okc.gov shows a street as converted where it is not. NE 6 W of I-235 is shown as 2-way, when in fact it is one-way westbound. Perhaps someone should walk this whole area and see if the map is correct otherwise.
Unfortunately I have to agree with the above comments re Mr. Wenger. While I don’t doubt that he is a nice guy and all, he is not the right person for the job. Now it might not be all his fault, he may just be following orders from those that he perceives to be his bosses, the City Manager and in the case of the MAPS 3 oversight, the Mayor. I have said for a long time that part of the problem here is with the City Manager. He should have been replaced years ago. He was in charge of the original MAPS and it most if not all of the projects came in years behind schedule and not a single one came in under or on budget. SOme projects came in costing twice as much (we are seeing similar things with Project 180 & MAPS 3), overall MAPS came in 47.75% over what voters were told (not including the $100 million, mol, for the Arena improvements). Then he gets promoted to City Manager? later he hires/promotes Mr. Wenger as the MAPS 3 project manager citing Mr. Wenger’s previous experience with a couple of the original MAPS projects, that he brought those projects in on time and on budget. However, neither of those things happened.
I recently walked the section of Walker in question and came away with the same observations as Steve. What the heck is going on here?
As has been pointed out, this was studied 13 YEARS AGO! Do we have to go into the City and physically drag the responsible employees out to the job site to get them to start work?
On Wednesday, I had lunch at the Lunch Box. They said if it weren’t for the Devon Tower they would have no business. Then I stopped in the Tinder Box. It is in the First National building. Spoke briefly with the fellow who owns it. He said Project 180 may put him out of business. I know the Trattoria il Centro and the Thai Kitchen were really impacted last year. Wondering about the Museum Cafe.
How are other small businesses fairing?
According to a revised budget approved by the mayor in July of last year, here are the remaining non-street items to be completed with the remaining P180 funds. As far as I know, none of these have commenced and therefore could be re-prioritized in favor of these pressing street issues:
$5 million for Civic Center Park
$.75 million for climate-controlled walkway through City Center East garage
$1.75 million for pedestrian access east of City Center East garage
$1.5 million for Arts Council Plaza (directly south of the up-in-the-air Stage Center)
$1 million for Arena/Reno Plaza
Total: $10 million
What a fiasco. I’m embarrassed for my city. Someone has some splainin to do.