Trash a chronic problem under Tulsa’s 11th Street Bridge

A chronic problem with garbage under Tulsa’s historic 11th Street Bridge and the nearby Interstate 244 bridge has festered for weeks, apparently because the city isn’t sure what department is responsible for cleanup.

Local physician Vicki C. Baker emailed me last week:

The area under the 11th street/I-244 bridge sorely needs attention. RiverParks tells me it is not under their jurisdiction. The amount of trash has exploded. There is no maintenance at all on the brush and weeds under the bridge by the Cyrus Avery statue. There seems to be an ever increasing homeless population under the bridges. I am now seeing sanitary pads, drug paraphernalia, condoms and even buckets for human waste. This is a sad and difficult problem.
I challenge you to go take a stroll along the pedestrian bridge and along both sides.   It is so terrible that it has to be that no one is taking responsibility for this area. Surely this is not what we want the Route 66 tourists to see.
Due to the Riverside closure, I have to go through this area on my bike rides and runs. Each time I go through there, it gets worse!!

I forwarded the complaint to city planner Dennis Whitaker, who’s overseen the development of several Route 66 projects in the city. He advocated calling or emailing the Mayor’s Action Center.

Baker’s email to the city’s River Parks Authority generated this response from executive director Matt Meyer:

The areas around and under the new I-244 bridges are not under the jurisdiction of the River Parks Authority.  And unless they are leased to us, both our attorney and liability insurance carrier have directed us not to perform maintenance in those areas.  We continue to turn homeless complaints in to the City.
I agree that there are more homeless vagrants in the area now than ever before.   A sad and difficult problem.

On Monday, Baker emailed to me after checking the area Sunday and snapping photos there:

I couldn’t get the email to work for the Mayor’s action line. I have not called due to time constraints during the work day.
I did notice that some trash on the actual trail was picked up. The sanitary pads and condom boxes were gone!

Baker also noticed over the weekend about a half-dozen emergency call boxes on a pedestrian trail under the I-244 bridge were vandalized and rendered inoperable, less than a year after the bridge opened.

On Tuesday, Baker emailed:

I turned in my complaint on the 311 app and got a call from Wendy in the security department for the city. She said that ODOT “donated ” the area to the city. She thinks that it was never assigned to a specific department so it has been neglected. She will find out if her department or another is responsible and then get to work. She was going to send out a clean up crew today and contacted John 3:16 to go work with the homeless population camping there.

It’s rather discouraging the trash under the 11th Street Bridge had been allowed to pile up because no city department had been assigned to maintain it.

However, I’m glad people such as Baker are speaking up to get this resolved. It’s good this probably is being addressed before large numbers of Route 66 tourists begin to arrive in the spring.

The 11th Street Bridge opened in 1915, predating U.S. 66 by more than a decade. It was closed to vehicles in 1980 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. A renovation of the bridge is tentatively on a list of long-range projects in Tulsa.

UPDATE: Baker said she received an email today, reporting 16 bags of trash were cleaned from the area. Another cleanup of the homeless encampments is scheduled for Thursday.

UPDATE 2/27/2016: Baker reports the trail is improved.

The east side is mostly cleaned up.  All the weeds are gone and most of the trash.  A few of the homeless have moved back in.
The west side still has a ton of trash and same homeless camp under the bridge.
It looks like they have started working in the emergency call boxes but still not functioning.
All in all, much better but a ways to go!

(Images taken Sunday courtesy of Vicki C. Baker)