Project 180 Defiance by the Oklahoma City Public Works Department?
Walker Avenue, as promised under Project 180.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that the vision above – what was promised as part of Project 180, what the city council dictated should happen, what the downtown community asked for – is now fading away before it ever became a reality. I’ve heard repeatedly from those at City Hall with engineering backgrounds that they think the emphasis on walkability has gone too far, that traffic flow is being sacrificed.
When this section of Walker Avenue was recently completed, it was reopened without the parking spots, and only the dedicated bike lanes were visible. This led to confusion by motorists who thought it was still a four lane wide road. There was no education program started yet about the new bike lanes.
The dedicated bike lane along Walker Avenue was removed last week by the Oklahoma City Public Works Department without prior discussion with policy makers who oversee the Project 180 program.
Then, this last week, the permanent white striping for the dedicated bike lanes were converted to broken stripes – essentially making them shared lanes with vehicles, defeating the one of the fundamental objectives of Project 180.
Public Works Director Eric Wenger.
I spoke to Public Works Director Eric Wenger about this action, and he stated it was in response to police not knowing whether to ticket motorists who were crossing the solid white stripe and what he called “blocks long” traffic back-ups on Walker Avenue during morning rush hour. I’ve not seen such back-ups myself, nor have I heard any complaints about Walker having traffic problems.
What I do know is that this was a decision taken by public works without going through the Devon Implementation Committee that oversees Project 180, or the city council or the traffic commission.
Jeff Speck
Wenger states that the bike lanes will be reconsidered if traffic counts get to a point that allow for them to be restored. But if one listens to Jeff Speck, the walkability consultant and author hired by city in preparing Project 180, this goes against all logic in which he argues that traffic increases to what the road is designed for – meaning, if you design a road for 10,000 vehicles a day, traffic will grow to 10,000 vehicles a day, and if for 20,000, then it grows to 20,000. This discussion is not new to Oklahoma City – it came up during the debate over the new downtown boulevard and you can read my blogging about it here.
I reminded Wenger of this argument, to which he responded that sometimes development along streets causes that growth, and it’s not just the road design itself.
This is the second time I’ve observed an effort by the Public Works Department attempting to make a significant change to the Project 180 timeline or program. Last year, you might recall, Wenger initially indicated the full conversion of downtown streets from one way to two way traffic would be delayed indefinitely. After some further questioning and scrutiny, the cited complications in completing the conversion disappeared, and the conversions were essentially completed last month. Read my blog post about this previous discussion here.
Jeff Speck, who recently visited OKC to sign his book “Walkable City,” is watching this discussion and had this to say on Twitter:
@stevelackmeyer @cafeboeuf My belief is the restriping was a rogue DPW move in defiance of @project180
— Jeff Speck (@JeffSpeckAICP) March 13, 2013
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As the first commenter suggested, wasn’t the confusion easily fixed with bike stencils in the bike lane? That to me seems a given.
Defiance or ignorance of modern urban planning /design concepts? I can’t decide which is more prevalent in PW. They still haven’t any idea how to balance automobile ingress/egress with other modes of transportation and walkability. They still default to the automobile every time. Why do we hire consultants like Jeff Speck only to have PW ignore nearly everything recommended and ordered by the city council? Who is being held accountable for foolish actions such as this? Will we ever try letting our Planning Department decide on plans and leave only the implementation of those plans to PW?
It looks like OKC Public Works never gave this project a chance to succeed. They should have completed the project first by painting out the parking spaces, adding the green bike lane labeling as is shown on the top picture, installing some additional bike lane and parking signage and THEN given the public a chance to acclimate to the changes. Four-lane roads are no better for traffic flow than two-lane roads when you have to merge and then change lanes again numerous times due to random parking along the street.
It’s stunts like this that should cause people to be fired, or at least reprimanded. No way stunts like this fly in the private sector. If I’m correct, isn’t/wasn’t Eric Wenger also the lead on the MAPS committee’s? If so, how is his paid position not in conflict with his volunteerism for major city projects?
ATTN MAYOR & COUNCIL: Hire freaking Urban Planners, and actually follow most of there advice. Why did we spend all the money with Jeff Speck only to disregard him?
Steve: I’m hearing that Public Works wants to make EK Gaylord in front of Santa Fe Station six lanes instead of four. Heard anything on that?
Utter absurdity; it’s bad enough our Secretary of Transportation is arguably a former asphalt lobbyist but our Director of Public Works can’t (or won’t) grasp the benefit of bike lanes? The Apocalypse will happen before actual PROTECTED bike lanes ever arrive in OKC, but now it’s a public fight just to get designated lanes? Pitiful; this is a black eye for OKC, a slap in the face to residents and a clear demonstration of where our city’s leadership’s values really are. Let’s see how – or if – the city responds.
How does he get by with this kind of a stunt? Please tell me why there isn’t some kind of oversight in place to prevent this sort of behavior.
The premise for this change is false. Just like the premise that the boulevard must handle 94,000 cars a day.
The traffic at Walker is entirely manageable in rush hour. And virtually nonexistent during the day.
People actually do live, walk and bike downtown. Unfortunately Public Works seems to have a Robert Moses view of the world where there are islands of stovepiped skyscrapers and carpets of elevated freeways to move cars from the suburbs.
People please. This is Oklahoma City. True we have made tremendous progress over the past two decades but this will always be Oklahoma City; not Manhattan, not Chicago and God forbid not even Dallas! This city covers 620 square miles and is completely and totally dependent upon cars! If we could do anything better as far as moving people around our city goes then let’s improve public transportation once and for all. Maybe a simple NSEW cross similar to Atlanta’s MARTA or the MetroLink in St. Louis. Edmond to Norman and Yukon to Midwest City, all meeting downtown. Cheap and around the clock(you know you can bring your bicycle along with you if you’d like). Something that would truly connect all points of this vast city. Quit trying to make the city “hipster friendly” and be practical! This could happen but probably not in my lifetime because as a lifelong citizen of OKC I know that it takes nearly two decades for us to act on something. Even the most simple, affordable and practical ideas. And that is why we will always be Oklahoma City…….. Let’s take some Oklahoma River money and some Indian Museum money and some new jail money and some MAPS money and get to work building things the MAJORITY of the people need and care about.
Are you kidding me, John? That’s a ridiculous statement. OKC is all about progress. Don’t judge the whole city on one slip-up. We’re all speculating.
I live in Legacy apartments and work downtown. I walk across Walker Ave at both the morning and evening commute. There has never been more than 5 cars at any intersection during either rush hour. Also, the intersections are still using 4-way stop signs which causes a back-up for motorists. If they had installed the stop lights already and did some synchronization of those lights, the “5 car back-ups” wouldn’t exist.
Fred, the majority of people may care only about cars because they were trained by 40 years of no sidewalks to have to care about cars. Jeez, 90 percent of the city is car-centric, can’t you give 10 percent to those who actually want to move their bodies?
I would hardly call middle to higher income people who work and live downtown “Hipsters”, Fred. Building a rail link to the four corners of the city is more impractical than trying to slowing develop a nicer denser downtown with good mass transit options.
I don’t get it, time and again, Wegner works to subvert the expressed intent of the City Council, yet nothing seems to happen.
Hey Mike Barnett, you do realize that the bike lanes are the think colored concrete stripes that run the length of the entire street. They WERE NEVER WIDE ENOUGH FOR CARS, but people did people did drive on them because they were driving in the parking zone!
SADLY, we have some stupid idiots in this city that think it’s fine to be driving on the other side of a solid white line. NO, NO! I don’t know how many times, I wanted to pull people over myself and inform them that they are not driving where they are supposed to be.
SMH. So ignorant of traffic laws. Still, I am pissed that they restriped Walker. Total bullcrap. That street is never busy and the engineers in this city need to go somewhere. Send them to Wichita.
Two things… One; a ‘bike lane’ should never be striped so wide as to allow a car to drive down it, then left without ‘bike lane’ stencils. Lousy design in the first place, followed by even lousier execution and a cop-out fix. Two; Steve, as long as you only talk to those with ‘engineering’ backgrounds, you’re talking to a wall. Those people get paid to move traffic, not produce a vibrant, livable city. OKC has clearly made the choice to design around cars instead of people. My suggestion would be for City Hall to add some Urban Planning expertise, which is clearly lacking.
And next time you’re talking to the ‘engineers’, ask them why, after installing those expensive electronic parking meters on 5th between Robinson and Harvey, mere weeks later they come back and change the entire block (except for about four spaces) to “No Parking Anytime”. And this block has the front entrance to a 23-floor apartment building… Do these people have a clue? No.