I've remained pretty silent here on this topic, but it is one that I've seen from the outside as I mostly work and travel a lot all over the US.

Please don't flame me as I'm only asking harmless "what ifs"

Why couldn't we just re-route commercial traffic through I-44 as "I-40 Business" like other cities do to relieve stress on taxed road systems? I-44 isn't much of a diversion. And it still leaves the current system for lighter traffic. It wouldn't be permanent, just until a solution that serves both interests can be met.

It does seem to me that OKC may be making decisions out of impatience and over-eagerness to have a "pretty city." I'm all for C2S and a great new crosstown, but I also know that in other cities, businesses are looking closer at rail transit.

It also seems fishy that BNSF would be so interested in taking out a rail line, a possible revenue stream for them. Usually they just stay out of these sort of things.

I hope for the best, but I sure do hope we're not screwing ourselves just because we rushed to make a decision.

are they brushing aside all the citizenry... or just you?

please realize that there is a large part of the citizenry that want this frikking road built.

Taggart - rerouting truck traffic to I-44 won't solve any problems. Instead it will just start causing wear and tear on a different road. Here is the problem. Construction on the new I-40 has already started, the plans have already been developed, and the right of way has already been purchased. Every hour the project is delayed costs the state more money.

The decision to remove the rail yard at Union Station was made a long time ago and the vast majority of people want the new I-40 built exactly where it is planned to be built. We now have one vocal person at a 1-person self proclaimed transporation advocacy group trying to stop the entire process in an apparent bid to save Oklahoma from it self.

The fact of the matter is that the rail stationed envisionded by Tom Elmore is not even being planned by any federal or state agency. Maybe Tom can share with us the cost and ridership estimates of his idea to recreate the interurban system by providing rail service to places like Altus and Enid. Rail has its place in the transporation network but this is not 1947 and rebuilding a statewide interurban systems isn't going to work.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

The main reason I can see for not doing a reroute is you're just trampling one big stretch of elevated roadway to lighten load on another. A smaller, but still not insignificant length, of I-44 is not ground level either.

As for Kerry's dispersions on Elmore, it's hardly fair to treat Elmore an army of one.
And, I suspect, after the latest round of "oh, there's an acid laced sludge pit where new interstate piers go? Odd we missed that, but hey, no worries, folks want this raod built and so we will just move forward", that those asking questions may grow in numbers.

How dangerous is the situation? I dunno, but it's given me more pause than i had before.

My personal biggest gripe was the brain dead decision to squeeze the road path in between the south end of the canal and the north end of the spur off the river at the Chesapeake boathouse and river plaza. It greatly detracts from both locations. Pity really.

I agree that is a lousy location, but I'm not sure where else it would have made sense.

Kevin - Tom Elmore is an army of one. Anyone care to guess the annual operating budget of his non-profit. I'll bet it is close to $0. As for the slude pit. Wouldn't you rather it be found and fixed as opposed to just killing the whole project? Not knowing about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just think about the people that were living around it. I am glad it was found and is being cleaned up.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

COALITION WANTS SHAWNEE TO SUPPORT RAILWAY STATION
OKLAHOMAN 8-21-08

By Ann Kelley
Staff Writer

SHAWNEE — Members of a grassroots group looking to save Oklahoma City's Union Station asked Shawnee city commissioners this week to get on board and support their effort.

Marion Hutchison, member of Oklahomans for New Transportation Alternative Coalition, said it's not too late to save commuter rail, but there are roadblocks. He asked Shawnee leaders to contact their state legislators and consider passing a resolution of support to send to Gov. Brad Henry.

Hutchison said the group's main goal is to round up support for preserving Oklahoma City's Union Station rail yard during the Crosstown Expressway development. He said road construction will eliminate rail space and existing rail infrastructure.

"This is not a choice between the Crosstown Expressway or Union Station,” Hutchison said. "There are alternative routes that could save both.”

He said the historic station could serve as a hub which could provide two or more types of transportation. The station could include conventional rail and a bus-trolley system or conventional rail, light rail and a bus-trolley system.

Hutchison said there are already several connections that link Oklahoma City to Tinker Air Force Base, Will Rogers Airport and metro communities. All of it flows through Union Station, he said.

Shawnee Mayor Chuck Mills said a rail service that will take residents back and forth from Shawnee to Oklahoma City would be invaluable to residents. The rising cost of gasoline and energy prices should have community leaders thinking hard about alternative transportation options, he said.

Shawnee city officials said they will consider at a future meeting a resolution supporting rail service.

Marion Hutchison, member of Oklahomans for New Transportation Alternative Coalition, said it's not too late to save commuter rail

Trying to get Shawnee's approval to save the rail since Gov. Henry is from there?

Maybe we get Shawnee to put up about $50 million to pay for their share of a regional rail plan while they are voting to support Tom Elmore's plan.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Who says we are saving commuter rail? Who says we're killing it? I am so freaking tired of this. IF....IIIIIIFFFFFFF we ever get ligh rail in OKC, it's NNNNNOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT going to use this rail yard anyway. It's a horrible location, serves as a barrier to development, and SUCKS! Removing the yard has ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT on whether we continue to pursue light rail or not. If we build it, we're going to be building a new system across the board. Our city-lines aren't up to spec and the abandoned ones are going to have to be rebuilt anyway...ie the eastern line to MWC.

Downtown is a HORRIBLE place for a depot like that. Yes it's a good place for a transfer station where lines cross, but not a rail yard. Send that crap outside the core where land is cheaper. There's no reason to put it there.

vocallocals.net (Click on PROJECTS)

OKLAHOMA WHEAT COMMISSION XD WITNESSES RAIL CAPACITY TROUBLES FIRST HAND...

Grain Bottlenecks Irk Farmers -- Courant.com
Courant.com

Grain Bottlenecks Irk Farmers
Infrastructure Flaws Making It Tough To Get Products To Market

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD And CATHERINE TSAI
Associated Press
August 25, 2008

Across the country, from grain elevator to grain elevator, golden wheat and corn are piled in
towering mounds, waiting for a rail car to haul them to market.

Some grain can sit for a month or more on the ground, exposed to wind, rain and rats.

It's the dark side of the booming global demand for U.S. corn, wheat and soybeans. The surge in
exports is revealing inefficiencies in the country's railways, highways and rivers that carry the
grain that helps feed the world. And those bottlenecks are costing farmers, shippers and ultimately
consumers millions of dollars a year.

Mark Hodges, the executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, has seen it firsthand. Earlier
this summer, when consumers around the world hungered more than ever for American wheat and corn, he
hopped into his pickup truck and toured local grain elevators.

Piles of grain sat like giant anthills, waiting to be shipped. Frantic managers couldn't find enough
rail cars to haul it.

"When you're putting wheat on the ground, there's going to be a loss," Hodges said.

A surprisingly large harvest this fall is expected to test the system even further. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture predicts farmers will produce the second largest corn crop and fourth
largest soybean crop in history.

Some agribusiness groups worry the bottlenecks could hurt the United States' standing as a global
food provider as other nations, such as Brazil and Argentina, compete for a lucrative share of the
market.

In years past, bountiful harvests meant millions of bushels were stored outside overstuffed grain
silos, waiting for shipment. Commodities loaded on barges faced long waits at outdated locks and
dams on the Mississippi River, adding days and dollars to their transportation.

The barge delays alone added an average $72.6 million annually to cost of shipping goods down the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers, according to a new Army Corps of Engineers analysis provided to The
Associated Press.

Rail delays are costly as well. In 2006, an estimated 1 billion bushels of grain was stored outside
or in improvised shelters in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, adding an estimated $107 million to $160
million that year to the cost of transporting it, according to USDA figures. That's about 1 percent
of the combined $13.8 billion value of corn and soybean exports in 2006.

"We're way, way behind in our infrastructure investment, both in the private sector and publicly,"
said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, a trade group
representing grain exporters. "And we need to move a lot on that or we will see other countries
supplant us as they get greater investment in their infrastructure."

The problem is likely to persist, if not worsen, in years to come.

Fixing the bottlenecks will take billions of dollars in investment over several years. In the
meantime, exports are forecast to increase, with corn shipments expected to grow every year over the
next decade from 54 million metric tons to 77 million metric tons, according to the Food and
Agricultural Policy Research Institute.

Sounds like there are going to be rail lines regardless. It's rather the question of where they run. South of the river is a great place for the commercial lines, as Union Station has absolutely nothing to do with commercial train traffic, and we would be crazy to blight our downtown for commercial train traffic that can run elsewhere. Union Station is not going to be destroyed, and it's a poor location for mass transit, so I'm not really sure what we're arguing about.

Yep - nothing will get wheat to market faster that throwing a passenger train on the same tracks.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

I originally started this thread because I was so impressed with the building.

This past weekend, I rode my bike down to San Diego with some of my triathlon friends and then took the train back. It was the first time I had been inside their Santa Fe Station and it's an eye-popper. It has the same Spanish style of architecture as Union Station and has been beautifully restored/preserved.

Whether or not our Union Station is used for trains or some other community purpose, this should give you an idea of how cool and significant it will be when restored:

Word games, fantasy and glaring ignorance of transportation history help neither the argument nor the reality of what we will face if we allow blind, self-serving agencies like ODOT to continue to diminish our primary transportation capacity.

If we left the terminal building and tower out at Will Rogers Airport -- but replaced the runways with freeway lanes -- would we still have "an airport?" We could then continue to call what was left "Will Rogers Airport" -- or we could call it "George." Any name would do. However, retaining the term "airport" in such a title would simply be arbitrarily assigning it "a name." It would no longer be a description. As a description, the "name" would then be inaccurate and misleading.

If we destroy the rail terminal infrastructure at "Union Station," we can call whatever's left "anything we want." Without the ability to handle trains of more than one line at high capacity, it's then no longer a "Union Station."

But, then, you understand the point of "The Emperor's New Clothes," don't you? "Reality is whatever the big shots and bureaucrats say it is" -- as long as that suits the prejudices and egos of those who accept it. And calling bad outcomes of cowardly, misguided policy by "familiar names" is supposed to make everybody "feel better."

For instance, Neville Chamberlain called his "Peace in our Time...."

Obviously, there's "a problem" when folks start calling things whatever they want to call them instead of what they are.

"Fixing the bottlenecks will take billions of dollars in investment over several years," the report above noted.

But in its "New Crossotown" project, ODOT isn't "fixing bottlenecks." Instead, it is offhandedly attempting to "create new bottlenecks" in currently independent, free-flowing, strategic railway corridors -- all to make way for "four more miles of expressway it can't begin to properly maintain..."

As Parsons-Brinkerhoff historian Robert Jackson told THE OKLAHOMAN's Ann De Frange, "Highway builders don't care what they destroy." A good part of the transportation capacity mess faced across the USA today is attributable to that very fact.

TOM ELMORE

Pete, Santa Fe Station is no doubt beautiful.. and there does'nt seem to be any limits to what we could do with Union Station itself. Your point seems to be that you placed value and it added to the quality of your life experience to be able to bike one way and catch a train back. Would be nice here - but the thought does come to mind about how beautiful the weather is there.

Can you further show us what kind of development surrounds the Santa Fe station? Is it also beautiful .. or a hugh parking lot? do the rail lines detract considerably from the area? Can anyone contribute pictures or plans of successful and aesthetically pleasing TODs? Apologize if this has been posted as I've read alot but not all posts this thread and similar.

I'm quite distressed to be able to see both the sides of Tom and betts. This seems like a very important decision and the last point in time where we have a choice. He's so far ahead of many of us, maybe Larry could drop by and give us his insight!

Tom - you could tear down the terminal and tower at WRWA as long as you build a new one somewhere else. That is the point many of us have been trying to make. In fact, your analogy works better with the old downtown airpark than it does with WRWA. According to your logic, all hope of getting international flights was lost when the downtown airpark was removed.

You see, Union Station is not currently being used a rail station which, according to you, means it isn't even a station.

Here is your quote on the subject
News flash - the rail terminal infrastructure at Union Station is already destroyed. Hence it is not a rail station, Union or otherwise.

When OKC does develop a rail system the main transfer station will be built at a location that makes the most sense for riders, surrounding areas, and rail operations. I can tell you this for sure though; the current location of Union Station isn't the best location for any of those requirements.

Here is how I can prove it. Let’s pretend Union Station didn't exist today. The City, State or whomever says we are going to build a rail system and we are going to make the main station 6 blocks from the nearest downtown building and 10 blocks from the core of downtown. Do you honestly believe anyone would think that is a good idea? Of course no one would. In fact, many people would probably say, "Why the hell are you making it so far away."

If you wouldn't build it from scratch that way, then why force a rail system into a model that isn't ideal. Purposely building an inferior system is the best way to ensure failure.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

angel, the San Diego station is right next to the waterfront and downtown. Also, it's tied into their streetcar system that runs throughout the county and all the way to Tijuana.

The tracks are not obtrusive at all and are well integrated into the city streets.

And because of it's location, it's surrounded by high-rises, hotels and the convention center.

To be fair, this is a very different situation than our Union Station which is pretty far removed from the city center. Also, their station is used by Amtrak with trains every hour or two up to L.A. and beyond. And the train I took on Sunday afternoon was almost completely full.

Granted, however, our Union Station will be in the thick of it with C2S development, correct?

Even in the next 10-15 years, it would be at the far south end of the new development -- but in the longer term there should be housing south of there as well.

One of the cool things about the SD setup is how their streetcar / light rail system is so well integrated into the Amtrak / commuter rail station. The trains run right next to each other:

take your own advise .. all you do is show your ignorance .. and play word games ..


i will be happy .. when the new cross town in finished and you can go away

Pete, San Diego actually gives credence to my point about the ability to run light rail down the middle of the Boulevard, and it is where I got the idea for it. Because it is not also associated with a multi-lane highway, it is easy to cross the tracks and navigate around the area. It is also not in the center of any of the San Diego parks. It is part of the business and tourist district, is conveniently located and fits the locale.

No. It will be located right in the middle of the park. It would be OKCs version of putting Grand Central Terminal in the center of Central Park.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

From what the renderings show, it will be to the far south of the park, just north of the new crosstown.