Cyclists Want Bike Lane Included In Boulder Avenue Plans

The City of Tulsa wants to be bicycle friendly but plans to re-do a downtown street do not include a bike path.

Cyclists said that it would be easy to add a protected path on Boulder Avenue, and it would allow riders to make full circle trips through the city.

A group of cyclists wants to be able to ride 11th Street from the University of Tulsa to the Blue Dome District, or the Brady Arts District, safely on bike paths - one on Boulder would help make that possible.

There aren't many bikes there right now, but Stephen Lassiter rides the street to work.

Between 1st and 10th, the city is changing the four-lane street from one-way to two-way; but, as it stands now, there will be no bike path.

The plan City Engineer Paul Zachary is using has two lanes of traffic moving each way, and parking on both sides.

But Lassiter would like to see something with a bike lane, parking, a lane of traffic moving one way, two lanes of traffic moving another way and more parking.

Zachary said, "It's kind of difficult when you've had a road one direction for so long, you start moving too many variables at one time."

He said we should adjust to the street changing from one-way to two-way before building a bike path; paint is all it would take to create a cycling track at a later date.

The current plan does put sharrows on the road - painted arrows telling drivers that cyclists can share the street.

"A lot of people might be afraid to take a bike on a street that just has a sharrow on it," Lassiter said.

Boulder is a relatively low traveled street and Lassiter said if the city isn’t bike friendly now, it never will be.

"Cycle tracks are being done in cities all across the country on streets more heavily trafficked than Boulder, and so we know it can be done," he said.

Zachary said we should take it one step at a time.

Boulder Avenue is just one of half a dozen streets that will change downtown thanks to $17 million of Improve Our Tulsa funding.

Those changes will happen over the next few years - through 2021 - but the plans are being drafted now.