Tulsa Comprehensive Plan - PLANiTULSA

Achieving the Vision: Strategies
MAKiNg THE
TrANSPOrTATiON-LAND USE
CONNECTiON
Step 3. Develop a New
Transportation Strategy
To meet the vision formed through the PLANiTULSA
process, a high level of coordination must be established
between the city and other key agencies, notably the Indian
Nations Council of Governments (INCOG), Tulsa Transit, the
Tulsa Parking Authority, and the Oklahoma Department of
Transportation. These agencies should have a comprehensive
understanding of the multi-faceted transportation and land-use
challenges and a consensus approach for solving them.
The following programs, strategies and
policies would address these common issues:
Create Livable Networks
Tulsa has an orderly street grid and a vast highway network.
However, our current approach to traffic congestion consists
of expanding car capacity at the expense of all other factors.
We should redirect our efforts to helping people get where
they want to go and shortening their trips altogether by
diversifying land uses along corridors. This is the essence
of a livable network — corridors become places as well as
transportation facilities.
People do not drive or take transit just for
the sake of traveling, but rather to go places
and do things. Allowing more types of land
uses — retail, offces, and housing — along
one corridor that is served by transit can
greatly reduce the distance between those
destinations. This reduces the length of trips
they must take, and makes walking, biking,
and transit more viable alternatives.
Improve Transportation Modeling Techniques
The local transportation decision-making process should
employ the best travel demand modeling available. Modeling
allows policy makers to consider pragmatic transportation
investment strategies that take into account a number of
factors. These include analysis of transportation types
that support pedestrians and mixed uses, network-based
transportation alternatives that take a look beyond near-term
vehicle capacity and delay, and scenarios that consider landuse
changes and their impact on transportation. The city, in
collaboration with surrounding communities, should continue
to work with INCOG to improve modeling capabilities
to include consider these additional factors. Tulsa should
also advocate for standard modeling methodologies and
capabilities both for INCOG and for member jurisdictions,
so transportation and land use planning efforts can be well
coordinated and evaluated.
42 | TULSA ViSioN- July 2010