Peoria Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Plan

The City of Tulsa, Oklahoma is in the planning stages of implementing new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service for Peoria Avenue, a main north-south corridor adjacent to downtown. The current ridership for the local bus along Peoria is the highest in the city. The new branded BRT will feature 36 upgraded stations, nine new buses, real-time arrival screens, and traffic signal priority, as well as better security and improved physical conditions around the stations.

The Peoria Avenue BRT Land Use Framework approached the City of Tulsa’s planned bus rapid transit system as an opportunity for long term economic development. In doing so, the Plan explored the organization of land use patterns in relation to BRT infrastructure, seeking to help shape and incentivize future development in a manner that maximizes the City’s return on capital expenditures while also improving overall quality of life.

While the Framework was inherently a top-down, long-range planning effort, the planning team sought to build off the City’s existing land use and zoning policies at every opportunity. This included careful consideration of PLANiTULSA Comprehensive Plan policies and the visions established by various constituent communities under the City’s Small Area Plan processes. By carefully examining the existing policy environment, the planning team was able to better understand whether current land use goals supported transit-oriented development, and if not, demonstrate how a more beneficial pattern of development could be achieved.

This process included an extensive series of stakeholder interviews and focus group meetings; a robust project website and social media presence (over 1,000 unique visitors and nearly 3,000 views to date); three sets of community workshops and open houses at critical points in the planning process; online surveys; and a series of community walking tours or ‘Walkshops’ where participants toured critical Peoria Avenue station area locations.

The Peoria Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Plan won the APA-OK 2018 Outstanding Plan Award.