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Tulsa and Oklahoma historical maps and aerial photos
What was here? Who owned it? What did it look like? There are a number of resources available for reconstructing Oklahoma's geographical past, and they're easier to use than ever. These are my go-tos when researching the history of a neighborhood or answering questions about the past. This is an...
Road conditions maps, good and bad
I had occasion Saturday afternoon to travel to Joplin with my dad (a seasonal celebrity), who was making an appearance at the Sam's Club there. There was freezing rain in the forecast, so I spent some time before leaving town looking for current weather and road condition information. Getting current...
Tulsa in top 10 for cost of driving on bad roads, top 20 for percentage of bad roads
Last week TRIP, a national transportation research organization, released its annual urban roads report, ranking U. S. cities by percentage of major roads and highways in poor condition and on the cost to drivers resulting from the bad roads. Tulsa and Oklahoma City ranked 17th and 16th respectively on the...
Getting to know a new city
Natasha Ball (Tasha Does Tulsa) has posted the notes from her presentation last week at Ignite Tulsa 3 -- 19 Ways to Get to Know Your Town (Even If It's Not Tulsa). All the suggestions are good (except maybe 17 -- if I ever do Foursquare it'll be under a...
The Mystery of the Muskogee Senator's Missing Name
Jamison Faught has caught the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper in an interesting omission. It's in an Associated Press story (originating in the Oklahoman) on two Democratic Oklahoma state senators, Earl Garrison and Kenneth Corn, intervening on behalf of a Muskogee highway contractor named Craig Glover. Glover had been rejected by the...
Cornett conflict of interest charges; rail fans dial Preservation 911
Oklahoma City has a lot going for it, but it has its problems, too. Here are a couple of recent news items that may be of interest at the east end of the Turner Turnpike. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has a new job with ad agency Ackerman McQueen. (He's...
PLANiTULSA draft "vision" to be unveiled today; high-speed rail meeting tonight
PLANiTULSA's draft vision, developed by Fregonese Associates in response to the PLANiTULSA scenario survey, will be available after 2 p.m. today, September 15, 2009, at PLANiTULSA.org. City of Tulsa planners are seeking feedback on the draft, which is not a detailed comprehensive plan, but a first step in that direction,...
Oklahoma railroad system maps, past and present
Too tired tonight to do much more than link. I've been working on a post about the Oklahoma City Union Station rail yard / I-40 relocation controversy, but it's not ready. For now, here are links to some maps and other information about the history of the state's rail network,...
Public Works responds to street questions
Today I received via GT Bynum some responses from the Tulsa Public Works Department to the questions I asked in my October 15 column on the street sales tax and bond issue vote. It will take me some time to process all this, but in the meantime I wanted you...
Street talk express
This afternoon at 2, City of Tulsa Finance Director Mike Kier, Assistant Public Works Director Paul Zachary, and City Councilor G. T. Bynum will be on the Chris Medlock show on 1170 KFAQ to talk about the sales tax and bond issue for street funding that will be on November's...
Google Maps Street View comes to Tulsa
Sometime this past winter (judging from how low the sun is in the sky and the presence of piles of ice storm debris in many photos), Google sent its 360-degree car mounted camera around Tulsa, taking street view photos of nearly every street. (Hat tip to Steve Roemerman, who to...
Oklahoma traffic cameras
Check the traffic before you get on the highway with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) traffic camera website, Oklahoma Pathfinder (oktraffic.org). Tulsa has cameras at major freeway junctions: I-44 and the Broken Arrow expressway, BA & US 169, I-44 & I-244 (west side and east side), I-44 & 169,...
Martinson to Chamber: "an incredible level of arrogance"
Over the transom late last week, I received a copy of a scathing letter, dated May 23, written by Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson to Stan Lybarger and Mike Neal, Chairman and CEO, respectively, of the Tulsa Metro Chamber. Martinson, who has headed up the Council's effort to develop a...
I-44 widening: 51st Street to remain two-way
Bobby of Tulsa Topics also runs his neighborhood's blog -- Lewis Crest News -- and he's got some good news up about the I-44 widening. After worries that 51st Street between Lewis and Harvard would be turned into an eastbound-only service road, ODOT's latest plan, unveiled at a public meeting...
My beloved ODOT county maps
I was going to include this in the roundup post below, but this deserved its own entry. I first came across the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) county highway maps back in the mid-'70s, when I would take the MTTA bus downtown from school on Wednesday afternoons and hang out...
Oklahoma's Memorial Highways and Bridges
And speaking of former Lieutenant Governor Cowboy Pink Williams, have you ever wondered where the Cowboy Pink Williams Memorial Bridge is located? How about the Cliff Bogle Memorial Highway or the Bill Bright Bypass? The answers are online, at ODOT's website! (Shouldn't the Bill Bright Bypass feature the Four Spiritual...
Chamber wants to remake Midtown
All of the talk about "vision" over the last year was focused on building publicly-funded capital improvements, but a real vision should deal with the big picture -- what do we want Tulsa to look like, what do we want our own neighborhood to be like, and what do we...
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