TULSA, OK – [October 16, 2017] – An intersection near Hoover Elementary School will be updated with spray chalk and bright cones on Tuesday, October 17th, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The installation, which will be held at the intersection of South Darlington Avenue and East 23rd Street, aims to show how low cost improvements could make the intersection safer for people who walk, including parents and children walking to school.
Through the demonstration, the Tulsa Health Department and the Tulsa Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee hope to give residents and policymakers the chance to learn how traffic calming could improve quality of life.
“This is a great initiative by the Tulsa Health Department and BPAC to make Tulsa a safer community,” says District 5 City Councilor Karen Gilbert. “Our number one priority is to keep our kids safe. This project is simply taking that step to reinforce a crosswalk that our Hoover families will be utilizing to get to school safely.”
The demonstration will potentially lead to permanent improvements in the intersection and surrounding streets leading to slower traffic and increased safety for all road users.
“I am thrilled for BPAC to be doing this traffic calming demonstration in my neighborhood next to my child’s elementary school,” says Hoover neighborhood resident Josh Kunkel. “I appreciate their approach to using tactical urbanism to create solutions beyond the traditional ‘speed hump.’ Darlington and 23rd Street are both main thoroughfares through the neighborhood, and both seem to attract folks who like to speed and miss the stop signs. The pedestrian crosswalk striping will help bring attention that there is a crossing and will help encourage speeders to come to a full stop at the stop sign. I would love to see this as a permanent solution at more of the intersections along the two streets. We have a great many who walk in the neighborhood, including myself walking my son to school.”
The demonstration was funded through a grant from Pathways to Health, which awards seed funding to community health partners that demonstrate targeted and effective work in the community addressing health disparities. Risk factors for health include a wide set of forces: economic, social, political, and environment.
Pathways to Health
Pathways to Health (P2H) brings together local, public, non-profit and other community health stakeholders to share ideas, increase synergies and complement each other’s strengths. P2H was formed by the Tulsa Health Department in 2008 in response to a challenge to decrease the overlap of health services and identify gaps where leaders are missing vulnerable populations. Today, P2H is an incorporated non-profit entity with more than 90 local health partner agencies with a vested interest in the health and well-being of Tulsa County residents. No single organization has the necessary depth of resources to improve community health, but P2H demonstrates the impact possible when everyone works toward the same goals. Visit www.pathwaystohealthtulsa.org to learn more.
Tulsa Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee
The Tulsa Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee advises INCOG and the city governments in the INCOG area on projects, policies, and programs that improve and/or affect bicycling and pedestrian conditions in Tulsa.
