When it comes to pedestrian connections, the boulevard is a dead end.

[Chicken In The Rough]

I don't believe the boulevard will necessarily hinder pedestrian connectivity. There are many examples of boulevards around the world. Many are significantly wider than ours. For example, Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin, and of course the most famous of all, the Champs-Élysées in Paris. None have created a barrier; each has promoted density; and, each is crowded with pedestrians.

The difference is that these were designed to promote the flow of pedestrians - auto traffic flow was not the singular goal. Instead of becoming barriers, they have become focal points of their respective areas. They have attracted dense commercial and residential development and have become tourist attractions on their own.

Ours could be the same. Granted, it may take 50 years or more for OKC to develop around this boulevard. But, it could be the cornerstone to long-term development. A tree-lined boulevard with extra-wide easements (perhaps 50' on each side) capable of accommodating sidewalk cafes, galleries, & street performers would enhance our civic image and become a regional attraction. Its ample sidewalks could host small events such as book sales, food festivals, and art shows. It could also become the primary street for parades and expositions. And, it will encourage east-west development of the downtown area. Rather than impeding pedestrian flow, it would enhance it. Perhaps in the future, a streetcar line might run down the middle of the new boulevard further enhancing pedestrian access.

If badly designed, the boulevard will indeed slice up the downtown area and possibly cut-off the south end of the park. But this will also happen with poor zoning, building codes, etc. It should be built, and built well. It should be among the anchors of a long-term vision for the entire downtown core.

[Kerry]

Population:
Oklahoma City - 1,200,000
Berlin - 3,400,000
Paris - 11,600,000
Buenos Aires - 13,400,000
Mexico City - 21,200,000

I won't even mention population density. You could build a road 1000 feet wide and it would be crowded in those cities.

Now for the million dollar question - what is the widest street in London?

[CaseyCornett]

When I first heard of the possibility of having 270 feet for a Boulevard...why does everyone think it has to be all concrete?
Look at what Madrid did with their Calle del Prado. Practically a park for a median. Hop on Google Maps and walk around using the "street view"

[Kerry]

When I first heard of the possibility of having 270 feet for a Boulevard...why does everyone think it has to be all concrete?

Because that is how it was presented to the people by the City.

[CaseyCornett]

Because that is how it was presented to the people by the City.

Really? You think this is 270' wide? http://www.okc.gov/planning/coretoshore/boulevard.html

Even more, you think this was finalized? Instead of everyone complaining about it, come up with different ways to make it pedestrian friendly...like Blair did.

We have 270' to work with going in the heart of downtown...not many cities get that opportunity so how about some proactive suggestions people?

[Urban Pioneer]

I really usually do not try to comment on anything city related other than the streetcar. But I must confess, I do not understand why a development would separate the two parks. Myriad Gardens seems to demand a more intimate usage. The Central Park, larger scale activities. Rather than trying to "mix and match" and "pit" parks against one another, why not make them a continuous green corridor?

Then at least the Boulevard will have at least one major "spine" that is on the scale of the concrete. What a great place for the edifice such as a "Buckingham Fountain" or some other marvel in a traffic circle?

It seems that the city has learned only "halfway" when it comes to pedestrian barriers made of concrete.

[BoulderSooner]

I really usually do not try to comment on anything city related other than the streetcar. But I must confess, I do not understand why a development would separate the two parks. Myriad Gardens seems to demand a more intimate usage. The Central Park, larger scale activities. Rather than trying to "mix and match" and "pit" parks against one another, why not make them a continuous green corridor?

Then at least the Boulevard will have at least one major "spine" that is on the scale of the concrete. What a great place for the edifice such as a "Buckingham Fountain" or some other marvel in a traffic circle?

It seems that the city has learned only "halfway" when it comes to pedestrian barriers made of concrete.

while this idea is ok in theory the costs would be very high to buy the ford dealer site.

[Kerry]

while this idea is ok in theory the costs would be very high to buy the ford dealer site.

Maybe they could do a land swap. Give Fred Hall 30 acres of park front land for his 15 acres. They better do it quick because he will have plans ready soon.

[betts]

Really? You think this is 270' wide? http://www.okc.gov/planning/coretoshore/boulevard.html

Even more, you think this was finalized? Instead of everyone complaining about it, come up with different ways to make it pedestrian friendly...like Blair did.

We have 270' to work with going in the heart of downtown...not many cities get that opportunity so how about some proactive suggestions people?

The statement that this needs to meet "federal highway standards" is rather chilling, to me. Why is this considered a highway, when we have a freeway adjacent and basically it is a road to nowhere?

I think it would be simple to make it pedestrian friendly, and I believe I've read lots of suggestions here for doing so. The way to make it pedestrian friendly is to create a massive grassy median, with a maximum of two smaller lanes of traffic in either direction, bisected by north south streets so that it is an undesirable route for people wanting to go through downtown and rather is a way to get from place to place downtown and in Core to Shore. Lots of stoplights and pedestrian right of ways would help as well. I wouldn't have a problem with the streetcar running down the center of the boulevard, ala the St. Charles streetcar in NO, as that's another way to make it pedestrian centric, with people walking to stops and between stops.

[Urban Pioneer]

You could say the Embarcadero in San Franciso as well.

[Spartan]

The statement that this needs to meet "federal highway standards" is rather chilling, to me. Why is this considered a highway, when we have a freeway adjacent and basically it is a road to nowhere?

I think it would be simple to make it pedestrian friendly, and I believe I've read lots of suggestions here for doing so. The way to make it pedestrian friendly is to create a massive grassy median, with a maximum of two smaller lanes of traffic in either direction, bisected by north south streets so that it is an undesirable route for people wanting to go through downtown and rather is a way to get from place to place downtown and in Core to Shore. Lots of stoplights and pedestrian right of ways would help as well. I wouldn't have a problem with the streetcar running down the center of the boulevard, ala the St. Charles streetcar in NO, as that's another way to make it pedestrian centric, with people walking to stops and between stops.

Bingo.

[warreng88]

I have been monitoring this thread since it started and a question for everyone: What is your ideal width for the boulevard? Do you envision it like NW Expressway but taking the two interior lanes and adding them to the grass area? Again, I am just talking about width, not speed or structure.

[betts]

I would like it to look like Robinson north of 23rd St., which has two lanes in either direction and a very nice median. The median could be bigger, but I would like the lanes to look like what we would all call a "street" as opposed to a "highway". When we look at it, I'd like to think, "That's a pretty street".

[Kerry]

Only one block of the Boulevard is even going to go through the park. To the west it wil go through some pretty industrial areas. I don't recall seeing all the aforementioned world class streets with a lot of manufacturing and light industrial establishments on them. I would much rather see the the old I-40 returned to the grid and make Robinson and/or Hudson the focal point.

[Spartan]

I think there are a number of streets in OKC that are very impressive, but all in their own right. The question you've got ask yourself is what is appropriate for this environment. Warreng and betts just got this conversation going in a very interesting direction.. this is pretty much verbatim from an upcoming blog post of mine, but what the hey.

I know it's hard to think of OKC as a city of boulevards, but ... just off the top of my head we have these ones:

Grand Blvd (Nichols Hills)
Robinson Ave (Heritage Hills/J. Park)
Lincoln Blvd (Lincoln's Terrace)
Classen Blvd (Asian District)
NW 19th St (Crestwood/Linwood)
NW 10th St (Classen-Ten-Penn)
Grand Blvd (South OKC)
Shartel/18th St (Mesta Park)
Shartel Ave (Crown Heights)
McKinley Ave (Putnam Heights)
Classen Drive w/ Park (Heritage Hills)
Linwood Blvd (Metro Park)
SW 25th St (Capitol Hill)
Miller Blvd (Miller)
Drexel Blvd (Reed Park)

There are countless others but these are just a few examples to get people thinking and realizing that we do actually have precedent for what a good boulevard is from within our own community. A lot of these are actually built around parks..either a park in their median (Classen Dr) or a park in a bend of the road (Drexel Blvd) or so on. Some of them are part of a system of boulevards that an upscale neighborhood was just built around, like with Linwood or Putnam Heights, two nice neighborhoods we especially often forget about.

I would break these boulevards into two different categories...

Large-scale boulevards: Robinson, Lincoln, Classen, Shartel/18th
Small-scale boulevards: Grand SOKC, SW 25th, NW 19th, McKinley, Shartel, Miller, Drexel
Under-utilized boulevards: Grand NH, NW 10th, Linwood

And yeah, I just put Grand Boulevard in Nichols Hills in the same category as Linwood in terms of being a disappointing space. You would expect Nichols Hills could afford to plant more trees than are there now.

But anyway, what I mean by large-scale boulevards is when the space comes together to form a large-scale that immediately impresses people. That's what people in OKC want with this boulevard. Nobody wants it to be prohibitively wide, it was just an assumption that was made at first when people set out on the task of designing this boulevard to impress. In the category of boulevards that come together at the large scale in a way that impresses are boulevards that transcend sizes of rights of way from as tiny as Shartel in Mesta Park to as wide as Lincoln. But we've seen over time that Lincoln Blvd was a failure..it is too wide, too many lanes, too much space between it, and too poorly defined by structures lining it. Shockingly dismal for a center of government. Shartel on the other hand is a fantastic space, lots of runners, walkers, medium amounts of traffic, extremely beautiful space, very well-defined by the structures that line it.

Shartel is a smashing success and clearly it utilizes a right of way that is tiny and makes the absolute best out of it. Lincoln is a failure, utilizing a monstrously large right of way, lined with stunningly beautiful individual pieces of architecture but it fails to tie them altogether in a way that's cohesive and includes them in a large-scale environment. It does not come together in the large-scale very well.

I would mention more on Robinson, which I view as perfect, but I have issues with the way Robinson converts to one-way around 17th Street. It's very funky and somewhat dysfunctional IMO, not to mention a nightmare if you're trying to go north and forget at what street it does that, esp because you can't go up another block on Broadway (next street over) because entrances from Broadway are blocked into HH. I was walking down Robinson personally checking it out with streetcar in mind, but I'll go over those observations in the ongoing streetcar thread. Robinson in HH is a very impressive boulevard though. Another very beautiful boulevard is Classen Drive way over on the other side of HH. Another issue with Classen Drive however is how it dead-ends behind trees that block it off from Classen.

Obviously every effort is being made to limit the traffic that drives through MP and HH to get to downtown, but is this really a bad thing? There are a lot of people who who the Shartel/18th boulevard to get from downtown to Classen and it doesn't spoil anything. Heck, there's a stop sign every 2 blocks and the lanes are skinny to where you're going slow regardless of the speed limit. So it's on a strong side note that I say Robinson and Classen Drive NEED to be opened up and made into normal thoroughfares because it's only natural that we take better care of such immense resources as those beautifully maintained boulevards, and they should become more prominent in the inner city, so they should be opened up.

But to build on this thread, the C2S boulevard, and the idea of Classen Drive and Robinson, I think the Core2Shore could very easily replicate those two boulevards in Heritage Hills. They could put a beautiful park in it and try and integrate some interesting curves, maybe even a traffic circle, into the design, or they could just make it a straight boulevard with a great, lush median. In both cases there aren't very many lanes, and the lanes aren't built to highway specifications either. Regardless of which model is chosen, both would be successful.

I have to agree with Jeff as well that it doesn't make that much sense to break the two parks up. I think we had might as well give up on hoping for too much E/W circulation around downtown, and even still, that's not really the way in which my mind thinks downtown. I think of everything more on a N/S axis. This might have not been the case 2 years ago when we still had Reno, Sheridan, and Main streets (now all 3 of which are construction zones that you can't get through at one point). I think having a long, linear, and mostly unbroken park stripe going all the way down to the River from Devon Tower would have the potential to be an amazing thing.

I'm not sure, but is the Devon Tower's alignment nearly centered up with the Myriad Gardens? It had seemed that was the case. Think of it as a similar effect of a Paris boulevard perfectly aligned with the Eiffel Tower looming ahead in the distance. It would be like this all the way down to the river.

[Larry OKC]

While I thought connecting the MAPS 3 Park w/MG would make it seem more impressive etc, that may be one of the reasons they chose to NOT connect with MG. So MG could keep its own identity, more intimate, smaller scale setting/events. But it still seems odd having them only a block apart.

Then on the other hand, they included MG in the Core to Shore concept and tried to make a connection with the Harvey Spine (tree lined sidewalks cutting thru the mixed use development), so don't know

[rcjunkie]

While I like the look and atmosphere gained from a nice boulevard with grass/tree/shrub medians, the big negative is the cost to properly maintain such areas. The majority of the land the OKC Parks Department maintains is actually not "Park Property", its center medians, right-of-ways, and highways.

[Larry OKC]

True rc, and as discussed before there isn't money in MAPS for the maintenance of the projects (not designed to be) but it is a cost that you have to consider when approving the projects. What is it really going to cost us (presuming that the cost given to the voters are accurate)? The City's usual response is something along the lines of, we'll worry about that later.

Not unlike people when they get a new car or house. The only thing many ask, is can I afford the payment? Not giving much thought about related costs (gas, maintenance, repairs, insurance etc). Same with a home. Then they get over their heads....

[Chicken In The Rough]

Population:
Oklahoma City - 1,200,000
Berlin - 3,400,000
Paris - 11,600,000
Buenos Aires - 13,400,000
Mexico City - 21,200,000

I won't even mention population density. You could build a road 1000 feet wide and it would be crowded in those cities.

Now for the million dollar question - what is the widest street in London?

How large were those cities when those boulevards were built?

[bdhumphreys]

I don't believe the boulevard will necessarily hinder pedestrian connectivity. There are many examples of boulevards around the world.

Any way you slice it, we are talking about six lanes of traffic, each 11' wide for a total crossing distance of 66' (not including turn lanes or medians). Why would we look to any street featuring six lanes of traffic - even great streets - if the goal is to create pedestrian connectivity on a tangential path? That is certainly not what makes them great. For streets of this scale, pedestrian connectivity is typically their glaring weakness.

I am certain a street of this width will hinder pedestrian connectivity. There are many examples of expressways - with the same number of lanes - right here in Oklahoma City.

Add a turn-lane, you get E.K. Gaylord Boulevard.
Add a turn-lane and a median, you get N.W. Expressway.
Add elevated roadbed and on/off ramps, you get I-40 as it exists today.

If you are happy with the quality of pedestrian connections provided by E.K. Gaylord Boulevard, then you have nothing to worry about. If not, you should be concerned.

[betts]

Are we sure about those 6 lanes of traffic? I thought the mayor had said it is not the plan to have a road with more than 4 lanes.

[Urban Pioneer]

I wish that the Planning Department would have a press conference specifically about the Boulevard and explain what is going on with it. It seems to be a "tug-of-war" with no one budging.

I do know that ODOT did let contracts for some of the design work to begin. Makes you wonder if those engineers will have public meetings. lol

[BAW]

I've been accused of being long winded on this board so I'll use bullets.

- I agree that a certain amount of shading is inevitable if an urban park is placed next to tall buildings.

- But in this instance, we are dealing with a BOTANICAL GARDEN which just happens to look like a park. Any amount of shading, for any significant duration of time, in any season will have an adverse effect on the plantings within the Crystal Bridge.

- The South edge of the park will be programmed to be the most active with the children's garden, and dog park. How enjoyable will this area of the park be in the dead of winter?

- The idea of a land swap between the dealership plot and a place along the new park could be a very viable option.

[/IMG]

[Rover]

One of the things I love on this board is that there are so many on here are so sure of what won''t work and have no real imagination about how some things CAN work.

Probably the most beautiful city in the world is Paris. I am amused because many on this board would never have allowed much of what makes Paris so unique and beautiful. They would swear it wouldn't work. There seems to mostly be a very clinical and theoretical approach.

[bdhumphreys]

But to build on this thread, the C2S boulevard, and the idea of Classen Drive and Robinson, I think the Core2Shore could very easily replicate those two boulevards in Heritage Hills.

Spartan - you make a number of very good points.

Robinson is very impressive, particularly within Heritage Hills. Important to point out that Robinson is two-lanes in each direction and the outside lanes can be and are used for parking. Thus Robinson is regularly limited to one lane in each direction. Further, given the limitations on access you described, Robinson is certainly not in danger of getting traffic going at near highway speeds, a distinct possibility for the Boulevard unless traffic calming techniques are used to slow cars descending off an actual highway.

Classen Drive in the Harndale Addition is also very impressive and once again, has limited traffic with one lane in each direction.

In the end, I would be fine with the city pursuing either of these as models for the section of the boulevard that bisects the park. With a limited access drive reduced to one-lane in each direction, the park would not suffer much at all. In fact, it seems like this connection would be useful and provide an opportunity for cars to experience and appreciate the park's beauty.

I am reading some good ideas that seem to produce a better overall outcome. It is not as if this is a wholesale re-planning of Core to Shore, merely a small refinement to the existing plan. In my mind, your all's suggestions deserve legitimate consideration.