Opinion - Blogs - The good the bad and the ugly

The good, the bad and the ugly
Published: 3/9/2012 4:18 PM
Last Modified: 3/9/2012 4:18 PM

There are a lot of good things happening along Riverside Drive. Mayor Bartlett said Friday that he wants to explore options for further commercial development along the Arkansas River. The George Kaiser Family Foundation is dedicating $100 million to $150 million for a 55-acre addition to the park.

All that is great. I’m not sure that many Tulsans, including me, are eager to see too much commercial development along the river. No one, I think including the mayor, wants to see any big box stores. And there is always the parking issue to deal with.

Even the new park addition will require parking somewhere. Some sort of parking garage isn’t likely to get much traction with park goers and the neighborhood residents. After all, the neighbors in Brookside have successfully resisted any sort of high-rise parking garage in that area for years. And it desperately needs some sort of parking solution.

Some Tulsans have suggested that the outer lanes of Riverside be shut down from morning to dark on weekends, allowing vehicles to park near the curbs, leaving the two inside lanes for traffic.

It supposedly has been done in other cities with some success. However, the first question that springs to my mind is: What about emergency vehicles? On a busy weekend, it might be difficult, if not impossible, to get an ambulance, fire truck or police car through two lanes of traffic with no place to yield.

That, however, is not what this is about. This is about Riverside Drive.

I, along with several thousand others, use that roadway daily. It is one of the most popular entrances to downtown Tulsa. It feeds in from far south Tulsa and is a popular exit from I-44.

Simply put, the Riverside commute can often become a nightmare, especially southbound after work. Drivers insist on making left turns onto side streets between traffic signals. Anyone who has made this trek has certainly been surprised by someone ahead deciding to turn onto 35th Street at 5 p.m. It clogs traffic and presents a safety risk.

Still, that is not what this is about. This is about Riverside Drive, the street. Tulsa’s downtown is undergoing a wonderful revival. The new arena and baseball park, along with its many and diverse restaurants and nightclubs and its familiar and popular Performing Arts Center, are bringing more and more people downtown.

Many of those visitors are coming in on Riverside Drive. And it is deplorable. Driving from I-44 to downtown is a bumpy, unsightly trip. One of the gateways to Tulsa is one of its most embarrassing entrances. Yes, the park is beautiful with its green space and intriguing wildlife statues. But the road itself is atrocious. And the median is some sort of one-time concrete, with chunks missing (I can't figure how a median of concrete gets large chunks knocked out),patched with ugly asphalt with some grass here and there.

Certainly, Riverside is on the list of roads to be repaired by the street bond funds. But it needs to be done soon. Riverside repair has been neglected too long. When no one came downtown other than daytime workers, we could get by. But no longer. Riverside is a first impression for many visitors. As of now, it’s not a good one.

Riverside Drive ought to be one of the most pleasant and smoothest drives in the city. It's not that now and hasn't been for a long time. Unless things get fixed, maybe some of those new businesses proposed for the river ought to be tire repair shops.

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Jonezin

Mike Jones is a native Oklahoman (not an Okie), born and raised in Seminole, Okla. He began his career at the Tulsa World in 1971 as an oil writer for the late Riley Wilson. After three years as an oil writer, he became a copy editor on the national desk. He moved to the city desk in 1974 where he also worked as a general assignment reporter. After stints on the late city desk, he became assistant city editor and in 1979 succeeded longtime city editor John Gold, one of his mentors, as city editor. He served as city editor for almost four years before joining the editorial staff as a layout editor and editorial writer in 1985. He was named associate editor and has since written a Sunday column and daily editorials. He has a son, Sam, who is a local musician with the reggae band Sam and the Stylees. Jones is the honorary CEO of that group, a title of which he is most proud.

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