OKCPS - no buses anymore?

[GoGators]

Right let’s just narrow may Ave a critical N-S road to 1 lane each way. That’s always the solution. Yeah no thankfully we have leaders that understand that reducing lanes on may is nonsense.

As long as those leaders are ok with children not being able to walk/bike to school (or anywhere else) then there isn't a problem. I was just answering the original question of why the drop off pick up lines are so long now at schools.

[Urbanized]

North May Avenue is probably the most significant retail corridor in OKC not on a highway. It's too late in my opinion to put it on a diet. I'm not a lawyer and could easily be wrong, but I would think one could argue (especially a large corporation) that reducing the size of May could result in an inverse condemnation lawsuit against the city, which could cost more than improving the existing infrastructure for pedestrians.

I’m not a lawyer either, but we aren’t talking about all of May. We are talking about roughly one mile, and that mile is hardly retail-intensive. A 2021 traffic count just a block south of 23rd showed ~11.9K daily, down from ~16K daily a few blocks north, in 2018.

Some of this could definitely be pandemic-related, but even 16K is well below the 25K threshold I’ve seen cited whereby a 4-to-3 lane reduction potentially causes congestion issues and a diminishing return.

To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s the correct solution. I’m only saying the reasoning I’m seeing cited here for not even looking into it are purely emotional and/or based on an inertial thought process, and complete refusal to consider emerging schools of thought and cold, hard data.

I’d rather see our city make insightful and reasoned approaches to planning than emotional or outdated ones.

[GoGators]

North May Avenue is probably the most significant retail corridor in OKC not on a highway. It's too late in my opinion to put it on a diet. I'm not a lawyer and could easily be wrong, but I would think one could argue (especially a large corporation) that reducing the size of May could result in an inverse condemnation lawsuit against the city, which could cost more than improving the existing infrastructure for pedestrians.

May Avenue is public property.

[Urbanized]

By the way, we have clear examples of ~1 mile stretches of key arterial streets with fewer than four lanes, with strong commercial performance. I’d venture to say - for example - that Western Ave from 45th to 50th performs better commercially as a two lane than it would as a four lane, and even THAT area’s design doesn’t have the same traffic efficiency as does the configuration I’m talking about.

I think one of the main reasons most people reject this configuration out-of-hand is that we have few good examples of it locally on which to base our experience.

[T. Jamison]

I’m not a lawyer either, but we aren’t talking about all of May. We are talking about roughly one mile, and that mile is hardly retail-intensive. A 2021 traffic count just a block south of 23rd showed ~11.9K daily, down from ~16K daily a few blocks north, in 2018.

Some of this could definitely be pandemic-related, but even 16K is well below the 25K threshold I’ve seen cited whereby a 4-to-3 lane reduction potentially causes congestion issues and a diminishing return.

To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s the correct solution. I’m only saying the reasoning I’m seeing cited here for not even looking into it are purely emotional and/or based on an inertial thought process, and complete refusal to consider emerging schools of thought at cold, hard data.

I’d rather see our city make insightful and reasoned approaches to planning than emotional or outdated ones.

Ahh, I see. My mistake. I am a data person, so I agree that civic leaders should rely on data. Emotions have little place in most decision making processes. I was just talking to someone at work about how much I absolutely hate 63rd and May, so my mind was there.

[Plutonic Panda]

Ban left turns during rush hour

[GoGators]

Ban left turns during rush hour

Don’t really see that making it easier for children to walk or bike to school. Not to mention terribly inconvenient for the people who actually live, work, shop in the area. The only people helped by banning left hand turns during rush hour are the people simply traveling through the area in their way to somewhere else. That is the demographic streets should cater to the least.

[Dob Hooligan]

First off, I think Taft was built in the 1920s. Both May Avenue and 23rd Street were probably one lane at the time.

I don't think any amount of traffic engineering will get more kids to walk or bike to school. The world is just different now.

PluPan's ban left turns during rush hour isn't so crazy. The right southbound lane is closed between 24th and 25th to allow school cars to easily enter May Avenue southbound. There also is a group of parents who exit farther north on May and then quickly turn left on 24th in order to get to Cleveland elementary, which is 2 or 3 block east of May on 24th. Those parents and people turning into Walgreen's can lock up both lanes very quickly and keep it that way for at least one light cycle.

Keep in mind this entire rush hour "ordeal" lasts 20-30 minutes around 8:30AM and again around 3:00PM.

[GoGators]

First off, I think Taft was built in the 1920s. Both May Avenue and 23rd Street were probably one lane at the time.

I don't think any amount of traffic engineering will get more kids to walk or bike to school. The world is just different now.

PluPan's ban left turns during rush hour isn't so crazy. The right southbound lane is closed between 24th and 25th to allow school cars to easily enter May Avenue southbound. There also is a group of parents who exit farther north on May and then quickly turn left on 24th in order to get to Cleveland elementary, which is 2 or 3 block east of May on 24th. Those parents and people turning into Walgreen's can lock up both lanes very quickly and keep it that way for at least one light cycle.

Keep in mind this entire rush hour "ordeal" lasts 20-30 minutes around 8:30AM and again around 3:00PM.

The world is not that different now. If you give children the option to walk safely to school they would do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1940 or 2021. The only difference between then and now is that we took that option away from children.

[Jersey Boss]

The world is not that different now. If you give children the option to walk safely to school they would do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1940 or 2021. The only difference between then and now is that we took that option away from children.

Do you have school age children? Kids will take the ride over walking the vast majority of the time. In my opinion Dob is spot on based on my youngest and her school years from grade 5 through 12.
The world has changed a lot since 1940. Kids don't walk to school and adults don't make their own coffee or brown bag their lunch.

[TheTravellers]

Do you have school age children? Kids will take the ride over walking the vast majority of the time. In my opinion Dob is spot on based on my youngest and her school years from grade 5 through 12.
The world has changed a lot since 1940. Kids don't walk to school and adults don't make their own coffee or brown bag their lunch.

Actually, we still make our own coffee and bring our own lunches (they're frozen instead of a sandwich, chips, and a Twinkie).

[Jersey Boss]

Actually, we still make our own coffee and bring our own lunches (they're frozen instead of a sandwich, chips, and a Twinkie).

I never claimed that nobody makes their own coffee anymore. All the grocery stores carry coffee for the home brewer. The number of Starbucks and related places and their rapid growth in the last 30 years does support my position of many people do not home brew in the morning. The fact that you bring your lunch puts you in a catagory that also has shrunk considerably in the last thirty years. The number of fast food/fast casual places would not be in numbers seen thirty years ago. Even you have posted more than once that you don't go out to eat as many posters on this board talk about. And some kids still do walk to school, but as the poster in #33 stated, the world is a different place now.

[TheTravellers]

I never claimed that nobody makes their own coffee anymore. All the grocery stores carry coffee for the home brewer. The number of Starbucks and related places and their rapid growth in the last 30 years does support my position of many people do not home brew in the morning. The fact that you bring your lunch puts you in a catagory that also has shrunk considerably in the last thirty years. The number of fast food/fast casual places would not be in numbers seen thirty years ago. Even you have posted more than once that you don't go out to eat as many posters on this board talk about. And some kids still do walk to school, but as the poster in #33 stated, the world is a different place now.

I absolutely agree with you, I just wanted to put another data point out there. I am amazed at the number of people that spend so much daily on coffee and lunch out, just mind-boggling how many people do that.

[GoGators]

Do you have school age children? Kids will take the ride over walking the vast majority of the time. In my opinion Dob is spot on based on my youngest and her school years from grade 5 through 12.
The world has changed a lot since 1940. Kids don't walk to school and adults don't make their own coffee or brown bag their lunch.

Yes, kids don't walk to school anymore because we have made it impossible for them to do so. That's my entire point.

[Plutonic Panda]

Yes, kids don't walk to school anymore because we have made it impossible for them to do so. That's my entire point.

It is not impossible due to unsafe streets but I am not buying that is the only reason. Children don’t walk to school anymore because it isn’t like the old days. I’d argue the 70s/80s(though I wasn’t alive) was more car centric than it is today and probably had more kids walking to school.

[Bill Robertson]

I don't even remember busses at Sequoyah. I went to Taft 71-72 and 72-73. I don't remember many busses the first year there. The second year was the beginning of "integration bussing" so there were lots of busses then.

[Scott5114]

I went to a rural Oklahoma school district (Washington) in the late 90s and early/mid-2000s. I was the last stop on my route so the ride home took a whole hour. This was fine through elementary school, but once I got into middle school and in toward high school, the ever-increasing amount of homework meant that after spending a hour on the bus, eating dinner, doing homework, and taking a bath I hardly had any time to myself. I was able to talk my mom into picking me up more frequently, until I was only riding the bus about once a week or so. (Since I was the last stop and it was a straight shot from there into school, I did always ride to school, unless there was some reason I had to be there early, like band practice.)

Although my case was extreme, and I don't know how long the average bus ride is for an urban student, I wonder if any parents have made decisions for similar reasons to drive their kids rather than have them ride the bus. Schools issue a lot of homework these days, and especially if the student has sports or other activities that need to be done during the week, riding the bus can burn up a lot of time that could be better spent.