This is interesting, thanks for writing it up! I recently did an analysis of US cities (mostly looking for a wintering location, not a full move), and Tulsa ended up scoring relatively low, which was disappointing since I know there’s a growing EA community there.
I’m really curious in your biking experience in particular, since that’s the category where it fared the worst. I looked at bike commuter data, but I guess that’s just a proxy for good commuter infrastructure, which is what I probably care about. Why do you think so few Tulsans bike at the moment?
Thanks for your thoughts, Dr. Wahl. As alluded to in the post, biking is my form of transportation > 80% of the time, and I wish I could single-handedly make the bike commute popular!!
Theoretically, Tulsa is quite bikable because it’s not too hilly or climatically extreme. Traffic is not a big issue, and major roads tend to be wide / multilane.
I do tend to see more bike commuters when I’m downtown. Less in Midtown (where I live) or Kendall-Whittier (another downtown-adjacent neighborhood).
I think the primary barrier is cultural. Tulsa is very tied up with the oil & gas industry, so it’s not in the best interest of the elites to push green forms of transportation or increase the accessibility of public transit. Accordingly, I think a lot of people take pride in having a nice car.
There’s decent bike lane coverage. I don’t think they’re used as often as they should be.
This is interesting, thanks for writing it up! I recently did an analysis of US cities (mostly looking for a wintering location, not a full move), and Tulsa ended up scoring relatively low, which was disappointing since I know there’s a growing EA community there.
I’m really curious in your biking experience in particular, since that’s the category where it fared the worst. I looked at bike commuter data, but I guess that’s just a proxy for good commuter infrastructure, which is what I probably care about. Why do you think so few Tulsans bike at the moment?
Thanks for your thoughts, Dr. Wahl. As alluded to in the post, biking is my form of transportation > 80% of the time, and I wish I could single-handedly make the bike commute popular!!
Theoretically, Tulsa is quite bikable because it’s not too hilly or climatically extreme. Traffic is not a big issue, and major roads tend to be wide / multilane.
I do tend to see more bike commuters when I’m downtown. Less in Midtown (where I live) or Kendall-Whittier (another downtown-adjacent neighborhood).
I think the primary barrier is cultural. Tulsa is very tied up with the oil & gas industry, so it’s not in the best interest of the elites to push green forms of transportation or increase the accessibility of public transit. Accordingly, I think a lot of people take pride in having a nice car.
There’s decent bike lane coverage. I don’t think they’re used as often as they should be.