The biggest adventure awaiting Tulsans headed to Downtown is how to get there.

Apart from side streets, there are three basic routes to get to Downtown from South Tulsa. Those are Riverside Drive, the Broken Arrow Expressway and the Crosstown Expressway (I-244).

For several years, the city completely blocked Riverside Drive to build a park by the river. Then for months and months, officials created a bottleneck at the Inner Dispersal Loop where it connects with the Broken Arrow Expressway. And it seems likes months and months that work has taken place on I-244, particularly where it intersects with US 169 – maybe the busiest expressway in Tulsa.

In other words, if you want to go Downtown, you need to be prepared for delays, roadblocks and angry motorists.

Why go Downtown?

I have to go Downtown three times a week to pick up the legal notices that we print in the Tulsa Beacon. They are at the County Courthouse and it is a chore to get there some days.

On Mondays and Fridays, I head Downtown during the lunch hour. It is easier to find a parking space when people leave to go to lunch.

Speaking of Downtown parking, it is a nightmare. You have limited options and all are expensive. If you park by the Courthouse, you have to get out of your car, go to a kiosk, type in your car tag number and pay for a ticket. Then you have to take the ticket back to your car and place it inside the windshield on the drivers’ side.

It is a multi-step process that used to be as easy as placing change in a meter right by your car. Sometimes there are long lines to use the kiosk. Usually, someone in those lines doesn’t know how it works or forgot to write down their tag number and they have to start all over. And sometimes, the machine won’t take quarters. It never takes dimes or nickels.

When I go Downtown on Wednesdays, I have to go early, about 8:30 a.m., because I tape my radio show (Tulsa Beacon Weekend on KCFO AM970) at 10 a.m. each Wednesday. (It airs from noon to 1 p.m. Saturdays).

Leaving from 71st Street, I usually drive north on Sheridan Road and turn west on 11th Street on Wednesday mornings to avoid the congestion and backups on the Broken Arrow Expressway. Normally, it would be a slower route but with all the road construction, it takes about the same amount of time.

When you go to the Courthouse early on a weekday, it’s almost impossible to find a parking space. So, I park a block or two away from the Courthouse on the street. The meters are gone there, too. You go to a kiosk and type in your car tag number and put in money. Those meters don’t give you a slip of paper but just electronically record your number.

Again, it would be easier to just slip some quarters in a parking meter.

For years, after I left the Courthouse to go to the radio station at 81st Street and Lewis Avenue, I had ztwo instead of three choices. Riverside Drive was closed. Part of the time, Highway 75 was closed due to bridge construction. So, I had to go down Peoria Avenue through Brookside or down Lewis Avenue. And Brookside has a 25 mph speed limit and that can really slow you down.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is reconstructing the IDL and that’s good because it was in terrible condition. Some haven’t been worked on since 1968. But let’s face it – state officials could care less about the traffic snarls they create.

They are telling people to take I-244. That is really out of the way for many of us.

The baseball park and festivals draw people Downtown in the spring and summer and I guarantee people will be upset with the construction log jams and the expensive parking problems. The kiosk by Hurt’s Donuts doesn’t work half the time I have tried it. And some kiosks are a block away from where people have to park cars.

I thought Downtown merchants wanted people to come there to shop. When the city messes up streets and parking, it makes me and a lot of other Tulsans avoid Downtown like the plague.

Driving Downtown is confusing, especially for newcomers or people who don’t go down there often. At least three or four times a year, I will see someone driving the wrong way on a one-way street. I got hit by a car (he was cited) who ran a red light because the traffic lights Downtown are on the corners instead of over the street where they could more easily be seen.

Tulsans won’t get much relief from this Downtown mess until 2020. The parking snafu may never get fixed.

I think I will limit my trips to Downtown to three times a week.