Is Norman going downhill??

[venture]

What’s even more interesting is how city of Norman leadership is willing to continually put aside the interest of the overwhelming majority and reduce future opportunities for the community.

While I don't agree with every move they make, if you are that unhappy with Norman why build a $300-600k house there? Move to Edmond.

[Questor]

Is it really a quality of life issue when the people in that neighborhood don't want it done? I would think their wishes are more important that someone that lives 3 miles away.

This is ironic considering your posts in the West Norman thread. But yeah, I and a lot of folks completely agree with you.

Telling you right now though, the Council disagrees with your thought process. They aren't going to care what you think when some development gets proposed for your area. It's just all about traffic, dollars, and what city staff thinks.

[Questor]

The Campus Corner area is already highly walkable, but yeah I think it'd be great if it was even more walkable than it is now. They do close down Asp from time to time, mostly on game days and for the occasional food festival or whatever. The thing is, business owners in the area are very opposed to shutting those streets down to car traffic unless there's a giant infusion of people in the area for games or whatever. The reason why is the cars drive sales... a lot of people are able to walk to Campus Corner, but sufficiently large numbers do not, and the businesses could not take the hit. So to make this happen someone needs to seriously think about parking garages... but I imagine the moment someone throws out the idea of building a five story monolith in that neighborhood that the surrounding neighbors are going to protest it. But hey, that apparently doesn't matter so I guess it's just up to what the council thinks is best for all of us.

[blangtang]

Campus Corner is pretty dead for a whole month almost over X-mas break. And it can be very quiet over the summer months too, so it wouldn't make a whole lotta sense to make it all closed to cars, unless OU changes its semesters to quarters or something like that.

And back when they changed Asp from one way to two way, that was a big enough change that the business owners showed up at the city council meeting, Norman just doesn't work well when things are quickly changed.

[Spartan]

Tulsa tried that, but it didn't work out.

Tulsa tried it for a few blocks that were ALL office buildings

[ou48A]

While I don't agree with every move they make, if you are that unhappy with Norman why build a $300-600k house there? Move to Edmond.

Try to look at this in the big picture of life.
For me, none of this has ever been about my personal wealth…..It’s about a future that will likely occur after I am dead.

The point is.... this has been about making the Norman area and the state as prosperous as possible.
Improvements in our quality of life aid in this effort.

We need to make sure we are doing things that don’t limit our ability to be competitive with the entire world.
Improving OU and Norman makes us more competitive, but not very many top flight world researchers (that we will need to recruit) want to waste their time sitting in small city traffic congestion when it could so easily be made better.

We should be doing things with an eye toward building a city and state that’s attractive to future research and development and their high wage spin off jobs. We want to keep our intellectual capital here, rather than see a continuation of the Oklahoma brain drain.

Building up Norman in the right ways can benefit the entire state with increased opportunities. In my opinion Norman city’s leaders should be aggressively selling this thought process to our state leaders so they better fund OU and our area infrastructure.

The investment in MAP’s has done wonders for OKC that we can all see. We can make an investment in the entire state by planting the seeds that improve Norman and OU that would eventually dwarf the impact that MAPS has had.

I don’t have any personal experience in economic development but I did learn a lot from a relative of mine who was the lead person in the recruitment of Corporations such as JC Penney’s and Exxon along with others to the DFW area. I learned many years ago that we must invest in our self’s before we can expect outsiders to invest in us.

[Spartan]

Try to look at this in the big picture of life.
For me, none of this has ever been about my personal wealth…..It’s about a future that will likely occur after I am dead.

The point is.... this has been about making the Norman area and the state as prosperous as possible.
Improvements in our quality of life aid in this effort.

We need to make sure we are doing things that don’t limit our ability to be competitive with the entire world.
Improving OU and Norman makes us more competitive, but not very many top flight world researchers (that we will need to recruit) want to waste their time sitting in small city traffic congestion when it could so easily be made better.

We should be doing things with an eye toward building a city and state that’s attractive to future research and development and their high wage spin off jobs. We want to keep our intellectual capital here, rather than see a continuation of the Oklahoma brain drain.

Building up Norman in the right ways can benefit the entire state with increased opportunities. In my opinion Norman city’s leaders should be aggressively selling this thought process to our state leaders so they better fund OU and our area infrastructure.

The investment in MAP’s has done wonders for OKC that we can all see. We can make an investment in the entire state by planting the seeds that improve Norman and OU that would eventually dwarf the impact that MAPS has had.

I don’t have any personal experience in economic development but I did learn a lot from a relative of mine who was the lead person in the recruitment of Corporations such as JC Penney’s and Exxon along with others to the DFW area. I learned many years ago that we must invest in our self’s before we can expect outsiders to invest in us.

I'm sorry but first of all, "top flight world researchers" don't pick where to live based on how traffic flows in sprawl corridors, and second of all, MAPS in OKC wasn't about widening roads either. You can't embrace the MAPS urbanist legacy and argue for widening roads in the same paragraph.

Lastly, your obsession with automobile sprawl is really absurd. Norman needs to get beyond that in order to get back on track for growth, because it can't compete in the sprawl category anyway - Moore is better positioned and more attractive for that now. Strategize a point that you can win on. Norman has a lot going on for that doesn't involve automobile sprawl, but it's all losing out to suburban interests right now.

We all agree that Norman needs to invest in itself. The problem is that you are at odds with most everyone on here who wants to focus on the inner neighborhoods that could make Norman unique and truly competitive.

[ou48A]

I'm sorry but first of all, "top flight world researchers" don't pick where to live based on how traffic flows in sprawl corridors, and second of all, MAPS in OKC wasn't about widening roads either. You can't embrace the MAPS urbanist legacy and argue for widening roads in the same paragraph.

Lastly, your obsession with automobile sprawl is really absurd. Norman needs to get beyond that in order to get back on track for growth, because it can't compete in the sprawl category anyway - Moore is better positioned and more attractive for that now. Strategize a point that you can win on. Norman has a lot going on for that doesn't involve automobile sprawl, but it's all losing out to suburban interests right now.

We all agree that Norman needs to invest in itself. The problem is that you are at odds with most everyone on here who wants to focus on the inner neighborhoods that could make Norman unique and truly competitive.

Just like major business many do make relocation decisions’ based on the quality of life. You never know what those are. For some, they are sick of big city congestion and the time that it takes away from their lives. But even so, the improvements would help virtually everybody.

[Spartan]

Norman's congestion derives from its sprawl and its existing suburban-minded refusal to invest in quality of life. I don't disagree that Norman needs MAPS-style downtown projects. A streetcar would be a huge hit, like Tacoma, WA. I think a ped mall is a great idea too.

Right now Norman is telling urban developers no, tolerating crap at UNP, and only investing in street projects on the edge that will bring more sprawl. Seriously misguided leadership, but it's a shame that a new downtown library got killed.

[RadicalModerate]

If we turn the main Campus Corner (Asp) streets into a pedestrian mall it’s going to require a very expensive parking solution. We need to think about who would be paying for a parking garage and where it would be located? It makes a pedestrian mall not very likely.

Well . . . They could drive to OKC, park easily, and ride the Heartland Flyer back to Norman.
That, or something involving taxis, pedicabs, horse-drawn carriages, bicycles or a canal.

All kidding aside: Excellent, pragmatic, observation. Yet, Norman is a GREAT college town. And this from someone who was raised in Boulder, CO. Visited Ft. Collins MANY times back in the day and is completely and utterly amazed at what the OKC/Bricktown development folks have done over the most recent two or three decades since I deserted my old hometown . . .

It's "greatness" needs to be exploited--beyond the obvious sports.

[Plutonic Panda]

Well . . . They could drive to OKC, park easily, and ride the Heartland Flyer back to Norman.
That, or something involving taxis, pedicabs, horse-drawn carriages, bicycles or a canal.

All kidding aside: Excellent, pragmatic, observation. Yet, Norman is a GREAT college town. And this from someone who was raised in Boulder, CO. Visited Ft. Collins MANY times back in the day and is completely and utterly amazed at what the OKC/Bricktown development folks have done over the most recent two or three decaded since I deserted my old hometown . . .

It's "greatness" needs to be exploited--beyond the obvious sports.

Hey man, I just hatched an idea. Someone should start a unicycle sharing program. That would be bomb.com shizzzy of the hizzy.. nizzle for drizzle.. awwww yeaaaah

[venture]

Hey man, I just hatched an idea. Someone should start a unicycle sharing program. That would be bomb.com shizzzy of the hizzy.. nizzle for drizzle.. awwww yeaaaah

Never speak like that again. /slap

LOL

[Spartan]

I dunno I can dig it, panda just keepin it off the chain

[kevinpate]

Maybe I am not sports minded enough. About the only time I notice any significant congestion inside Norman at all tends to be:

a. 90-120 minutes either side of an OU home fb game
b. 30-45 minutes either side of a LNC event of any type
c. Main St/Sooner Mall (so I'm told. I very rarely approach the mall and even more rarely from Main)
d. 4:45 - 5:45 evenings Robinson/12th NE area and Robinson/36th NW area.

All these I find rather easy to avoid in peak periods. By and large, the hours I'm out and about are pretty easy traveling around Norman, though if a road is going to be closed it would be nice to know that before I'm at the closed section. Advance notice signs are something we could definitely improve on down here.

[venture]

Maybe I am not sports minded enough. About the only time I notice any significant congestion inside Norman at all tends to be:

a. 90-120 minutes either side of an OU home fb game
b. 30-45 minutes either side of a LNC event of any type
c. Main St/Sooner Mall (so I'm told. I very rarely approach the mall and even more rarely from Main)
d. 4:45 - 5:45 evenings Robinson/12th NE area and Robinson/36th NW area.

All these I find rather easy to avoid in peak periods. By and large, the hours I'm out and about are pretty easy traveling around Norman, though if a road is going to be closed it would be nice to know that before I'm at the closed section. Advance notice signs are something we could definitely improve on down here.

That is exactly what I see as well. Hwy 9 can get a bit busy during rush out and also I-35 at Lindsey/Hwy 9...but that is already going to be fixed.

For kicks I decided to go down Lindsey through Campus on a weekday afternoon and no issues at all. School was still in session and such. I don't see anything on a constant basis that warrants taking front yards away, tearing down houses, and causing massive reroutes for months.

[vaflyer]

Norman's congestion derives from its sprawl and its existing suburban-minded refusal to invest in quality of life. I don't disagree that Norman needs MAPS-style downtown projects. A streetcar would be a huge hit, like Tacoma, WA. I think a ped mall is a great idea too.

Right now Norman is telling urban developers no, tolerating crap at UNP, and only investing in street projects on the edge that will bring more sprawl. Seriously misguided leadership, but it's a shame that a new downtown library got killed.

I agree of some of your concerns, but Norman, by its location and land size, is a suburban city. Obviously, city leaders long ago decided to annex areas around core Norman, probably to promote economic development and increase its tax base. In the process, the city changed itself from a small town to a suburban community. People moved to those suburban areas and have demanded that the city spend tax dollars in those areas. The only way the city can change that is to de-annex those areas which will not happen.

As for the downtown library, I voted against it and am very happy the $50 million project was voted down. The project was just too expensive for what the city were getting. Furthermore, the space needed for libraries to function effectively will decline over time as more and more books are published digitally. If we would have built the library, we would have been paying 30 years for building that quickly was going to become a dinosaur.

[ou48A]

Maybe I am not sports minded enough. About the only time I notice any significant congestion inside Norman at all tends to be:

a. 90-120 minutes either side of an OU home fb game
b. 30-45 minutes either side of a LNC event of any type
c. Main St/Sooner Mall (so I'm told. I very rarely approach the mall and even more rarely from Main)
.

All these I find rather easy to avoid in peak periods. By and large, the hours I'm out and about are pretty easy traveling around Norman, though if a road is going to be closed it would be nice to know that before I'm at the closed section. Advance notice signs are something we could definitely improve on down here.

In the run up to the city’s recent bond election for street improvements the stretch of Lindsey from OU to I-35 was called the most congested street in Oklahoma.

You and most others here can normally avoid the worst of the problem spots, but because many live, work, attend school, or visit this part of Norman it makes the problem spots virtually impossible to avoid at the times many folks need to travel.
When several times a day it take as long 20 to 30 minutes to make the approx. 2 mile drive from OU to I-35 on Lindsey…. there is a significant problem that needs a real solution. But nobody else has even discusses a serious workable alternative solution that I can recall. They just say don’t do it.

[ou48A]

The largest areas of undeveloped land in central Norman are on the south side of campus. This and the areas along Highway 9 will more and more become major targets areas for the development of high wage jobs and research.
If the city, state, OU, and residents want OU and central Norman to grow and infill, then the transportation issue will need a solution. Not, we don’t need that, or don’t do it.

Highway 9 needs to be brought up to near interstate standards and 6 landed from Jenkins to the west with one dedicated lane for I-35 south, one for I-35 north and with another lane that would continue west then turn north and connect with 48th SW and 60TH SW.

Norman is the 3 largest city in Oklahoma…. It’s very likely to eventually grow well beyond the 200,000 mark. If we want in filled growth then it’s time to stop ignoring this eventuality and proactively plan for it. It will be far cheaper if we do.



High levels of prosperity are the surest path to achieving high end quality growth and in filled growth.
But we can’t get there without a high quality transportation system that does not waste people’s time.

[venture]

In the run up to the city’s recent bond election for street improvements the stretch of Lindsey from OU to I-35 was called the most congested street in Oklahoma.

You and most others here can normally avoid the worst of the problem spots, but because many live, work, attend school, or visit this part of Norman it makes the problem spots virtually impossible to avoid at the times many folks need to travel.
When several times a day it take as long 20 to 30 minutes to make the approx. 2 mile drive from OU to I-35 on Lindsey…. there is a significant problem that needs a real solution. But nobody else has even discusses a serious workable alternative solution that I can recall. They just say don’t do it.

Well four lanes from Berry to I-35 will take care of a lot of the congestion around the businesses. From Berry to Campus it will have to come down to better timing the traffic lights for the flow of traffic. Now once you get to campus you have a few options. You can create a loop and One Way certain streets. You could also remove the cross walk stop lights on campus and put in pedestrian bridges. Obviously you'd have to restrict any large vehicle traffic down Lindsey, but that should be an issue.

It might also come down to a change in driving habits. There appears to be enough room between the road and sidewalks to four lane University all the way from Main Street to campus. Redirect most people that way, who are coming from the north, through Main to University instead.

This is almost like going to the WRWA from the South and East. If you are going east on 44 or west on 240 you typically are going to go up to Airport Road to Meridian. When in fact it is faster to get off on 59th and take that to Meridian. It is all about driving habits and moving people around.

[heyerdahl]

Find me a few studies or articles that explain why a community like Norman can win the future by focusing on making it easier to get around by car and continuing to encourage sprawl development. Who is saying this other than angry Agenda 21 people who think preferences for urbanism are a UN conspiracy? (Hint: Joel Kotkin is the only editorialist I can think of who might come close.)

Which sprawling college towns are making big strides by widening roads? (Hint: I can only think of the Triangle of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, where research parks sprawl across two highway-laced counties and people have gotten so tired of retreating by car to their walkable home neighborhoods at the corners of the triangle that they just passed a $1.4 billion transit plan.)

Boulder and Ann Arbor have focused intensely on increasing bicycling and walking and now they're considered among the best places to live in the country.

Meanwhile, even the AUTO INDUSTRY knows most young people do not want to rely on cars. Our local Chambers of Commerce, economic developers, and major corporations know this too and are preparing for it. See Oklahoma City.

Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than Their Parents - Commute - The Atlantic Cities

"A study by J.D. Power and Associates, most well-known for their quality rankings of cars, confirms what young people tell me: After analyzing hundreds of thousands of online conversations on everything from car blogs to Twitter and Facebook, the study found that teens and young people in their early twenties have increasingly negative perceptions “regarding the necessity of and desire to have cars.”

"There’s a cultural change taking place," John Casesa, a veteran auto industry analyst told the New York Times in 2009. “It’s partly because of the severe economic contraction. But younger consumers are viewing an automobile with a jaundiced eye. They don’t view the car the way their parents did, and they don’t have the money that their parents did.”

A survey by the National Association of Realtors conducted in March 2011 revealed that 62 percent of people ages 18-29 said they would prefer to live in a communities with a mix of single family homes, condos and apartments, nearby retail shops, restaurants, cafes and bars, as well as workplaces, libraries, and schools served by public transportation. A separate 2011 Urban Land Institute survey found that nearly two-thirds of 18 to 32-year-olds polled preferred to live in walkable communities."

[ou48A]

Find me a few studies or articles that explain why a community like Norman can win the future by focusing on making it easier to get around by car and continuing to encourage sprawl development. Who is saying this other than angry Agenda 21 people who think preferences for urbanism are a UN conspiracy? (Hint: Joel Kotkin is the only editorialist I can think of who might come close.)

Which sprawling college towns are making big strides by widening roads? (Hint: I can only think of the Triangle of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, where research parks sprawl across two highway-laced counties and people have gotten so tired of retreating by car to their walkable home neighborhoods at the corners of the triangle that they just passed a $1.4 billion transit plan.)

Boulder and Ann Arbor have focused intensely on increasing bicycling and walking and now they're considered among the best places to live in the country.

Meanwhile, even the AUTO INDUSTRY knows most young people do not want to rely on cars. Our local Chambers of Commerce, economic developers, and major corporations know this too and are preparing for it. See Oklahoma City.

Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than Their Parents - Commute - The Atlantic Cities

"A study by J.D. Power and Associates, most well-known for their quality rankings of cars, confirms what young people tell me: After analyzing hundreds of thousands of online conversations on everything from car blogs to Twitter and Facebook, the study found that teens and young people in their early twenties have increasingly negative perceptions “regarding the necessity of and desire to have cars.”

"There’s a cultural change taking place," John Casesa, a veteran auto industry analyst told the New York Times in 2009. “It’s partly because of the severe economic contraction. But younger consumers are viewing an automobile with a jaundiced eye. They don’t view the car the way their parents did, and they don’t have the money that their parents did.”

A survey by the National Association of Realtors conducted in March 2011 revealed that 62 percent of people ages 18-29 said they would prefer to live in a communities with a mix of single family homes, condos and apartments, nearby retail shops, restaurants, cafes and bars, as well as workplaces, libraries, and schools served by public transportation. A separate 2011 Urban Land Institute survey found that nearly two-thirds of 18 to 32-year-olds polled preferred to live in walkable communities."

You don’t need studies or an article to know that Lindsey Street is seriously congested several times a day.

People with even elementary common sense and eyes can see it for them self’s.

[heyerdahl]

Of course Lindsey Street is congested. There are a lot of things we can do to address that and Norman has already chosen one- They're going to 5-lane it. They have chosen this solution while simultaneously rejecting higher density housing in walkable areas, failing to build the level of bike infrastructure that other college towns and attractive cities are, and continuing to allow huge, disconnected automobile-only residential and retail developments. All of these things will make congestion worse.

Norman is in the process of choosing a path, and contrary to your opinion, the path it is choosing is NOT the modern, forward-thinking one (that is where the articles and studies come in!) Norman is no longer capitalizing on the slight college urbanism advantage that made it just unique enough among Edmond, Yukon, Moore, and a thousand other identical places in America. So getting back to the subject of this thread, that is probably why Norman is starting to lose to central Oklahoma City, which has chosen to pursue the modern and forward-thinking path of quality urbanism that sets it apart from every other part of the metro.

[ou48A]

Of course Lindsey Street is congested. There are a lot of things we can do to address that and Norman has already chosen one- They're going to 5-lane it. They have chosen this solution while simultaneously rejecting higher density housing in walkable areas, failing to build the level of bike infrastructure that other college towns and attractive cities are, and continuing to allow huge, disconnected automobile-only residential and retail developments. All of these things will make congestion worse.

Norman is in the process of choosing a path, and contrary to your opinion, the path it is choosing is NOT the modern, forward-thinking one (that is where the articles and studies come in!) Norman is no longer capitalizing on the slight college urbanism advantage that made it just unique enough among Edmond, Yukon, Moore, and a thousand other identical places in America. So getting back to the subject of this thread, that is probably why Norman is starting to lose to central Oklahoma City, which has chosen to pursue the modern and forward-thinking path of quality urbanism that sets it apart from every other part of the metro.

The part of Lindsey Street that is the most congested will not be 5 landed. It will stay exactly like it is…..
This is in spite of the fact that it has been labeled as the most congested street in Oklahoma and the part that’s not being widened is the worst stretch of Lindsey, by a very wide margin. It doesn’t even have sidewalks.

[blangtang]

Traffic is worse in Edmond, from what little time I've spent there.

Its been a long time, but from memory there were plans to widen the stretch of Lindsey from Berry to Elm? But I've never heard of any plan for the stretch of Lindsey that goes right thru the OU campus. There was also a plan to 4 lane Flood from Robinson to Main, that would be a mess, now that I think on it.

[BoulderSooner]

i have always felt that the county services between Robinson and Alameda should all be relocated to the outskirts of norman and all of that land sold for redevelopment ..