Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:30:21
Speaker 1
Turkey Mountain is almost in the heart of the city. There's probably within a67 mile radius. I want to say there's in the neighborhood of probably 200,000 people that could bicycle or walk to Turkey Mountain and have that connectivity and 3G mountains connected to our river park system. There are several bike lanes, bike route to come through the city that you can hop on and you can literally like ride to Turkey Mountain from your house.

00:00:30:21 - 00:00:48:24
Speaker 1
You can ride 30 plus miles of soft surface trail or run a marathon without hitting the same wet trail twice at our urban wilderness. And so that is just an incredible resource to be able to have the people.

00:00:48:27 - 00:01:19:03
Speaker 2
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Ryan Howell with the River Parks Authority up in the Tulsa area. And we're going to be talking about this amazing activity asset really network of activity, assets of parks and trails and recreation opportunities, but also the fact that this network of Trails and Pathways provides key connectivity to many neighborhoods, including the downtown area of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

00:01:19:06 - 00:01:31:20
Speaker 2
So without further ado, let's get right to it with Ryan. Ryan, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's a pleasure having you here.

00:01:31:23 - 00:01:34:10
Speaker 1
I'm very excited to be here. Thank you.

00:01:34:13 - 00:01:38:11
Speaker 2
Ryan, want to just take a moment to introduce yourself.

00:01:38:13 - 00:01:59:06
Speaker 1
So my name is Ryan Hall. I work for the River Parks Authority, which is one of the park systems in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I've been with the park now around six years, and I was in that really fortunate place where I was just volunteering for the park a lot for trail cleanups and maintenance days and some of the many events they had.

00:01:59:08 - 00:02:06:03
Speaker 1
And I literally volunteered for the park so much they offered me a job. So I'm a pretty fortunate fella.

00:02:06:06 - 00:02:15:12
Speaker 2
I love that story. Yes, it's fantastic. What sort of your background do you have any formal training in parks or anything like that?

00:02:15:15 - 00:02:44:08
Speaker 1
So I know I spent ten years as an archeologist for the Bureau of Land Management, and so I have a very fancy degree in archeology that I use very little nowadays. But I initially, you know, I was with the Bureau and Management, and so through working with them and all the varied processes that, you know, the various processes we went through, they're very similar to park management just on a significant scale.

00:02:44:13 - 00:03:12:13
Speaker 1
So, you know, you talk about access, you talk about recreation, you talk about, you know, park users and users and things like that. So I was very much in that realm, although I was doing archeology, I was in that world, and I just got to learn a lot about trail design and maintenance through that process and, you know, just volunteering for the park so much, you know, literally they had an opening and they were like, We think you'd be a great fit, so come and do it.

00:03:12:13 - 00:03:15:12
Speaker 1
And so, no, not any experience at all.

00:03:15:18 - 00:03:31:06
Speaker 2
Wow, that's great. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I mean, and really, I would imagine in, you know, that background in archeology, occasionally you probably come across things that are out there in the parks. Okay. You know, it's.

00:03:31:06 - 00:03:32:03
Speaker 1
Oh, absolutely.

00:03:32:03 - 00:03:33:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

00:03:33:09 - 00:03:49:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. We have thousands of thousands of acres of park and we I was just having an email conversation with the state archeologist yesterday about some things that were found in the park, but not necessarily archeological resources. But somebody felt they were.

00:03:49:21 - 00:04:16:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, there you go. You know what I'll do is I'm going to press just a play on a video that you all have out on your YouTube channel. And while this is just kind of playing, why don't you introduce not only the parks but the park itself and its in its relationship to the city? Because I think there are some very, very specific things it will eventually talk about in that context.

00:04:16:09 - 00:04:26:15
Speaker 2
But enough of these two guys on screen here. Let's let's let's get some pretty pictures rolling. So so why don't you introduce us, you know, to the parks?

00:04:26:18 - 00:05:01:06
Speaker 1
You bet. So Tulsa, Oklahoma, is in the northeast corner of Tulsa in the Ozark foothills. And the Arkansas River, which is an intermittent prairie stream, runs basically through the western portion of Tulsa in the 1970s, the county of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, realized that the river was very prone to flooding and that they knew residential development, business development would want to start moving in to the river corridor.

00:05:01:11 - 00:05:25:18
Speaker 1
And this was a horrible idea because if you look at some a lot of other cities that develop along the river corridor, they have massive problems when it comes to flooding millions and billions of dollars worth of destruction. So in the 1970s, Tulsa, Oklahoma, had the very forward thinking idea to not develop the corridor along the river space and instead turn it into a park.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:53:02
Speaker 1
And that's how the river parks system was born. And we're very grateful to for this day, all through the pretty much every most of the acres of land along the river, through the middle of the downtown area, all the way down through the suburbs, is undeveloped land and it's greenspace. And so as time has progressed, we have expanded our trail system.

00:05:53:02 - 00:06:20:08
Speaker 1
It is a dual paved trail system that has a side for hiking, walking, running, pushing a stroller, and then it has a side for wheels. So it has your bicycles, your scooters, roller or the whole shebang. So and we do divide it kind of differently, you know, in various places. It kind of ebbs and flows, as you can see on the screen there, it's very well divided.

00:06:20:11 - 00:06:52:17
Speaker 1
But we also have numerous parks that dot along the river corridor. So little playground bathrooms, amenities. We have a restaurant area with a beautiful restaurant that overlooks the space. There are numerous crossings because the trail system actually is on both sides of the river. The east bank has around 12 miles of paved trail on it, and the West Bank of the river has around five miles of the divided paved trail system on it.

00:06:52:19 - 00:07:14:20
Speaker 2
Fantastic. And we can see in this image here, the downtown Tulsa area, in the distance. And yeah, I really appreciate your comment too, that they had the foresight to not develop it. And they also had the foresight to not build a highway along it, which is what so many cities in North America ended up doing.

00:07:14:22 - 00:07:38:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, we do have a one of our major thoroughfares, so you can kind of see it to the very right of the screen called Riverside Drive. Shockingly, that does pass in some places closer to it. But for the most part, it is just an open area and it is prone to flooding. You know, we had a major flood in 2019 where the area that you're looking at right now was partially underwater.

00:07:38:19 - 00:07:51:13
Speaker 1
But when the waters receded, hey, you know, we had maybe two or $3 million worth of damage. But imagine if that were businesses, homes, etc., you would have been talking about infinite amount of damage.

00:07:51:14 - 00:08:24:09
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. I mean, ten, 20 years, Who knows? Yeah. I mean, that's that's insane. And I think that's it really is interesting how important those decisions are. I mean, this is you're living the legacy of decisions that were made, you know, 50 years ago. And in some cases, you know, many places, you know, including in other places in Tulsa, I'm sure you're living with the legacy of some not good decisions made 50 years ago, 60 years ago, etc..

00:08:24:11 - 00:08:47:22
Speaker 2
And navigating through that. Talk a little bit about that relationship between the built environment, the communities in downtown Tulsa to the River Park Authority and the River Park system. And we'll actually see if we can pull up the map and get a visual on this. But here we go.

00:08:47:24 - 00:08:49:29
Speaker 1
There you go. Yeah, you zoom out on that right there.

00:08:49:29 - 00:09:12:29
Speaker 2
And then when you come out here and I think there we go. Now we've got the downtown Tulsa, you know, kind of in focus there in the top of the screen. Walk us through that relationship ship, you know, of of the entire system. Like you said, it does kind of pass through the downtown area and then stretches further down to the south.

00:09:13:01 - 00:09:37:28
Speaker 1
Yeah. So on your screen you can see downtown Tulsa is to the very kind of top of the screen, the north end. And so the river trail, the river parts trails pass, you know, directly. I mean they are but the downtown area. So when you ride or walk it is, you know, three or four blocks. If you're staying in a downtown hotel, you got three or four blocks till you hit the river corridor.

00:09:38:03 - 00:10:11:16
Speaker 1
And once you hit the river corridor, we don't have any stop signs. We have fully protected spaces for walkers and bikers for miles and miles and miles. So you don't have to worry about those intersections with vehicles and other types of traffic. The trail system actually extends not only through Tulsa, but well into our suburbs. So if you follow the river corridor up and around to the west from downtown Tulsa, you can kind of see a light green line on the screen.

00:10:11:19 - 00:10:43:28
Speaker 1
That is what's called the Katy Trail at the AT&T. It's an old Rails two trail trail that's been converted that goes all the way out to San Springs and just a little bit further. So there's another ten miles of trail over there. And that one does have a few crossings on it, but they're mostly in residential neighborhoods. And then if you go, follow the trail south along, pass out turkey mountain urban wilderness as Hallmark Park and keep going south path through Spirit Casino the trail cuts and goes along.

00:10:44:01 - 00:11:07:15
Speaker 1
It goes along a toll road but it goes all the way out to Broken Arrow, which is a huge suburb in the southeast portion of Tulsa. Yeah, you can kind of see just how far it goes. So from one end of this trail system to the other, we're talking about 30 plus miles of connectivity, of protected space for pedestrians to be able to use.

00:11:07:20 - 00:11:25:03
Speaker 1
We have a ton of people that commute to work on a regular basis downtown through our park space and, you know, and use it for their long rides, for their long runs, marathon trainings. I mean, two weekends ago we had Iron Man running on our paved trails.

00:11:25:06 - 00:11:56:27
Speaker 2
Wow. Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's one of the really important things to remember, too, is that recreational trails, if we only view them as recreational trails, I mean, if our trail networks and river, you know, pathway systems and greenways, if we only view them as recreational in nature, then sometimes we end up making decisions that kind of prevent them from having utilitarian purposes.

00:11:57:03 - 00:12:28:16
Speaker 2
But if we provide ample connectivity to the surrounding neighborhoods and and they're built well, they're built with ample enough space, they can be multi dimensional, multi-functional, and that's where you end up. You know, if you're you've got the proximity to downtown, it's very easy for them to also then be, you know, utilitarian functional corridors for people, you know, getting to meaningful destinations like work school and to the grocery store.

00:12:28:18 - 00:12:45:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's another and we kind of joke about it in the park. You know, we have rush hour to, you know, it's it's like 730 to 8:00. You know, you'll see those folks bicycling to work with their saddlebags on are the pioneers, you know, and they've got their change of clothes. And then you see them coming home in the night.

00:12:45:21 - 00:12:55:08
Speaker 1
And it is it is wonderful to be able to provide an alternative transportation route to folks in our city.

00:12:55:10 - 00:13:06:26
Speaker 2
Yeah. So in this image here, you had mentioned earlier about the crossings, I see a couple of of different crossings represented here. Walk us through what we're looking at.

00:13:06:28 - 00:13:27:29
Speaker 1
So right now, we're looking north along the Arkansas River. It is one of those rare times that it has full water in the river. It is an intermittent prairie stream. So that means that most of the year is dry. And then when we have lots of rain, it gets nice and pretty like that. So in the foreground of this image, you see actually a low water dam.

00:13:28:01 - 00:13:47:24
Speaker 1
And what is in is the old railroad bridge is what it's called, and it is in the process of actually being replaced right now. So it has been removed, but we are putting in a brand new pedestrian bridge right there. This was an old Rails Two Trails project as well, and it used to be like a fishing pier.

00:13:47:24 - 00:14:06:26
Speaker 1
And it was it was a 100 year old railroad crossing that the railroad actually went on top of it and it but we put the trail underneath and it worked really great for a number of years. But, you know, Tulsa has a few earthquakes. Things are starting to shift. And the long term viability of this as a bridge was starting to wane.

00:14:06:28 - 00:14:30:08
Speaker 1
So we made the decision through one of our bond packages to replace that bridge with the brand new Williams crossing. It will be called and it is a beautiful pedestrian only bridge, well, bicycles as well, but that connects both sides of the river. And if you look up at the, you know, up in the ground, you see another bridge.

00:14:30:08 - 00:14:55:19
Speaker 1
That's our 23rd Street Bridge, which also has a protected pedestrian bicycle crossing on that. And then further out further, that's another one. So it's very similar. You're familiar with Austin. It's very similar to the Mayo Park and Lady Bird Lake, where you have several bridge crossings and then pedestrian crossings associated with it so that you know, people who are who are recreating or who are commuting have several options of places they can cross.

00:14:55:19 - 00:15:16:09
Speaker 1
So right now we have one, two, three, four. We have five separate crossings to get across the Arkansas River. So you can add a variety of miles, you can make a variety of loops to create all sorts of distances for recreation and training or just, you know, for commuting. There's lots and lots of connectivity.

00:15:16:12 - 00:15:45:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're absolutely right. It's so incredibly important. And in the case of Austin, you know, our weakest link is it is further to the east. And so there's a new bridge that is being built right near the Longhorn Dam because that's one area where it's it's less than attractive, safe and inviting. It's kind of a, a spot where you're you're really kind of exposed to a lot of car traffic.

00:15:45:07 - 00:16:10:12
Speaker 2
And so there will be a bike and pedestrian only bridge immediately before you get to the Longhorn Dam. So we're looking forward to that. So yeah, and this is another impressive view of of what we're looking at now. We see a little bit less water in the river than the previous photo. And but it also gives you a really good ideas to, you know, some of the infrastructure that's in place here in the park.

00:16:10:15 - 00:16:35:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. So we're about four miles right now from downtown Tulsa. You can see it off in the distance. And clearly this place is named 41st and Riverside Street Park. So you can see our dedicated paved trail in the middle. And this is a place where the trail kind of narrows because it goes through a playground feature that's kind of the center of it, a small parking area, restroom facilities.

00:16:35:20 - 00:16:51:25
Speaker 1
We try to keep our restrooms every 3 to 4 miles apart. Water stage. We have water fountains throughout the whole park. So this is just where the trail narrows in a lot of places. It's a divided trails, but here it's kind of shared. Yeah. You know.

00:16:51:27 - 00:17:37:24
Speaker 2
And when we when we I'm glad you mentioned the restroom facilities. I mean, that's one of the biggest challenges, too, when planning out these types of facilities is to think about those sort of comfort facilities, having restrooms available, having water available, having shade and places for people to to rest, especially when we're talking about an all ages and abilities facility, you know, having, you know, a place for for someone to a family to stop for a picnic or an elderly person to to rest for a little while or even a commuter on their way home deciding it's a beautiful day and let's let's stop a little bit, talk a little bit about the philosophy of

00:17:38:01 - 00:17:45:25
Speaker 2
of the River Authority and the Parkland itself in terms of providing those types of comfort amenities throughout.

00:17:45:27 - 00:18:06:02
Speaker 1
So when the park was first created back in the 1970s, it was basically if you're looking at the map here, it went from around downtown Tulsa to 21st Street and that was it. So you had about two miles and then they connected it to the pedestrian bridge, which is the pedestrian crossing on the map here. And that was it.

00:18:06:02 - 00:18:40:04
Speaker 1
And so it took a number of years for us to slowly start expanding the trail system down the corridor with a variety of reasons for that. We had a lot of the main one reason is funding. So in Oklahoma, Oklahoma is a real big fan of creating these quasi autonomous government agencies called authorities. And basically it's Oklahoma saying we want to be able to provide services, but we don't want the taxpayers to have to pay for them.

00:18:40:06 - 00:19:11:02
Speaker 1
So they they create these authorities. In Oklahoma, we have things like the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, our grand River Dam Authority, which is a power authority, the Emergency Medical Services Authority, which are these? Basically, they're the government led institutions, but they're charged with providing their own funding, and they do that through usage fees. Now, we're a park, so we can't really do uses fees.

00:19:11:02 - 00:19:57:06
Speaker 1
You know, we're a free amenity. So a vast majority of our, you know, development, we've probably developed around $420 million worth of park space, adding amenities, things like that in our 40 year history, almost 50 now. And half of that has been privately fundraised. So, you know, we do get about 50% of our funding through taxes. And I just I put that all back so that when we talk about the private funding, what's been amazing about that private funding is it's allowed us to, you know, kind of build better amenities than we would have been able to do with taxpayer funding solely in, you know, solely out of Tulsa based sales taxes.

00:19:57:09 - 00:20:31:24
Speaker 1
So we've really been able to add a lot of infrastructure to our park. And starting about 2000, we we really started focusing on the enjoyment of the space. So in 1970s and then the early eighties, we added the early eighties, we added like a little restaurant area and a couple of restrooms and then the pedestrian crossing. So, you know, and then we added a fountain area that was a nice attractant.

00:20:31:26 - 00:20:54:20
Speaker 1
And then it was mostly just for like casual walks along the river. But as you know, outdoor recreation grew throughout the 1980s. Running culture became a very big thing. You know, more and more people started coming for races and stuff. So we started expanding south and we kind of always had the philosophy that, you know, we were mostly runner based.

00:20:54:23 - 00:21:27:14
Speaker 1
So runners obviously need more amenities like a bicycle. It so we ended up being putting, you know, restrooms and things like at least a water fountain every single mile along our entire trail. And at least a restroom every two or three miles along the entire corridor of the trail. And luckily, you know, we developed as the city developed so in the 1970s when the park first started Riverside Drive, which is that drive right next to us, ended at like 41st Street that we just were down.

00:21:27:14 - 00:21:51:18
Speaker 1
And so as towns expanded, we've expanded with it and we've been very fortunate enough to be able to do that. And then we, you know, in the early 2000, we got some very big grants to be able to do the dual trail system. So previously it was mostly just like kind of a wide sidewalk. And then we were able to reinvent the whole trail system with the dual trail system.

00:21:51:20 - 00:22:24:03
Speaker 1
And every quarter of a mile at least, there are there's a sitting area or a water fountain or a restroom or something along those lines so that, you know, a nice shaded sitting area trash can. And then we also installed lighting in the entire park system as well. So our part from 11th Street all the way down to 96th Street and then on the east bank is fully lit at night up until around 1130 when we shut the lights off because of curfew.

00:22:24:06 - 00:22:48:24
Speaker 1
But we have that amenity as well, because, you know, it gets real hot in here this summer. So a lot of users come out after dark when it's cooler. A lot of them go in the morning when it's cool. So having that lighting is great for safety, security. And so we've just been in a very fortunate position with the grant funding to be able to to be forward thinking like that and to kind of anticipate these things.

00:22:48:24 - 00:22:50:12
Speaker 1
We've been lucky a lot too.

00:22:50:15 - 00:23:09:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of reminds me too, that, you know, there's no one way to go about this, you know, because oftentimes when you hear about, oh, you know, yeah, it's it's a river park and, you know, it's oh, it's part of the the city. And you just imagine, oh, this is Parks and Rec, you know, program.

00:23:09:13 - 00:23:25:08
Speaker 2
But yeah. Oh no, this is not a Parks and Rec. No you guys are, are clearly having to do a fair amount of fundraising I guess. And obviously you opened us up by talking about the fact that you were a volunteer.

00:23:25:10 - 00:23:49:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, too, that, you know, like, our Parks department manages 140 something parks like the City of Tulsa Parks Department. I manage 140 parks. You know, they have a staff of 200 plus, you know, individuals, the River Park staff. We manage around 1000 acres of land plus, I want to say, you know, 30 miles of paved trail.

00:23:49:14 - 00:24:25:22
Speaker 1
We have 12 people. Oh, wow. Yeah. Our entire entire system. So we are because we're like a quasi autonomous government agency, we don't have to deal with this much red tape. But, you know, and because we deal with a lot of private dollars that are funding these developments, we're really able to capitalize on that and just go straight to building instead of, you know, or straight to repairs versus a lot of the going through the lowest bidder and doing all those things which kind of clog up with red tape, the process.

00:24:25:22 - 00:24:45:16
Speaker 2
So I love that. I mean, that's you know, at some point in time, you really need to have that ability to like this is the right thing to do. We've got the funding to do it. Let's just get this done. This is an interesting perspective. Is is this Photoshopped or is this the relationship of the trail in the downtown area?

00:24:45:18 - 00:25:12:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. So you're looking right now you're actually on the western bank of the Arkansas River. And as one of our parks called the River West Festival Park River Festival Park is about a 14 acre open green space that is literally has that view of downtown. And and that's where we're able to put a lot of our large events because that's one of our main fundraising revenues is putting out large events.

00:25:12:24 - 00:25:40:09
Speaker 1
For instance, we actually here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, put on one of the largest Oktoberfest celebrations in. Oh, really? Yeah. Pollination. So it's usually it's a five day event that's usually around 100,000 people attend, attend. It takes over the whole space. We built tents the size of football fields. We sell thousands of kegs of beer, and it's a major fundraiser for us.

00:25:40:12 - 00:25:48:16
Speaker 2
Hmm. Fantastic. Yeah, that's great. And that is the Octoberfest is actually in October. Or is it towards the end of September.

00:25:48:18 - 00:26:13:18
Speaker 1
Or is is in October? It's usually the weekend in October. Corresponding with the usually a fall break with kids because, you know, we've had carnivals and all sorts of family friendly games and events and things like that. We have a wiener dog race at that event which is really popular. You know, the typical stuff you have it like, yeah, but you know, like this, it's one of the cities is constantly rated the city's favorite festival.

00:26:13:20 - 00:26:23:14
Speaker 1
You know everybody pretty much everybody in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fun fact owns lederhosen. Okay. And they wear them, right? I mean, we're all.

00:26:23:16 - 00:26:26:10
Speaker 2
Is there is there a strong German influence in the city?

00:26:26:12 - 00:26:58:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, we have a large German American society. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's kind of where a lot of that stuff. But yeah, this view is yeah, you're in our park system and, you know, actually we have one of our favorite events between Labor Day and modern between Memorial Day and Labor Day is called the Wednesday Night Ride. And that's like, you know, a critical mass kind of ride where this park has about 400 parking spaces filled up with bicyclists who all meet at this park.

00:26:58:16 - 00:27:20:12
Speaker 1
And then they launch different rides out there. They all get into groups, but they all go out on Wednesday night and ride. But, I mean, it's is really cool to be the space that everybody comes to the ride. And then a lot of riders, they live across the neighborhood, labor across for the ride over, meet up with everybody, go for 20, 30 mile ride, come back, have a hang out, you know, do all that stuff like that.

00:27:20:12 - 00:27:27:22
Speaker 1
And it's it's really great that's been going on. I wouldn't say no riders would go off like 15 or 20 years, if not longer.

00:27:27:25 - 00:27:33:24
Speaker 2
Yes, I'm going to have to get up that way for for Oktoberfest and do a wins in a row.

00:27:33:27 - 00:27:37:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I know. It's a lot of fun.

00:27:37:05 - 00:27:58:14
Speaker 2
And obviously, you know what's was absolutely the essential, you know, for our cities is to be able to provide places that you know, where you can get a little bit of nature. You can get some great, you know, sunsets like this. And you just, you know, is so incredibly important. It's refreshing to the soul to be able to do that.

00:27:58:16 - 00:28:16:04
Speaker 2
You mentioned the runners and the fact that you recently had had some running events along the line here. Runners also tend to like unpaved surfaces. Are there any unpaved surfaces where the runners can can run along? It's natural services.

00:28:16:06 - 00:28:42:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, there's two main spaces, but we did along several stretches of our paper trail, do a like a side chat lane. You know, it's about a foot wide line and I don't have any images of it here, but it's about a foot long, wide gravel and that's really good. It's not contiguous. Most of our runners, if they want to hit gravel trails, go to our 600 acre turkey mountain urban wilderness, which we're going to talk about, is going to talk about that.

00:28:42:10 - 00:28:49:01
Speaker 1
About yeah, that's where a lot of our runners end up going that want to get to gravel trails. So, yeah, yeah.

00:28:49:04 - 00:29:20:24
Speaker 2
And of course, you know, this images is really exemplifying the fact that yes, the majority of of it is in fact paved. And you had made the point that you took that extra step of when you were able to raise the money to be able to separate the pedestrian realm from the biking realm so that it wasn't just a shared use path, not that there's anything wrong with shared use paths, but at a certain level, once you get to a certain number of people and participants, the shared use paths, you know, start becoming problematic.

00:29:20:24 - 00:29:24:25
Speaker 2
And so if you have the ability to separate them all the better.

00:29:24:27 - 00:29:40:28
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's it's been very our park users really appreciate that because you know I've been down there in Austin you know a lot around Lady Bird Lake on the gravel Charles which I love but you know, like Saturday morning at 9:00 it's pretty bad. Yeah.

00:29:40:29 - 00:30:09:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, I know. I know better, too. It's like when I know it's a beautiful day and I'm riding my bike from my neighborhood to the grocery store. I have the option. I can be on a quiet street where I'm sharing space with cars, or I can go out on to the trail. The butler hiking bike trail, which is a natural surface trail and share space with all the other people walking their dogs and running and people biking.

00:30:09:06 - 00:30:30:09
Speaker 2
And I know that if it's a busy day, I if it's a beautiful day and I it's going to be crowded, then I'll take the the quieter street where I share space with cars instead of on the trail just because it's you know, it's only 20, 24 feet wide and there's so many hundreds of people that I would be passing.

00:30:30:09 - 00:30:47:22
Speaker 2
So and I love this photo, too, because really this is exemplifying the fact that you are going through this linear park land. And so there's lots of opportunity for recreation, lots of opportunity for hanging a hammock and in relaxing and having fun with friends.

00:30:47:24 - 00:31:09:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, this was a really cool idea that actually one of our park users brought to us and they had seen this kind of Stonehenge type feature. It's just, you know, spoke wheel a telephone poles in the ground that you designate as a hammock nap area. And you know, people love it. And we're actually thinking about building more of these just because it's right next to the trail.

00:31:09:05 - 00:31:29:11
Speaker 1
People can walk, you know, a few hundred yards from a parking space, get to it. It's, you know, it's nice. It's it's fully shaded there. We see people all the time. The thing down here is because we found that hammock users, they'll oftentimes they they'll see like a sapling and a little bit like now hold me, you know And.

00:31:29:16 - 00:31:31:06
Speaker 2
I went no, no, no, no.

00:31:31:06 - 00:31:51:09
Speaker 1
You know, we're like, oh, please don't you know, we just we just put that tree. And so, yeah, I think that yeah. And then we do have a one area that is a splash pad. This is again that 43rd Street area that we looked at before, which is a nice splash pad area that was again fully privately funded through our partners at QuikTrip gas stations.

00:31:51:13 - 00:32:00:24
Speaker 1
And so they paid for a lot of these things. So this is a 100% privately donated amenity that we have been testing.

00:32:00:27 - 00:32:19:22
Speaker 2
And down in that area, you know, the southern area, the 41st Street, and on who's, you know, from the neighborhood there, who's really coming in to to the you know, to that area in terms of like the, you know, the neighborhoods and the communities in that area.

00:32:19:24 - 00:32:45:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. So Tulsa kind of literally is there downtown Tulsa, along the River Park corridor, there's an area called Maple Ridge, which is what the old historic homes, you know, that we're all the old rich gasman. You know, and that is directly connected to the River Park system. And then as you go further south, you get into an area called Brookside, which is a nice a nice area.

00:32:45:00 - 00:33:13:17
Speaker 1
You know, it's near the gathering place, which is our huge world class free part. And then so as you go further south, you get into the river, what do they call it, the river side area. And then you get into the next town, you get into Jenks, which is a whole nother town. It's three south into the park, south into the park connects to Jenks and then, you know, we're planning and we'll talk about this in a little bit.

00:33:13:19 - 00:33:36:24
Speaker 1
You know, we're planning on extending the trail system, hopefully in the future, all the way even further south along the river to Bixby. We already go out to Broken Arrow, so we do connect just a lot of neighborhoods through Tulsa. I mean, several of you know, I mean, half a dozen different neighborhoods that literally have, you know, direct connectivity.

00:33:37:00 - 00:34:02:04
Speaker 2
So, yeah, yeah. We'll come back to the to the this multi-modal safety project here in just a second. The reason why I asked about the neighborhoods, too, is that, you know, oftentimes we experience this here in in Austin and I know many other cities have this as well is that you know you have sort of the the the wealthier enclaves in the downtown access and all of that.

00:34:02:04 - 00:34:32:06
Speaker 2
And then oftentimes there's like this whole desert of amenities and and parkland and, you know, stuff for for underserved communities. And I was just wondering if that was kind of a little bit of the story of the further south you got along there and whether this parkland, whether this river authority system, park system started to serve as meaningful amenities to any underserved neighborhoods.

00:34:32:09 - 00:35:00:29
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Tulsa has its fair share of, you know, economically depressed neighborhoods. The one photo that we looked at of the beautiful skyline with the woman walking her dog, that photo is actually directly behind that is a huge HUD housing development and it's called the Eugene Field neighborhood. And it is one of our you know, there's a lot of supported housing there.

00:35:00:29 - 00:35:20:29
Speaker 1
There's a lot of free services. And then at 63rd Street, all the way to roughly 71st Street, there's another economically depressed area where, you know, you do have a lot of people who don't have their own vehicles, who are coming over, accessing the trails. You see them. You'll see a lot of people utilizing the trail system to commute to work there.

00:35:21:05 - 00:35:40:21
Speaker 1
It's also we also have a very good bus system that kind of runs up and down Riverside Drive as well to connect all those. So in Tulsa, at least it goes through the gamut. It goes from the, you know, the poor neighborhoods all the way to probably the wealthiest neighborhoods, connecting all of those spaces to various different locations.

00:35:40:28 - 00:35:50:06
Speaker 1
And so it's wonderful to be able to have that, to be able to provide that service to a variety of different economic sensibilities.

00:35:50:08 - 00:36:03:21
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. So we're back here at the map and we're going to pop on over here and take a look at this. This Rays award amount that came in. What's going on here?

00:36:03:24 - 00:36:29:11
Speaker 1
So this is our our newest exciting news. So our paved trail system on the east bank of the Arkansas River, it goes from 11th Street all the way down to 96th Street on the West Bank. It goes from 11th Street down to 71st Street. So we have about a four mile gap that goes from the turkey mountain urban wilderness at 73rd Street down to the city of Jenks and 96th Street.

00:36:29:13 - 00:36:56:17
Speaker 1
And so we have an organization here in northeast Oklahoma called the Entry Council Government Intercounty National in COG. I can't. Okay. And they actually if you want to go back, we're okay somewhere. Yeah. And they just were recently awarded a $16 million grant to build river parks, a connectivity connected trail system on the Western bank to the city of Jenks.

00:36:56:20 - 00:37:25:10
Speaker 1
And the main focus of that was actually providing alternative transportation to Jenks and to the southeast suburbs, southwest suburbs, so that, you know, when they they don't need to commute to downtown anymore and we're actually building a couple of rideshare locations that have like charging stations for electric vehicles. They'll have, you know, comfort facilities and then they'll have direct connectivity to the trail.

00:37:25:15 - 00:37:55:15
Speaker 1
So people who are in South also can, you know, if they need to they can drive, they can park, they can charge their vehicle, that bicycle to work, or while they rhetoric. And so we're very excited about that coming through. And that was a huge Department of Transportation grant that we were recently awarded. And so that'll be more that's an example of how, you know, we kind of as river parks function, you know, we'd go after these large grants where it's not on the burden of our local taxpayers.

00:37:55:15 - 00:38:02:18
Speaker 1
You know, we go after Department of Transportation grants, private dollars to try and build these amenities, and we were very fortunate enough to receive that.

00:38:02:18 - 00:38:18:20
Speaker 2
So fantastic. That's great. And then when we take a look here at Turkey Mountain, this is an opportunity, I think, to to really create a fantastic recreation opportunity. Is that correct?

00:38:18:22 - 00:38:49:25
Speaker 1
It is. So Turkey Mountain urban Wilderness was one of the original parks for the River Parks Foundation. We got it in about 1978. We had about 100 acres of green space. In 1978. We just we didn't think of anything. We didn't think of any better terms. We called it an urban wilderness, whatever that means. You know, you and us and you guys got tons of little pocket parks where you're just like, you know, leave a greenspace, let people have some trails back there, whatever they want.

00:38:49:27 - 00:39:15:02
Speaker 1
But in Tulsa, you know, it was a little bit different. And so Turkey Mountain over the years as the city has developed around, it, has remained this isolated island of green space. And it is a true, you know, green space as far as there are no paved roads that go through it. There are no facilities, there aren't. I mean, it's just woods, right.

00:39:15:04 - 00:39:45:10
Speaker 1
And it's 600 acres of that. And here recently, in the last few years, through some bond initiatives, we were able to acquire all of that land as parkland. And so when we did acquire all of the 600 acres as parkland, we started with development of a master plan for how we wanted to manage that greenspace. And so here is an image of kind of the turkey mountain urban wilderness as it exists today at the top image, you're looking at the green spaces, the wilderness.

00:39:45:10 - 00:40:04:08
Speaker 1
You can see this, how the city surrounds it. Yeah, you can see all of the development around it and its relationship to the river corridor. And that white dot in the middle was a big water tower because it's a hill that big, it rises about 250 feet above the river, a corridor, and it's got a few power lines right away.

00:40:04:08 - 00:40:29:08
Speaker 1
But for the most part it's just green space. This is the 71st Street bridge in the foreground and then Highway 44, roughly 53rd Street in the middle of the screen. And you can see downtown Tulsa off in the distance. So it's very unique, not unique, but it is very uncommon to find 600 acres of contiguous green space, literally five miles from a major urban center.

00:40:29:11 - 00:41:06:26
Speaker 1
And so Tulsa is very fortunate enough to have this green space. And so when we went through our master plan development of how we wanted to continue to maintain this as a wild space, as a green space, as a recreation space, if you scroll to the bottom, we envision the space that had a lot more connectivity, an improved soft surface trail system connectivity to other parks that are nearby, new access points with potential bridges and better systems of connecting to our paved trails.

00:41:06:26 - 00:41:27:03
Speaker 1
So that's kind of what that image is kind of overlaying is a lot more pedestrian friendly things. And, you know, one of the things that they realize, too, you know, mountain biking has been growing in popularity here in the last decade or so. And our proximity to Bentonville, Arkansas, which is kind of.

00:41:27:03 - 00:41:28:19
Speaker 2
Just going to say that.

00:41:28:22 - 00:41:56:08
Speaker 1
The current Mecca of mountain biking, we're literally 2 hours from it. And so you know, we made a conscious decision to add more mountain bike kind of amenities and features to our trail system where it was, you know, like the current state of the trail system in Turkey Mountain was so it was never properly built. It was just social trails that went wherever they wanted to.

00:41:56:08 - 00:42:07:27
Speaker 1
So they were incredibly eroded. We had zero accessibility, like, you know, if you had any mobility issues at all, you weren't going on the trails that Turkey mountain period, you couldn't access them.

00:42:07:29 - 00:42:45:26
Speaker 2
And so and to be clear, for for those who are listening to this and who are watching this is that when we talk about accessibility for mountain bike trails and bike parks like this, we literally are talking about, you know, people with disabilities being able to use adaptive cycles. And so it is important to when you're developing these sorts of recreational trails and facilities, even when they're singletrack, even when there are mountain biking trails like this, you're keeping that in mind so that you know that it really truly becomes an activity asset for all ages and abilities.

00:42:45:28 - 00:43:07:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, and we have several parks, bells, parks that you can see in the hinterland, Moose or Creek, also on the internet that have been rated as adaptive cycling capable. So, you know, they're very cool and we're in the process of building this charter through email. And we don't have the ratings yet, but we will have those for our adaptive cyclists.

00:43:07:13 - 00:43:32:24
Speaker 1
But what we're doing is we're doing a combination of, you know, mixed use trails or shared use, multi-use trails for our hikers and our bikers and runners. And then we are building several downhill mountain bike only, you know, fun to jump jumps for the mountain bikes. And so we've actually we'll talk about that. So we've actually just completed two of the largest downhill mountain bike, only trails in the state of Oklahoma.

00:43:32:27 - 00:43:34:19
Speaker 1
After three come.

00:43:34:22 - 00:44:00:27
Speaker 2
Interstate. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it's it's so incredibly important and special to be able to have access, easy access, you know, to a community, you know, to a neighborhood, to a downtown area to be able to jump on your bike and be able to ride directly to, you know, a park, be able to ride directly to a recreational facilities such as this.

00:44:00:29 - 00:44:33:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, you know, Turkey Mountain is almost in the heart of the city. There's probably within a six, seven mile radius. I want to say there's in the neighborhood of probably 200,000 people that could bicycle or walk to Turkey Mountain and have that connectivity and turkey mountains connected to our river parks trail system. There are several bike lanes, bike racks that come through the city that you can hop on and you can literally like ride to Turkey Mountain from your house.

00:44:33:09 - 00:45:01:22
Speaker 1
You can ride 30 plus miles of soft surface trail or run a marathon without hitting the same wet trail twice at our urban wilderness. And so that is just an incredible resource to be able to have for people. And our goal is from a park management is to absolutely maintain it in this wild and natural state. You know, we're very doing you know, we're trying to we're in it.

00:45:01:22 - 00:45:28:09
Speaker 1
We are renovating our trail system. So we are machine building new, more sustainable trails that aren't basically caverns of erosion right this day. Murray for weeks on end and making them more accessible and making them spaces where, you know, you can come to more frequently because of dry out quicker and and just have that for everybody here in Tulsa.

00:45:28:15 - 00:45:46:26
Speaker 1
And it was really interesting. You know, one of the things that happened when we first started building the trails out here was, you know, the community had some of the community were kind of opposed to it because they didn't want to see change. They thought we were going to come in with bulldozers and, you know, put giant pads and stuff like that.

00:45:47:00 - 00:46:09:12
Speaker 1
And then when you are building a trail, that certainly looks like that. Right. But, you know, after a year or two of growth cycle, it narrows back down to a more single track kind of trail or just a narrow trail. And our goal is to look like we have never done anything at all. That's the purpose of of building these new trails is just when whenever we leave you, you won't know that we've been there.

00:46:09:14 - 00:46:10:18
Speaker 1
So. Yeah, yeah.

00:46:10:21 - 00:46:33:12
Speaker 2
You know, I, I'm lingering on this image here because it harkens to one of the activities that I do for, for my own health and wellbeing these days, and that's trail running is getting out on soft surfaces and, and being able to do that. And it seems like that this area would also be conducive to the trail running community, too.

00:46:33:15 - 00:47:01:10
Speaker 1
Oh, it is a huge center of trail running. It is the center of trail running in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And we have, you know, most of our trails are shared use There is you know, like I mentioned, there's probably 30 miles plus of shared use trail and then around five miles of dedicated mountain bike trail. So, you know and our shared trails are and then we are going to be designating around five miles as pedestrian only and a fair 85 miles of biking trail.

00:47:01:10 - 00:47:19:29
Speaker 1
We're going to have five miles of pedestrian only just again, to kind of diversify or spread people out. Physics in an eight year sounds like a lot until you put like 5000 people in it. And then it's like it's kind of crowded around here. But, you know, so we are trying right now. Yeah. So the trail running is great out here.

00:47:19:29 - 00:47:46:12
Speaker 1
I mean, we probably have six or seven large, you know, five ks, ten ks marathons that happen at Turkey Mountain on a yearly basis. All of the running clubs, they meet there on a frequent basis and go, you know, running, use that as a waypoint. And there's, you know, regular Tuesday night groups and groups, all sorts of people that come to Turkey Mountain for the pedestrian side of things.

00:47:46:12 - 00:48:01:04
Speaker 1
And so I think that, you know, all of our children, the community loves it. It also has elevation, you know, like it has several steep hills. So if you're training for, like, you know, a run somewhere else, you can really get in those elevation miles as well.

00:48:01:06 - 00:48:22:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And we do you notice that just the richness of of what it's like, you know, getting into nature and being able to experience some of those wilderness areas. And you're absolutely right. Once when you give it a little bit of time, those improved and enhanced trails they grow back in. So, you know you're you're able to do it.

00:48:22:21 - 00:49:08:12
Speaker 2
But you have, as you mentioned, you have a more stable natural surface trail in place so that the erosion issue is and isn't as pronounced. So yeah, and obviously a good place for some of the scouts to and getting a hike in. And this is something that I think is really, really important to to to realize is that when when I say all ages and abilities activity asset in the route, one of the reasons why it's important to invest in you know these types of trail systems, these types of recreational facilities, it really is, you know, giving kids an opportunity to be able to experience that joy of being able to to ride a mountain

00:49:08:12 - 00:49:14:09
Speaker 2
bike in true mountain biking conditions and how much fun that really is.

00:49:14:12 - 00:49:42:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. One of our biggest partners who I will praise to the heavens continuously is a group called Bike Club, and they're here in Tulsa in the habit organization in Oklahoma City. But they are, you know, mountain bike and bicycle advocates and they do an after school program in 30 plus schools here in Tulsa. They have hundreds of volunteers that go out on a regular basis like, you know, weekly or monthly to schools and lead kids on group rides.

00:49:42:13 - 00:50:07:14
Speaker 1
They teach them bicycle safety. They give them, you know, lessons on it. They ride in together, you know, in all sorts of conditions on our paper trails, you know, in on road trails and then at our soft surface trails on a regular basis. And they are huge promoters of kids on bicycles in Tulsa. And so thousands of kids have been recipients of their amazing work.

00:50:07:14 - 00:50:28:26
Speaker 1
And, you know, one of the reasons is actually we're kind of scared because, like, they're putting so many kids on bikes that like in the future they're all going to be coming to Turkey Mountain. And so we're trying to, as an organization, build even more soft surface trails, prepping for them, you know, when they start hitting those teenage years and, you know, further on to be coming to our greenspaces.

00:50:28:28 - 00:50:49:16
Speaker 2
Yeah you know and and again it's and it's not just for the boys by the way guys you know, you get to get those girls out there on the bikes. They absolutely love it as well when we are looking at this type of thing. And is this going to be is this the turkey mountain area or is this something else?

00:50:49:16 - 00:51:06:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, this is this is Turkey mountain area. This is just this Java heat map just to kind of show you, you Strava heat maps are always fun to look at the two bright lines. That dark line in the middle is the Arkansas River and then the really hot lines, one, that's our paper trail system.

00:51:06:01 - 00:51:07:00
Speaker 2
Sure, sure.

00:51:07:03 - 00:51:28:29
Speaker 1
If you look at how hot that is compared to the Turkey mountain, there are several trails of Turkey Mountain, which are heavily, heavily used. You know, almost as much as our paper trail system. Now on this dry heat map. This is actually our old trail system. And so those are trails that are all pretty bad. They eroded that very minimal accessibility and they're not going away.

00:51:28:29 - 00:51:49:07
Speaker 1
We're actually just kind of building new accessible trails in different areas. So because a lot of our users there, like I like the rocky trails, you know, I want yeah, yeah, I want to break my ankle when I'm running or writing. And so we left those in place and just started overlaying a new system of trails that have proved to be very wildly popular.

00:51:49:09 - 00:51:51:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know.

00:51:51:07 - 00:51:55:01
Speaker 2
In there we can see the existing and proposed.

00:51:55:04 - 00:52:21:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. I was just looking at some of that. Yeah. Some of the spaces and we're talking about access. And so what we're going to try to do too is, you know, all of those aren't necessarily parking areas, they're more just like access points. But right now we have two access to parking lots. And so we're trying to expand the areas of access so that, you know, right now, you know, you have 600 acres, you have two parking lots, you know, within a half mile of each of those parking lots.

00:52:21:10 - 00:52:41:02
Speaker 1
It is logged in. People you get outside of that half mile radius, you don't see another person for the whole day, even on a busy side of it. So we're trying to spread people out through this green space by giving them more access points so that when you come, it doesn't necessarily feel super congested throughout your entire time there.

00:52:41:04 - 00:52:47:16
Speaker 2
And Pro-tip folks, it's an easy ride to get there. Don't even drive just right there.

00:52:47:19 - 00:53:08:28
Speaker 1
Yeah, I honestly like a lot of people do and more and more people every day are doing that is on a Saturday. We currently have 300 available parking spots to Turkey Mountain and on a nice Saturday, you know, you're waiting ten, 15 minutes for a free spot to open up. So we highly encourage people to bicycle or walk over from the neighborhoods.

00:53:08:28 - 00:53:19:23
Speaker 1
I mean, it is easy to get to people they I don't want to walk one mile. I'm going to go for a five mile, ten mile hike to Turkey Mountain, you know, like what's one more? My yeah.

00:53:19:23 - 00:53:39:02
Speaker 2
Exactly. And I think that's interesting, too, because when we look at this particular image here, we're looking at bridging across an expanded site and we're looking at this this this Bailes bridge connectivity. Is that kind of what you're talking about here is is yeah, expanded access.

00:53:39:04 - 00:54:03:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. So expanded access that Bell's Park there right underneath that is a major highway called Highway 75 that kind of it splits Turkey mountain from another 200 acres of park that are three that are three separate parks, but we call them the hinterlands. But it's Bell's Park, Bell Park and Loser Creek Greenway. But they're all connected. They're all connected.

00:54:03:06 - 00:54:18:26
Speaker 1
And we're trying to connect better Turkey Mountain to those green spaces so that we can make Turkey around this an 800 acre kind of connected space versus a 600 area space.

00:54:18:29 - 00:54:42:10
Speaker 2
So yeah, yeah. And you can see the development, you know, around there and the neighborhoods in the communities that feed, you know, can be, you know, fed by this. And so all the more reason to be able to have that connectivity, to be able to have the ability for somebody to, you know, be able to ride their bike and be able to hit all of these areas and not have to feel compelled to have to drive.

00:54:42:10 - 00:55:13:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. So and as we were talking about, you know, the areas of like Tulsa that might not have, you know, the the rich neighborhoods, the poor neighborhoods, the area there around Bell's Park is a qualified census tract neighborhood. So again, it's a HUD housing. And they'll when we are able to improve that kind of activity, a lot of those folks will be able to get to the green space a lot easier because right now you have to kind of cross like a narrow old bridge.

00:55:13:15 - 00:55:35:23
Speaker 1
That's pretty scary, doesn't have any sidewalks on it or anything. We're going to where the city is replacing that bridge here in the near future with eight foot wide sidewalks, bike lanes that will be able to connect, so then connect to the park and the further hinterlands. So we're trying to get all these things connected to just, you know, make it even more wonderful space.

00:55:35:25 - 00:55:37:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff.

00:55:37:25 - 00:56:00:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And and this is part of this is just a quick shot looking at a few ideas that we're doing. But Turkey Mountain as a greenspace is actually a very unfortunately it looks really pretty. But you know, our Oklahoma Forestry service and our ecologist tell us it's pretty unhealthy for us because it's it's you know, choked with invasive species.

00:56:00:17 - 00:56:31:23
Speaker 1
Right. And so we've been working on for the last year, we've been working on trying to restore the habitat as well out there more to its natural state. So what did it look like about 100 years ago is what we're shooting for before, you know, Manifest Destiny and and build fences and graze cattle. So we're trying to revert that, you know, 100% canopy back to some open prairie savanna, some open mixed forest.

00:56:31:23 - 00:56:51:16
Speaker 1
They call it the Cross Timbers region. And so this is kind of like a savanna where you have like a clump of trees, a grassy area, a clump of trees. So we're trying to restore a lot of the areas that Turkey mountain back to that we have introduced prescribed burning. We just did a prescribed burn two months ago on a small 15 acre plot project.

00:56:51:16 - 00:57:15:00
Speaker 1
But it we still got it done, which we're very excited because it's like we're in the middle of a city and we're lighting a mountain on fire, a very small portion. But we're also working with the Oklahoma Forestry Services. They've been partnering with us to help knock back a bunch of invasive species through mechanical removal and things like that, and then the prescribed fire.

00:57:15:00 - 00:57:33:24
Speaker 1
And so far, you know, between mechanical removal and prescribed fire, we've been able to treat around 150 acres of the 600 acre green space for invasive species. Now, we've got a lot of work to do ahead of us, but church is part of an overall arching plan for this green space.

00:57:33:27 - 00:58:00:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I love that integration of your working on creating, you know, a recreation area, people oriented space in there. But you're also trying to, you know, rectify some of those things that kind of went awry with an invasive species really kind of choking off and kind of changing, like you said, you know, what used to be there 100 years ago, 200 years ago.

00:58:00:14 - 00:58:18:28
Speaker 2
So, yeah, that's that's I think, a really important aspect of it. And in more, you know, of the different loops and all the downhill courses and all that good stuff. When do you anticipate being completely done?

00:58:19:00 - 00:58:45:10
Speaker 1
So right now we have funding through 2025. So that will be when we'll be done. And so our goal is to build around 25 miles of multi-use, bi shared trail and then also build around 5 to 7 miles of downhill mountain bike, single direction, flow trail. Yeah, for those folks.

00:58:45:10 - 00:59:18:07
Speaker 2
And so and then these images, what you were just describing in terms of, you know, that process of trying to get those invasive plants out of there, we kind of see, you know, what it looks like in year one. You've got your prescribed burn here and then you go through year five and you're still kind of working on that and you start you're starting to really deal with that understory, you know, kind of stuff and trying to create a healthier, you know, savanna like experi ance and savanna and prairie.

00:59:18:10 - 00:59:36:29
Speaker 2
And so hopefully, I think keeping our fingers crossed, if everything goes as planned in ten years, you're going to be, you know, looking like a much more restored savanna, prairie environment ecology. And you can see that your your native oaks are going to be much happier too, because they're not going to be as choked.

00:59:37:01 - 00:59:59:28
Speaker 1
Yeah. One of the things we found out through this process, you know, when we were dealing with master plan was, you know, Oklahoma Forestry Service came out, we had a dendrochronology, it came out date the trees. We have several trees that date all the way back to 1775. So in the United States. But they were telling us we have so many species right now, Turkey Mountain that are our native oaks.

01:00:00:01 - 01:00:25:26
Speaker 1
There's actually not many of them being reborn. And so what's going to happen over time is as those oaks they are, they're going to be replaced by privet, Chinese privet, you know, and weighing down and things like that, which are these like short, scrubby, ugly looking brush trees and we won't have any more oaks anymore. So, you know, in 100 years from now we could potentially have like a mountain that's just full of shrubs, basically, And no shade.

01:00:25:26 - 01:00:46:06
Speaker 1
All the oaks are gone. You know it even though it's a full canopy right now, we need to get that gap fixed. So this is where the prescribed fire, the clearing out, making it possible for the New Oaks to be born that will be alive in 100 years time. You know.

01:00:46:08 - 01:00:52:27
Speaker 2
What have we not talked about yet that you really think the audience should hear about?

01:00:52:29 - 01:01:18:11
Speaker 1
You know, one of the things that I really want to I like to stress is that, you know, river parks, we have around 2 million visitors a year. And that's pretty good numbers for people who are commuting and recreating in the park system. We like we like to joke that we're the largest outdoor gym in Tulsa because of just how much recreation we provide and how we do it with a very small staff.

01:01:18:13 - 01:01:41:15
Speaker 1
And Turkey Mountain is a space that, you know, is so unique to urban centers, and we see around 250,000 visitors a year dropping out. And so, you know, a quarter million people not just from Tulsa, but regionally, those mountain bikers that are going to Bentonville, they stop in Tulsa now for a day to explore our space. They spend dollar bills in our hotels, in our restaurants.

01:01:41:15 - 01:01:57:15
Speaker 1
And and so economic weekly, you know, we are mindful of the fact that, you know, these private dollars are helping actually the public out in more ways than just providing recreation space. We're actually benefiting the economy. So, yeah.

01:01:57:18 - 01:02:13:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I have up on screen here the the volunteer tab. Talk a little bit about how you are trying to engage with the public and encourage volunteerism. And obviously, that was your history. You were a volunteer.

01:02:13:07 - 01:02:35:02
Speaker 1
I was, yeah. So we have volunteer opportunities at all of our major events. October 1st, 4th of July, all of our fundraising events. We always you know, it's a fundraising event. So the less we can spend on staffing is the more dollar bills that we can put back into literally and I'm not joking, literally keeping the lights on, mowing the grass in our green space.

01:02:35:02 - 01:02:38:08
Speaker 1
And so those funds directly go to those things.

01:02:38:13 - 01:03:00:28
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's awesome though. So so plenty of opportunities to to volunteer, especially for those events. I know in our local Shoal Creek Conservancy, sometimes volunteers are helping with some of the invasive species removal. Do you have opportunities for that? And like trail buildings or trail maintenance as well?

01:03:01:00 - 01:03:33:02
Speaker 1
We sure do. So we actually just because Turkey has become such a popular place, we actually started the Turkey Mountain Trail Team, which is a new volunteer opportunity where it's an adopted trail program. And so you sign up for that program, we go through some trainings. We actually teach you basic trail maintenance, how to make drains, how to repair erosion, how to properly trim the trails so that you're not actually doing more harm than good.

01:03:33:04 - 01:04:08:15
Speaker 1
And then we have massive work days where we do invasive species removal, cutting and treating it. We do trail building and trail repair days with that. So, you know, we have right now we have around 150 volunteers who have signed up for that adopt Trail program. So we are very fortunate enough to be able to have that. And you know, it does it takes a ton of people to be able to maintain these trials, whereas before, you know, it was kind of all, you know, for 40 years, Turkey Mountain was kind of it was a river parks land, but we didn't have any funding or resources to dedicate to the trail.

01:04:08:17 - 01:04:30:05
Speaker 1
We built parking lots. We, we provided restrooms. We took out the trash, we put lighting, but for the actual soft surface trails, we did nothing. And it was all just a ragtag group of like, you know, kids out there with shovels, building jobs or, you know, volunteers repairing things. But finally, you know, we've been able to do a huge philanthropic fundraising effort.

01:04:30:05 - 01:04:59:07
Speaker 1
So in the past year and a half, two years, we raised around $12 million between our public dollars from bonded packages and then around $6 million in private donations that we're able to directly put back into Turkey Mountain and build these trails. And so having volunteers come out of the woodwork literally is been a wonderful thing, because right now there's only one person whose job is Mountain and that's me.

01:04:59:13 - 01:05:10:04
Speaker 1
That's it. Yeah, there's no there's not there's not a staff of hundreds, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's 30 miles of trail and so we literally couldn't do this without the volunteers.

01:05:10:07 - 01:05:17:05
Speaker 2
So there, there it is. There's the call for volunteers. Folks, if you are in the area, they're always.

01:05:17:05 - 01:05:18:28
Speaker 1
Yes, I always say free labor.

01:05:18:28 - 01:05:27:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Ryan. Well, it has been such an absolute joy and pleasure having you on the Active Towns podcast. Thank you so much.

01:05:27:12 - 01:05:37:10
Speaker 1
This has been wonderful and I appreciate the ability to shed some light on the Tulsa, Oklahoma community and hopefully it'll encourage a few of you to swing on by.

01:05:37:13 - 01:05:52:12
Speaker 2
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this episode with Ryan Howell with the River Parks Authority in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you. Subscribe to the Active Towns Channel.

01:05:52:12 - 01:06:16:21
Speaker 2
Just click on this subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell as well. And if you are enjoying this content, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an active town's ambassador via Patreon. Buy me a coffee cup making a contribution to the nonprofit, buying something from the active town store. It all adds up and is much appreciated.

01:06:16:25 - 01:06:40:17
Speaker 2
Well, until next time. This is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge thank you to all my active town's ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

01:06:40:19 - 01:06:41:26
Speaker 2
Thank you all so much.