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Downtown Denver June 1976. Image: Nick DeWolf via Flickr

The above photo is downtown Denver in 1976.

Not pretty is it? But Denver doesn’t look like that anymore. And that’s no accident.

Even though that picture is what inspired Streetsblog’s Parking Madness competition, Denver didn’t even make it past the first round in our hunt for the worst parking crater in an American downtown.

This is what this part of Denver looks like today:

For reference, point A on the map shows the Daniels and Fisher Tower, the tall spire you can see on the edge of the parking expanse in the 1976 photo.

In the 1990s, in response to the creeping cancer of surface parking, the Mile High City took action. The city changed its downtown zoning to eliminate surface parking as a use by right. So if you owned a building, you were welcome to tear it down, but you couldn’t park cars on the lot. All existing parking lots were grandfathered in.

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Tulsa ran away with the "Golden Crater" award in our Parking Madness competition. Now local leaders are taking steps to help build a healthier balance for the city's downtown. Image: Google Maps

Just last month, we were shaming Tulsa, Oklahoma, with our “Golden Crater” award for the downtown most riddled with surface parking lots. But today, we applaud the city for taking steps to reverse the plague of excess parking.

Tulsa World reported Friday that our Parking Madness competition winner is moving forward with a ban on new surface parking lots. The Tulsa City Council has extended a temporary moratorium on new surface parking through September. Between now and then, Tulsa will be working to prepare permanent changes to the city’s zoning code that will help contain the tide of surface parking lots and, hopefully, set the stage for some redevelopment.

The legislation is being championed by City Councilman Blake Ewing, who gave a shout out to Streetsblog in his remarks to the newspaper.

“Ewing pointed to a recent online contest by a nonprofit transportation advocacy publication in which Tulsa was named the worst city in the country for parking craters’ — areas of historic downtowns that have been bulldozed for surface parking,” wrote Tulsa World reporter Zack Stoykoff.

Tulsa is in the early stages of the same program the city of Denver took on to repair its woeful surface parking lot problem two decades ago. We’ll be featuring a story about that city’s dramatic reversal later today.

We’re proud that, by shining a light on the damage caused by Tulsa’s excess parking, Streetsblog was able to help catalyze change. Whether by highlighting best practices or worst practices, we’re thrilled when we can inspire cities to re-think their priorities and plan for a more sustainable future.

If this kind of reporting makes you proud too, make a donation today. We rely on donations from our readers to make this kind of thing possible.

Streetsblog readers have spoken — and they have annointed Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the champion of Parking Madness, our hunt for the worst parking crater in an American downtown.

The final match was a total blowout, with Tulsa stomping Milwaukee in our poll, 483 to 124. In the end, no other downtown could compare to the parking devastation on the south side of Tulsa. And so we award Tulsa Streetsblog’s first “Golden Crater” award.

Here’s one more look at the part of downtown that carried Tulsa through it all:

But the point of this contest isn’t just to single out Tulsa — it’s to help provoke change. In that spirit we wanted to share a redevelopment plan for this area submitted by Tulsa native Kevin Adams, who completed the project while working toward a master’s degree in urban planning at Clemson University in 2010. His plan [PDF] involves redeveloping the south side of Tulsa’s downtown as a reimagined “Cathedral Square,” a name sometimes given to the area in recognition of its beautiful historic churches.

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This is it — the final, epic showdown of Parking Madness. We started with 16 reader-submitted contenders for the title of America’s Worst Parking Crater, and Milwaukee and Tulsa have emerged from three rounds of voting to face off in the championship.

Only one will be immortalized and receive the “Golden Crater,” Streetsblog’s prize for asphalt expanses run amok.

It’s up to you to decide who claims the title, based on the incriminating evidence we’ve compiled below. So let’s get acquainted (or reacquainted, as the case may be) with these two examples of parking devastation:

Downtown Tulsa has been a favorite from the start because of the sheer surface area devoted to parking. Stephen Lassiter of BikeWalkTulsa submitted this photo and told us that “the southern half of downtown is almost entirely surface parking,” as you can see below:

Lassiter also sent along photos showing this part of Tulsa in 1978 versus 2005.

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Which city has the ugliest asphalt expanse? The deadest downtown? The most awful place to sit and eat lunch? Those are the questions you must ask yourself as we approach the finale of Parking Madness, our hunt for the worst parking crater in the U.S.

We’re wrapping up Final Four competition today with Tulsa and Houston vying for the chance to take on Milwaukee in the championship game.

Here we have Tulsa, where the south half of downtown has pretty much been replaced with thousands of 9 foot-by-20 foot stalls:

Our friend Steve Lassiter in Tulsa sent along these shots to give us some historical context. Here are views of downtown Tulsa, facing north from the same point, in 1978 and 2005:

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This is it: our last Parking Madness match-up before the Final Four. And it’s going to be a good one.

From the beginning, the two cities facing off today — Cleveland, Ohio, and Tulsa, Oklahoma — both seemed to me like solid contenders to make the final rounds.

Without further ado, let’s examine Tulsa:

This photo came from Stephen Lassiter of Bike Walk Tulsa, who told us that “the southern half of downtown is almost entirely surface parking.”

Pull back the lens and you can see what he’s talking about:

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Parking Madness, our hunt for the worst parking crater in an American downtown, continues today with two formidable contenders.

In one corner we have Tulsa: Oklahoma’s second largest city, birthplace of the teen sensation Hanson (mmmBOP!), home to nearly 400,000 people. In the other corner, Philadelphia: cradle of democracy, birthplace of the Fresh Prince, and home of the cheesesteak.

Don’t forget to vote at the bottom. Now, without further ado… Show us what you got, Tulsa!

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States do a poor job safeguarding against corruption, according to a recent report from the Center for Public Integrity. The list above ranks state ethical protections in descending order. The green states received "B" grades; yellow ones got "C"s; orange ones earned a "D"s and the red ones failed. Image: Center for Public Integrity

Last week we looked at three state DOTs which are currently led by former lobbyists for the asphalt or energy industries. The “Revolving Door” series highlighted how billions in federal funding for transportation get funneled, with no oversight, to states where money and politics corrupt policy and lead to shocking amounts of waste.

While it’s outrageous that a state DOT chief can flit back and forth between lobbying gigs and the public sector, or dole out enormous contracts designed to benefit the governor’s political benefactors, such antics aren’t limited to the three states we profiled. For a good survey of the lax ethics rules that prevail in most American statehouses (affecting not just transportation but all aspects of state policy), check out the Center for Public Integrity’s State Integrity Investigation.

CPI’s recent analysis found that loose state ethics rules and oversight are the norm, not the exception, in state capitals around the country. The group graded all 50 states, and not a single one scored an A. Only five states managed Bs. The rest were all mediocre-to-abysmal.

The three states Streetsblog examined — Ohio, Texas, and Oklahoma — received Ds for overall ethics oversight and transparency.

The report found that, across the country, state-level ethics protections are weak, and where they do exist, they often lack teeth.

Tennessee, for example, started a state ethics commission six years ago, but has yet to issue a single citation.

Notably, in CPI’s investigation, Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma all rated below 50 percent — a failing grade — on “regulating conflicts of interest by the executive branch” — the rules and oversight that would apply to state DOT directors.

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This is the second installment in our three-part “Revolving Door” series about how cronyism in state DOTs leads to wasteful highway building. The first part profiled Ohio DOT chief Jerry Wray, who has switched back and forth between working directly for the asphalt industry and shoveling money to the asphalt industry as a public official.

Like Jerry Wray, Oklahoma DOT Director Gary Ridley has split his career between public office and lobbying on behalf of the asphalt industry. He started out in the mid-1960s, working as an equipment officer for the DOT. He climbed several rungs on the ladder and then left in 1997 to lead the Oklahoma Asphalt Paving Association, before returning to the department in 2001 as director of operations. In 2009, he was appointed to the top position in the agency.

As head of ODOT, Gary Ridley, a former asphalt lobbyist, helped destroy a rail yard that had been prepared for redevelopment. Photo: News on 6

The Oklahoma Asphalt Pavement Association made $3,000 in contributions to Governor Brad Henry’s reelection campaign in 2006, three years before Ridley’s appointment, and then donated $1,000 to the campaign of current Governor Mary Fallin in 2010. She had reappointed Ridley shortly after her confirmation.

Those are pretty small amounts in the world of political campaign money. But there are a lot of cozy ties between the road lobby and top politicians in Oklahoma, and Ridley is deeply embedded in the state’s industry-friendly culture. One of Ridley’s predecessors as ODOT director, Neal McCaleb, also worked as a lobbyist for the road industry, sandwiched between two terms as transportation secretary. McCaleb, reportedly a close political ally of Ridley, is now president of a road lobbying group called Transportation Revenues Used Strictly for Transportation. (TRUST — get it?)

Upon Ridley’s reappointment, McCaleb, acting as a representative of TRUST, called him the “best transportation director in the state’s history.” Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, one of the chief architects of the new transportation bill, MAP-21, went further, calling Ridley “the best secretary of transportation in the country.” Inhofe, a well-known climate change denier, is a political darling of the oil and gas industry and fervent opponent of federal programs that support biking and walking.

Sure enough, Inhofe trotted Ridley out to testify before Congress on behalf of the more backwards proposals for the transportation bill last July. His testimony was a direct appeal to exempt states from requirements to invest in biking and walking:

This country’s CORE infrastructure is in a deplorable condition. Therefore, we support the ability for States to carefully scrutinize, prioritize and direct transportation funding that may be available for peripheral projects and programs.

Programs that mandate the commitment of dedicated transportation funding to recreational and fringe activities such as bicycle and pedestrian trails, complete streets, landscaping and historic preservation should be vigorously reviewed. If community livability projects and other similar programs are determined to be critically important to the viability and prosperity of the Nation, other funding mechanisms should be identified and the programs should be funded separately from core transportation infrastructure.

Tom Elmore, executive director of the Oklahoma City-based North American Transportation Institute, said it is an open secret that ODOT is focused as much, if not more, on serving the highway lobby as the people of the Sooner State. He calls Ridley “the P.E. with no degree,” since Ridley does not have a college degree, but was awarded a certificate as a Professional Engineer because he passed a test. (The same test is no longer sufficient for the credential.)

“ODOT and the highway lobby are one and the same,” Elmore said. “It’s very difficult to tell these days who is working for ODOT and who is working for the contractors because there is a such a revolving door.”

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Part One of this interview was posted yesterday.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett (R) has made it his mission to make his city healthier and less obese, in part by improving its walkability. The city lost a million pounds during his weight-loss campaign — and then they took a freeway out of the middle of downtown and overhauled its built environment.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett is doing some revolutionary things in a conservative city. Photo: Flickr

I interviewed Mayor Cornett last week when he was in Washington, DC for the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. In the first installment, posted yesterday, Cornett described the excitement among city officials when the rules changed and they were asked to think outside the car-centric box. He said they built sidewalks and parks and bike trails with locally-raised funds, even over the objections of the fire and police unions. And while he welcomes federal money for projects like these, he’s at peace with other Oklahomans who see things differently — though he worries that less federal funding will result in less equality among cities.

So now you’re all caught up. Here’s Part Two.

Tanya Snyder: It seems like there are more and less successful ways of talking about [livable cities] with different people. You have a pretty conservative constituency. Does it hurt the cause that Michelle Obama is out in front on obesity, and does it hurt the cause that walkability is associated with sustainable development, is associated with Agenda 21, is associated with climate change initiatives — what you’re doing is nonpartisan, you’re just trying to get people fit and healthy.

Mayor Mick Cornett: There is some pushback about — as you mentioned, Agenda 21 and anything that comes out of the White House. But at the end of the day, people elect mayors to get things done. You might elect a Congressman to go up and stop something. But you don’t elect a mayor to stop things form happening. You elect an executive branch person — a mayor, a governor, a president — to do things.

I close with this: “We’re creating a city where your kid and grandkid are going to choose to live.” And they know it’s true.

So I’ve never let that slow me down. I will say that one secret to our success is that we’ve been able to convince the suburbanite that their quality of life is directly related to the intensity of the core. And so they have continually passed initiatives to support inner-city projects, sometimes at the expense of the suburbs.

TS: How did you do that?

MC: Here’s what I do. I try to win an intellectual argument. I stand toe-to-toe with a lot of retired suburbanites who don’t like downtown, don’t like me, are tired of funding taxation. I’m serious, they have more negativity than you could possibly imagine.

And when I’ve lost on every turn and every argument in this debate that takes place in neighborhood after neighborhood I close with this: “We’re creating a city where your kid and grandkid are going to choose to live.”

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