Arkansas River

Tulsa City Councilors are less than thrilled with the new Arkansas River pedestrian bridge after their latest look at it.

The Gateway Bridge will replace the old railroad bridge at Zink Dam. Previous renderings showed a structure built on a $35 million budget. That’s since been pared down to a design based on just the $27.4 million in public funds available.

At a presentation Wednesday, Councilor Crista Patrick quickly complained about the absence of shade.

While on-shore work has commenced for the new Zink Dam and Arkansas River pedestrian bridge, crews can’t get started in the river just yet.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to approve a memorandum of understanding for the dam.

"It’s a three-way agreement between the city, the county and River parks, and it’s the high-level, 40,000-foot view of who’s going to do what to take care of the dam once it’s built. And that was a requirement of the Corps," said River Parks Authority Executive Director Matt Meyer.

Water in the river.

It’s been a Tulsa idea since 1964, and it was still a major theme in community forums held by then-Mayor Bill LaFortune in 2002 to gauge what citizens wanted the city to invest in most.

"Here’s what they concluded, and I quote: 'It's the river, stupid,'" said Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith.

The man managing replacement of Tulsa’s Arkansas River pedestrian bridge told a board that oversees sales tax–funded projects its estimated cost has fallen closer in line with its $27 million budget. 

Original estimates for the Gateway Bridge, which will connect the west bank River Parks trails with the Gathering Place along Zink Dam, put the cost as high as $35 million. 

As widespread clean-up and repairs begin to take shape in Northeastern Oklahoma, after the recent flood event -- the second "500-year flood" to occur in our community in 32 years, by the way -- many of us are wondering what needs to be done, in both the short and long term, to fix the levee system. Our guests are Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith and District 12 Levee Commissioner Todd  Kilpatrick, both of whom worked closely during the recent crisis with the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard, and an array of federal, state, and local officials.

Our guest is Tony Moore, Director of the Gathering Place, the greatly anticipated and privately funded public park that will open alongside the Arkansas River here in Tulsa on Saturday, September 8th. Moore brings us up to speed on what this massive and very special space -- the ground for which was broken back in 2014 -- will have to offer all of the people of Greater Tulsa. Per the Gathering Place website: "The next chapter is filled with excitement as we welcome our first guests....

On this installment of ST Medical Monday, a discussion of the sport of rowing -- how it works, what its health and fitness benefits are, how it has developed as a competitive sport, and so on. Our guest is Micah Hartwell, a lecturer in the Dept. of Health & Human Performance at OSU Tulsa who's also the Nutrition Services Program Director for Tulsa CARES as well as the Varsity Men's Rowing Coach for the Tulsa Youth Rowing Association. As Hartwell tells us, this is a sport that draws upon all of one's muscle groups, and that one can safely practice throughout life.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we welcome Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum back to our studios. He was sworn in as Tulsa's newest mayor in December, having previously served as a member of the Tulsa City Council since 2008. (Mayor Bynum's great-great grandfather [1899-1900] and maternal grandfather [1970-1978] also served as mayors of Tulsa.) The Mayor joins us to talk about what he's accomplished in his mayoral tenure thus far as well as what he has planned for the immediate future.

Our guest today is Ken Busby, the CEO and executive director of the non-profit Route 66 Alliance, which is based here in Tulsa, and which is, per its website, "dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and enhancement of historic Route 66 -- past, present, and future." Formerly the director of the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa, Busby was asked to lead the "Mother Road"-focused organization in 2014; today, he brings us up to speed on the Route 66 Experience Museum, a large-scale development for which funds are still being raised and plans

Our guest on this edition of ST is Tony Moore, who was formerly the chief operating officer at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida, and now serves as the director of both A Gathering Place and Guthrie Green. The former is, of course, the George Kaiser Family Foundation's $350 million initiative -- now being built along Riverside Drive near 31st Street -- that will open late next year, and the latter is the popular public-park-and-open-stage space in downtown Tulsa, just across the street from the Woody Guthrie Center.

On today's installment of StudioTulsa, we offer a discussion with Tulsa City Councilor G.T. Bynum, who is running for mayor. (Tulsa's mayoral elction will occur on June 28th; we spoke with Mayor Bartlett, who is also running, on yesterday's program.) Bynum was elected to the Tulsa City Council in 2008; he still serves on the Council, representing District 9. As noted at the G.T.

There are six waterways in eastern Oklahoma that are considered so environmentally and economically significant they're given special consideration and protection from the state. These so-called Scenic Rivers were profiled in a special half-hour radio doc created by StateImpact reporters Joe Wertz and Logan Layden in 2014. This doc was originally aired as a four-part radio series, and we are pleased to re-broadcast it today on StudioTulsa.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we are talking about the Vision program, which was recently approved by the Tulsa City Council in unanimous vote, and which is now slated to appear on the April 5th ballot. Our guests are City Councilors Karen Gilbert (of District 5) and G.T. Bynum (of District 9), who both describe the Vision program in detail why also explaining why they think it's vitally important for voters to approve this program.

Our guest today on ST is Bill Leighty, executive director of the Smart Growth Tulsa Coalition, which was founded in 2014 as an organization "committed to creating healthy communities that work for everyone with strong schools, shops, and local businesses, improved mobility options, and jobs that pay well." A longtime Tulsa-based realtor and businessman who's been consistently active in community and professional development, and who has served on the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission as well as the city's Transpor

After some 18 months and a previous series of public meetings, the Tulsa City Council's Arkansas River Infrastructure Task Force now has a draft proposal for funding a series of low-water dams on the Arkansas River. The $298 million proposal calls for three new low-water dam sites as well as a rebuild of the existing Zink Low-Water Dam, a maintenance and operations fund to ensure upkeep of all these facilities, and money for levee rehabilitation. (The levees in Tulsa County have been deemed among the most at-risk in the U.S.) Our guest on ST is the chairman of this Task Force, G.T.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, as the new year gets underway, we take a look at this country's crumbling infrastructure. In doing so, we review the detailed findings of the latest "Report Card for America's Infrastructure," which is created every four years by the nonprofit American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

On this edition of ST, we welcome Robert J. LaFortune, a former Mayor of Tulsa, and Ann Patton, a locally based writer, activist, and former journalist. Patton has a new book out, for which LaFortune wrote the Foreword; it's a collection of essays on and photos of the Arkansas River, and it's called "The Tulsa River." But to what degree is Tulsa truly a "river city"? And are the age-old questions about riverfront development in this community changing -- or else taking on new meaning -- given the eventual creation of A Gathering Place on Riverside Drive?

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with Jeff Stava, a senior program officer for the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the project manager for the new, privately-funded, still-in-development public park known as A Gathering Place for Tulsa. The final design plans for the Riverside-based park (to be created on the site of the Blair Mansion) were announced Tuesday the 18th.