Tulsa city councilors consider plans to replace historic 11th Street Bridge

The Tulsa City Council recently reviewed four proposals to replace the long-closed and deteriorating 11th Street Bridge with a new pedestrian span.

Bruce Henley, principal and business unit manager for Dewberry Architects who presented the proposals, told the council it probably wasn’t feasible to preserve the 100-year-old bridge except for sections that are on dry land, reported the Tulsa World.

Councilors viewed four design options for the bridge — nostalgia deco, contemporary arch suspension, billboard market and agamograph, which uses optical illusion to create that changes when viewed from different angles.

“We wanted to take a range of options and approaches, kind of look at this from, again, pie in the sky, big picture,” said Eric Vogt, design director for Dewberry, “in part because Route 66 means different things to different people. It even means different things to just me.” […]

Henley told councilors it would take at least $2 million — and likely more — to do a comprehensive feasibility study to determine whether and how the bridge could be built and at what cost.

The link to the story also shows artist’s renderings of the new bridges.

As usual, funding remains a big obstacle to any sort of proposal.

One option is tapping into a $609 million Improve Our Tulsa sales-tax extension that’s due to go before voters in August.

Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell also suggested the city submit a funding request to the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission, which is offering $6.6 million annually for Route 66 projects through the highway’s centennial in 2026.

As a former resident of Tulsa for almost a decade, I can attest rehabbing the 11th Street Bridge has been considered for at least 15 years. The big roadblock has been the cost, which has been north of $25 million.

The opening of the 11th Street Bridge over the Arkansas River in 1917 predated U.S. 66 by more than a decade and became a key component in that city’s oil boom.

The bridge was closed to vehicles in 1980 when a new span was built next to it. The original bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

(Image of the 11th Street Bridge in Tulsa by Shane Burkhardt via Flickr)