New bridge in Bixby?

[Nimaro]

Any of you all in the Tulsa area know anything more about a new bridge across the Arkansas river near Bixby? Moving in a couple months and this would definitely impact where we buy.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/New_bridge_in_Bixby_may_depend_on_Turnpike_Authority/20121118_12_a1_arenew987790

A renewed effort to put a bridge over the Arkansas River in southern Tulsa County may hinge on the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, now that voters have rejected Vision2.

Bixby brought life to the bridge proposal by suggesting it would contribute its $11.3 million share of the countywide sales tax initiative to such a project, possibly in a partnership with state agencies and other cities. The city will now focus on acquiring Turnpike Authority funding for a toll crossing, Mayor Ray Bowen said.

Bixby officials estimate a bridge would cost $65 million.

"We will definitely continue pursuing it," Bowen said. "What we would like to see happen is a study done to see if (the Turnpike Authority) could do a toll bridge and if it would pay for itself.

"From a monetary standpoint, us being able to put some money in the project is a bit of a problem, but I think if we are able to show that the (toll) rates would actually pay for the project ... I think we'll continue looking at it."

The bridge has been a Bixby goal for years but has long been opposed by south Tulsa leaders and residents.

If the Turnpike Authority is to help with the project, the affected cities and residents would have to support it, said Gary Ridley, Turnpike Authority director and state secretary of transportation.

"We would need to sit down and talk about whether it's something the community and the local people in the area really want and if there is opposition as well as people who are proponents of it," he said.

A toll bridge from 131st Street in Jenks to the intersection of Yale Avenue and 121st Street in Tulsa was proposed by county leaders in 2004, again by Jenks and Bixby soon after and then by a Muscogee (Creek) Nation business in 2008.

The latest proposal died in 2010 when the tribe fired the business's CEO and its board.

South Tulsa leaders and residents have argued that a bridge at Yale Avenue and 121st Street would increase traffic on residential and arterial streets that cannot support it.

The renewed discussions have also created uncertainty for Grace K. Cousins Park, a 45-acre preserve and nature center planned at that location.

Although Bixby officials have offered to consider alternative crossings, they presented Tulsa officials a schematic of a possible bridge overlapping the southern end of the park in July.

Tulsa then postponed designing the park, and Community and Economic Development Director Dwain Midget said officials have yet to decide its future.

A parks official told the Tulsa World in late October that Tulsa was working to determine several possible locations for a road through the site.

The option proposed in Bixby's schematic would connect the bridge to Delaware Avenue and 121st Street, leaving much of the land for the park and avoiding a chief complaint against past proposals that sought a direct connection to the two-lane Yale Avenue.

Bowen said Bixby is committed to working with Tulsa to find an acceptable scenario.

"That's our main goal, to find a crossing on the Arkansas River that works for everybody," he said.

He said the city's efforts to partner with the Turnpike Authority are preliminary, and Ridley noted that he and Bowen have had only a brief conversation about it so far.

Ridley said he told the mayor that the authority would be open to discussing the bridge formally only if Tulsa, Jenks and Tulsa County are involved.

"We think that all the players in the area ought to be at the table if we're going to sit down and talk to them," Ridley said. "They would all have to make their feelings known ... and we'd have to have legislative approval before we could do anything.

"That all would be way down the road, so to speak."

Tim Stewart, the Turnpike Authority's deputy director, said proposals to partner with cities for toll roads are common but that no such projects have been recently realized.

The closest successful example was a partnership with Broken Arrow to fund the recently completed Aspen (145th East) Avenue interchange on the Creek Turnpike, he said.

Bowen said the Arkansas River bridge is a critical public safety need because the river divides Bixby in halves that are connected only by the Memorial Drive bridge.

"If we're shut down on that bridge, we have to go through Jenks," he said. "We have a nursing home on the south side. So it becomes a real public safety issue."

A second bridge, he added, "will be a very nice economic boom, not only for Bixby but for Jenks, Tulsa and all stakeholders."

 

[HMFIC]

They've been kicking this around for a long time. It's bound to happen sooner or later.

 

[Nimaro]

That's what I've heard, it would have to be sooner rather than later for us to buy on the far side of the river though. Kinda hoping it was further down the pipeline than I think it is.

 

[chazroh]

If it happens, I'll sell you my house!