Re: My trip to Tulsa
Originally Posted by
Zorba
Literally every other metro in the US has one-way streets in their downtown areas. The reason is one-way streets are much more efficient for traffic flow when there are a lot of intersections.
All of the reasons you mentioned (increased/better traffic flow) are reasons against one-way streets actually, because in a downtown area you want it to be the destination and not just a pass-through. Two way streets tend to be slower, allowing patrons to see the attractions which in downtown areas tend to be right next to each other and plentiful. Slower speeds also allow for integration of other modes of transit (pedestrian, bicycle, transit) and the best urban areas integrate these seamlessly. Finally, having two way streets make it easier for patrons to access downtown - again, as a destination, rather than having to circle back due to a one-way.
Originally Posted by
Zorba
Any ways, every major urban area that we should be modeling ourselves after has one-ways, such as Seattle, Chicago, NYC, etc. all of which have better walk-ability than OKC as well.
A bit of info on Seattle, we have one-way streets because we have a somewhat longitudinal CBD that is not wide but is somewhat lengthy. This piece also has a significant amount of office blocks with not many pedestrian offerings. The idea was traffic flow because otherwise you will be stopping every street, un-necessarily for one mile or a little more if you need to go to one end of downtown. This actually worked for a bit during the 1990's and 2000's when Seattle didn't really have a population downtown, it was just offices and a little bit of shopping then; so it worked.
Today, Seattle looks unnecessarily busy all of the time due to the one-way streets AND the placement of entrances to I-5. Also, there is a healthy downtown population yet the streets do not provide for movement of people (so at every block, it is full of cars waiting to turn left - as people cross). So One Way streets in a pedestrian downtown is now working so much and I imagine at some point this idea might be revisited (or at least the street intersections need to have pedestrian only crossing time points).
Chicago and New York are different animals. Both have extensive subway, commuter rail, elevated subway, and other forms of transit (and tunnels - here's to you Chicago Pedway); in addition to SIGNIFICANT length of office blocks very very concentrated - meaning tons of office workers that you need to move quickly in and out. Also, both cities have very large downtowns so much so that they have their own neighborhoods/sections which help balance out the residential vs office. Point is, in world cities like NY and Chi pedestrian has many modes of travel that OKC will never achieve or hope to and has urban form in scale that necessitates One Way streets. You still have the pedestrians just due to sheer size of the city/downtown, not because this model is the best.
A better example would be to take Shanghai or Tokyo, I don't recall any one-way streets in those cities and both have significantly more urban use build in their cbd areas than New York and Chicago (which focus on Office Towers). I think the takeaway is - if your downtown is smaller and/or its focus is a mix of office and residential then a bunch of one-way streets dont work. If your downtown is larger or Office focused then one-ways might work and wont disrupt urbanism for the largest of downtowns (NY, Chi).
Seattle is on the borderline where it actually is not working - there's really not much reason for the traffic we have other than the design that worked in the 1990s doesn't today. I'm not saying get rid of all one-way streets and I do think OKC should have a couple for the office component but I wouldn't go beyond two N-S (Seattle has 3 major N-S) and perhaps one or two E-W that connect to the Interstates. Again, the risk is you move a lot of volume out of downtown quickly, which I think OKC is trying to avoid for the time being.
Oklahoma City, the RENAISSANCE CITY!
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