Crowds Search For Parking At BOK Center

For the thousands who showed up for the ribbon cutting, the ride into downtown was a lot smoother. The city resurfaced or rebuilt more than 50 blocks of downtown in time for the BOK Center's grand opening. That meant new pavement, sidewalks, even trees and street signs. Those signs are meant to help people find the arena and a place to park.

As News On 6's Jeffery Smith reports, for the most part, the grand opening went off better than planned. Many visitors say getting inside the arena was no problem at all. But, despite the smooth streets there were a few bumps finding a place to park.

"I'm excited about this new arena and our team and Tulsa and wow," said Dick Thomason, grand opening attendee.

But before they celebrated at the center, everyone had to find a place to park.

"I didn't know where everybody was going to park," said Joyze Brown, grand opening attendee.

More than 2,000 visitors parked their cars downtown for free. Brown says she had second thoughts about showing up.

"I was afraid of the crowds and the traffic, you know. But, they've really got it organized. The police are out and it's not bad getting in," said Brown.

Gary Miller had a different experience. He said it was hard finding a place to park.

"Yeah, everywhere we went. The cop up here at the corner, he said you ‘gotta go down that way about two blocks and maybe you'll find something' and then we just drove around and around," said Gary Miller, grand opening attendee.

There were even a few shouting matches, fights over who was here, first.

"We're from out of town and I don't really know downtown Tulsa all that good," said Billy Usry, Claremore resident.

Billy Usry drove up from Claremore to see the new arena. He says some other drivers acted insensitive.

"I wanted that spot right there because it was a free parking place and my daughter is disabled. And I wanted to get real close, so she didn't have to walk real far," said Billy Usry, Claremore resident.

Police say it's good practice for next week when it gets really crowded.
"The Eagles will be more of an everybody comes at the same time, ingress and then egress," said Sgt. Skipper Bain with Tulsa Police.

Light traffic and free parking, not a bad opening for the future of downtown.

One problem News On 6's Jeffrey Smith saw was in outside parking lots where the street exits were blocked off by cars parking where they shouldn't have. That caused a lot of headaches and a lot of honking as drivers had to do u-turns to get back out.