Tulsa Pantry Gap Map

On a weekday daytime, the pantry network reaches Tulsa's highest-need tracts well: 95% of their residents can get to an open pantry within 30 minutes without a car. Pantries cluster where need is highest, and so do bus routes.

The network thins out after work and on weekends. Of the 69 general-public pantries in the county, 53 hold regular weekday daytime hours, 17 are open on a weekday evening after 5pm, and 12 on a Saturday (8 of those every Saturday, the rest once or twice a month). Buses thin out too: at the typical stop a bus comes every 47 minutes on a weekday daytime, every 60 after 5pm and every 50 on Saturday, and the last runs of the day start around 9pm.

In the high-need tracts, the number of people in poverty with no open pantry within reach goes from about 2,200 on a weekday to about 21,000 on a weekday evening and about 23,000 on Saturday, roughly tenfold. A pantry open only 10 to 2 on weekdays does not help a parent who works those hours.

The clearest case: E 61st St & Peoria Ave

The tract around E 61st St & Peoria Ave (tract 68.01) is among the county's highest-need: 47% of residents below the poverty line (±13 points) and 28% of households without a car. On weekdays 2 pantries are open within a mile of where its residents live. After 5pm the nearest open one is 7.2 km away, and on Saturday 5.0 km; no part of the tract can reach one in 30 minutes. It tops both the evening and the Saturday gap lists.

How much the bus assumption matters

These figures assume a rider who checks the schedule and leaves home to meet the bus. Someone who just walks to the stop waits half the time between buses on average, and on a route that comes once an hour that is the whole budget. Under that assumption only 78% of high-need residents reach an open pantry on a weekday, 34% on an evening and 19% on Saturday. The Riders switch on the map shows both.

Countywide

Across the whole county, 59% of residents can reach an open pantry without a car on a weekday, 30% on an evening and 27% on Saturday. Much of the rest live in suburbs and rural areas with little or no bus service, where most households drive. That is why the map leans on need and ranks gaps by people in poverty, not by area.

The ten high-need tracts (top quarter of the need index) with the most people in poverty who cannot reach an open pantry within 30 minutes. The table follows the When switch on the map; tap a row to find the tract.

A first-cut screen, not a plan: treat every bus stop as a possible spot for a mobile distribution, and count the people in poverty who live where nothing is open within 30 minutes today but who could reach that stop. Pick the best spot, then the best next spot given the first.

Saturday

1. 71st St & Wheeling Dr (bus stop): about 8,700 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (44,833 residents in all), mostly around E 61st St & Peoria Ave; E 61st St & Utica Ave.
2. 4th St & Harvard Ave (bus stop): about 8,000 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (32,278 residents in all), mostly around E 11th St; E Apache St & Harvard Ave; E Archer St.
3. Denver Avenue Station (bus stop): about 3,600 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (20,406 residents in all), mostly around E 11th St; E 21st St.

Weekday evening

1. 31st St & Garnett Rd (bus stop): about 10,000 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (42,686 residents in all), mostly around E 31st St & 129th East Ave; E 41st St & 129th East Ave; E 41st St & Mingo Rd.
2. 71st St & Wheeling Dr (bus stop): about 9,900 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (50,831 residents in all), mostly around E 61st St & Peoria Ave; E 81st St & Utica Ave.
3. 1st St & Cincinnati Ave (bus stop): about 5,300 more people in poverty within 30 minutes (26,603 residents in all), mostly around E 11th St; E 21st St; E Archer St.

Of the about 61,000 people in poverty countywide with no open Saturday pantry in reach, these three Saturday sites would reach about 20,000. Real siting needs a host site, parking and a partner, and should start from what meal programs and churches already do nearby.

• ACS margins of error. Tract estimates come from a sample and carry wide margins, shown as ± in the tract details. Small shares, like zero-car households in a suburban tract, are the noisiest. 1 of the 19 tracts that appear in any top-ten list has a need measure with a coefficient of variation above 40%.
• Stale pantry hours. Hours are self-reported in the Food Finder and change. Holiday closures and one-off changes aren't modeled, 7 county pantries list no hours at all, and some listings look off (CrossPoint lists a 13-hour Friday session; counted as listed). Counting every pantry without listed hours as open in every window raises the Saturday share in high-need tracts from 50% to 73%: an upper bound, not a likely value.
• The bus approximation. Scheduled service only: late buses, missed transfers and the trip home aren't modeled, and neither is carrying groceries. The schedule changes three times a year (this feed runs Sep 10, 2026 to Dec 5, 2026). Straight-line walking ignores missing sidewalks, highways and the river, so it probably flatters access in places.
• Tract averages hide variation. A tract's poverty rate covers thousands of people, and pockets of need inside a better-off tract don't show. Access is computed block by block and weighted by population, so it carries more detail than need does, but those block populations are from 2020.
• Need is not demand. The index says where hardship is concentrated, not how many people want pantry food, and it can't see people the survey misses.