It's too late to save Tulsa's old pedestrian bridge, engineer says

Tulsa World

By Kevin Canfield

January 28, 2021

Keeping the more than 100-year-old pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas River would require turning the clock back and making significant changes to the Gathering Place or to the river itself, city councilors were told Wednesday.

“If this was even considered, it would have had to start in 2014-2015,” said Bill Smith, an engineer who has worked on the project for years. “We have gone way down the road from that.”

Smith explained that all of the federal permits required to do work in the Arkansas River — including the park’s bump outs and reconstruction of Zink Dam — were predicated on the understanding that a new pedestrian bridge would be built.

The city’s floodplain ordinance requires that any construction in the river be mitigated to ensure a zero rise in the water level.

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