Op-Ed: Owasso is built for cars, not people
By Dominic Leading Fox
Photo of parking lot taken by Dominic Leading Fox.
It is not a rare sight to see children walking along grassy paths near main roads, parking lots never more than halfway full or someone biking just inches away from hurtling SUVs. It is not a rare experience to get in your car for a half-mile trip, or nearly get into road accidents daily.
For many people in Owasso, these occurrences are normal—but they shouldn’t be.
Many Owasso students and adults I’ve spoken to share common sentiments regarding Owasso’s structure. It seems everyone, no matter their age group, wishes for a more cohesive and connected community. A community built for people.
But what does this mean, and why does Owasso currently not fit the bill?
First and foremost, a community built for people is one that is walkable. Can I travel from my home to a place of importance by foot or bike? Are there places I can go where I can socialize with my community with ease? Does my commute have meaning? These are questions that can signify a community’s walkability.
So, what makes walkability so great?
There are plenty of benefits to walkable communities, including better physical and mental health, better economies and better social lives.
Physical Health
According to a study done by the journal “Obesity,” adults in walkable areas were 1.5x more likely to get proficient levels of physical activity and 0.76 less likely to be obese—and it makes sense. In a town with low walkability, a typical day is often spent mostly sitting down. From the bed to the car, driving for thirty minutes to work, sitting in an office for 8 hours, driving home and sitting on the couch to unwind, inactivity seems to be encouraged. What happens when adults and kids can go from their homes and enjoy a nice 15-minute bike ride to work or school? These experiences not only connect us more with our environment, but they passively give us the exercise we need to have a healthy community. With car dependence and suburban sprawl, residents become inactive and unhappy.
Mental Health
Another study done by the “Journal of American Planning Association” found that residents are generally happier living in aesthetically pleasing, walkable neighborhoods that instill social connection and convenience. According to the study, “Many people appear to benefit from living in walkable places where residents can walk to attain their daily needs in local shops, cafes, schools, parks, and places for social, leisure, and worship activities.”
Economic Benefits
For the sake of brevity, I won’t include a report here. The idea is that since walkable cities are often denser, they are typically much less costly to maintain. Not only this, but the close proximity of local businesses brings in more tax dollars than big box stores like Walmart. I’m not kidding; look into it.
Walmart, one of the biggest parking lots in Owasso. Photo by Dominic Leading Fox.
So why isn’t Owasso walkable?
96th Street is Owasso’s most prominent stroad. Photo by Dominic Leading Fox.
Put simply, Owasso is the byproduct of car-centrism that dates back to the 1940s. Due to the exploding popularity of automobile usage after World War 2, the United States developed new and existing infrastructure to cater to the car, while sacrificing many public transportation systems that had existed for decades before. Where people could commute and socialize on “main street” had now been transformed into four-lane highway speed “stroads” where no person could care to walk or bike. These “stroads” are what compose most of our town.
A cut-off sidewalk on 96th street. Photo by Dominic Leading Fox.
A point that a well-intentioned defendant might make of Owasso’s car dependency might be, “Owasso is walkable! We have sidewalks and bike lanes everywhere!” While this is true, we must not simply talk about pedestrian infrastructure, but good pedestrian infrastructure.
Good pedestrian infrastructure must have a purpose. It must be able to get a resident from their home to a place of significance, whether that be work, school or one of Owasso’s few “third places” in a reasonable amount of time. The issue with the sidewalks in Owasso is that they are either mostly useless due to being unfinished or they are so separated from important places that taking a car is usually the only viable option.
Bike lanes in Owasso share these same issues and more. Most lanes in Owasso are what some urbanists call “bicycle gutters.” They are painted in the side of an existing stroad, running over gutters and placing the cyclist in close proximity to driving automobiles (most of which, as we know, speed). These are not bike lanes people want to bike in. If Owasso truly wants healthy bike infrastructure, they must protect these bike lanes and actually put thought and care into them.
A bicycle gutter on Garnett. Photo by Dominic Leading Fox
All in all, Owasso has many problems that I could ramble on about all day. All of this is to say that I care. I want to see Owasso as a walkable town in which kids who grew up here can look back on their childhood and remember the days of biking and walking through their hometown. I want to see Owasso as a healthy community where people can come together with ease, rather than battling each other for speed on our wide, dangerous roads. I want to see Owasso thrive.
And I wholeheartedly believe it’s possible—all it takes is a community of people who see the same vision for our future.
To learn more, the sources below are great places to start:
This tiny block on Main Street is the most enticing example of what Owasso could be. Photo by Dominic Leading Fox.