Oklahoma doesn't have a growing transit problem

that's exactly the point. our transit system is not growing, union station or no union station.

So, I suppose the widening...and re-widening...and re-re-widening of roads is just for looks, eh?

[quote=sgray;183079]...and that rail layout all over downtown is the work of a madman...look at the layout...looks like someone was going to build a death ride for a horror movie!QUOTE]


That is one of the primary obstacles to quickly implementing any rail transit system in OKC. Even if 'we' were to start "cheap" with conventional rail passenger equipment running on existing track - there is no efficient way to move from North-South to the primary East-West line. I think the most likely (and least expensive) way light rail wil be started is to use existing right of ways that currently have conventional rail laid.

I tried to work with the existing rail right of ways, but that pile of spaghetti is really not what any sane engineer would want to use for an optimized rail transit system. The interchange from N-S to E-W would need to be completely reengineered to meet modern standards for a light rail (DART or MARTA style) transit system.

That is the primary reason why I am convinced Union Station cannot be the hub advocated by Mr Elmore and others. It would be an important interchange point between light rail and modern street car in the system I envision. I still maintain the best place for express freight rail is on the Will Rogers Airport grounds with light rail running from WR Airport to downtown along the current right of way Union Station is on.

CaptDave,

I think that's pretty much the gist of it...even with all of that load of crazy they are implementing down there, the new layout will be something more usable, I think...

I still believe that we are better served by keeping to conventional rail, like MARTA and METRO and others. Not the big ugly real heavy cars, but like the ones marta and metro use. In some areas, we can start right away and add dedicated track an beef up the infrastructure as ridership catches on...and if the line does well, expand it, and if things change or other needs occur in other areas, we can move trains around pretty easily because of the common track style.

I think that for people who live outside of Oklahoma City, we should give an assurance that there will be rail access to their town (if it already exists). In other words, we're not going to tear up rail going from their town to Oklahoma City. If they want actual trains to run on that rail, then the city should be willing to entertain discussions about what portion of the costs should be assumed by Oklahoma City and what portion by the town in question. As far as precisely where within Oklahoma City that rail goes, where a station is located and what kinds of transit options exist, that should be up to the city and citizens of Oklahoma City. As residents of Oklahoma City our quality of life is affected by decisions being made, and so decisions regarding location of rail and stations should be determined by those affected.

Betts, I agree, this is very critical to the entire system working out. It may be a huge benefit to OKC, but it is also critical for the surrounding cities to not only have access for their residents, but to share in the operating cost.

We need to get it right too and get the leaders together before the project is started. I can think of several systems off the top of my head where the plan was to extend into other cities and counties and they were left out of the loop until after the fact and now they won't support it.

America's love affair with the car more of a forced marriage?
11/17/08 TECHNORATI


In a 1922 memo that will live in infamy, GM President Alfred P. Sloan established a unit aimed at dumping electrified mass transit in favor of gas-burning cars, trucks and buses.

Just one American family in 10 then owned an automobile. Instead, we loved our 44,000 miles of passenger rail routes managed by 1,200 companies employing 300,000 Americans who ran 15 billion annual trips generating an income of $1 billion. According to Snell, "virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system."

But GM lost $65 million in 1921. So Sloan enlisted Standard Oil (now Exxon), Philips Petroleum, glass and rubber companies and an army of financiers and politicians to kill mass transit.

The campaigns varied, as did the economic and technical health of many of the systems themselves. Some now argue that buses would have transcended many of the rail lines anyway. More likely, they would have hybridized and complemented each other.

But with a varied arsenal of political and financial subterfuges, GM helped gut the core of America's train and trolley systems. It was the murder of our rail systems that made our "love affair" with the car a tragedy of necessity.

In 1949 a complex federal prosecution for related crimes resulted in an anti-trust fine against GM of a whopping $5000. For years thereafter GM continued to bury electric rail systems by "bustituting" gas-fired vehicles.

Then came the interstates. After driving his Allied forces into Berlin on Hitler's Autobahn, Dwight Eisenhower brought home a passion for America's biggest public works project. Some 40,000 miles of vital eco-systems were eventually paved under.

In habitat destruction, oil addiction, global warming, outright traffic deaths (some 40,000/year and more), ancillary ailments and wars for oil, the automobile embodies the worst ecological catastrophe in human history...

...So let's convert the company's infrastructure to churn out trolley cars, monorails, passenger trains, truly green buses.

FDR forced Detroit to manufacture the tanks, planes and guns that won World War 2 (try buying a 1944 Chevrolet!). Now let a reinvented GM make the "weapons" to win the climate war and energy independence.

It demands re-tooling and re-training. But GM's special role in history must now evolve into using its infrastructure to restore the mass transit system---and ecological balance---it has helped destroy.

Meanwhile, The New York Times has a great op-ed by Robert Goodman on how the big three auto companies should become "transportmakers" which make all manner of public transport in exchange for our bailing them out.

What about companies that already make transit systems? Should they be put of business just so the federal government can make GM pay for past crime against humanity? OKC should not look to Europe as a way to build a mass transit system. They should look to Perth, Australia.

Here is a photo of Perths downtown rail station. This is just the passenger loading platforms for 3 of the 4 lines that service the station. Notice how this one little piece dwarfs the entire Union Station site.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1143/...0d50e6.jpg?v=0

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And how bout how its COVERED!!! Find me someone that wants to stand on a platform in OKC in the winter with ) degree temps and a 30 mph wind. Not gonna happen. We'll need a real platform like the Perth one or people aren't going to be interested.

I disagree that on the argument that OKC should not look to Europe on how to build mass transit systems. Having said that, I am not suggesting we follow anyone. Europe has a lot of regular speed rail and very high speed rail, like many other eastern countries, so they must have learned some lessons along the way.

Kerry- your pic of the platform in Perth makes a very good point. Look at how much of mass transit here in the U.S. puts people out in the elements. I agree with bomber, we have some of the craziest combinations of weather right here in OK. The days of dumping a bench on the side of the road as your 'new bus stop' or building a mass transit center that has everyone walking right back into the elements makes no sense.

Projects/Programs

I actually think a street grade network of trolleys would be great for OKC. They are quite and since they are just one car they coud go through neighborhoods without making a lot of noise. What would be cool is if they didn't even have traditional stations. Just stand along the street and flag one down (like a taxi). When you want to get off push a button and you get off at the next intersection.

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http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/516f705cf0299f92852575060024b741/cac7cf51d641d7fa852574f9006e5905/$FILE/223917.PDF

Isn't a trolley just a bus with better skin tone and breath?

Here is the one big difference between a trolley and a bus - permanence. Once tracks are laid the likelihood that the route would be altered is very small. This gives developers assurances that the system will stay in place. Bus routes change all of the time so they don't generate any development along their route.

Imagine if the area inside of I-240, I-44, and I-35 could be completely navigated without a car.

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

Posted on Mon, Nov. 17, 2008


Winging It: Amtrak will be key part of Obama's plans
By Tom Belden

Last week's column focused on how policies of the Obama administration are likely to affect airlines and the travel business. I didn't have room to say all I wanted to about what may be the most striking change in store in the transport arena: how Amtrak and other passenger-rail service will be treated by the White House.
Barack Obama's campaign outlined an ambitious effort to support not just the service Amtrak already provides but development of new high-speed intercity rail corridors and public transportation in urban areas.

The president-elect's platform made its case in part by linking those needs to cutting our thirst for expensive fossil fuel, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and spurring the economy by rebuilding the nation's transportation infrastructure, including airports and highways.

If you've ridden an Amtrak train recently, you may know how timely these efforts are. Thanks in part to record gasoline prices and the hassles and cost of air travel, the once-ridiculed, often less-than-perfect railroad is carrying record numbers of customers and collecting more revenue than ever before.

At peak times, it's standing-room only on some trains. Amtrak warned last summer that, at times, it doesn't have enough rail cars in good working order to meet the demand.

In the 2008 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Amtrak carried 14 percent more customers and collected 18 percent more revenue than it did the year before. It was the sixth straight year of increases. Some routes saw increases of more than 30 percent and virtually all of its 43 routes nationwide carried at least 6 percent more passengers.

This upward trend was broken in October, when traffic fell on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, most likely because of lower gas prices and the deteriorating economy reducing business travel.

But Amtrak patronage elsewhere continued to grow last month, as it has been doing for several years. At one time, half of the railroad's riders were on Northeast Corridor trains. Today, it's 38 percent because of the growth on routes in the rest of the country.

Among the reasons for that growth is that numerous states, including Pennsylvania, help support short- and medium-distance Amtrak trains that are just the kinds business and leisure travelers want - especially when gas hits $4 a gallon.

Public transit systems, both those that operate trains and those with buses only, have had an increase in riders this year as well. They carried 5.2 percent more passengers in the second quarter, compared with 2007; those are the latest figures available and represent growth before gas prices surged this summer.

The American Public Transportation Association says 85 percent of the systems, like Amtrak, also lack the capacity they need to meet peak-hour demand.

Fortunately, Congress responded this year to decades of starvation budgets for Amtrak by passing a five-year, $13 billion reauthorization bill that President Bush signed. If Congress appropriates funds as the bill envisions, it should give Amtrak money to begin making up for past shortages, including the lack of equipment to meet peak demand.

Over the last 25-plus years, three Republican presidents and members of Congress, aided by some Democrats, have worked to dismantle Amtrak, contending that it's not used by enough travelers to justify annual operating subsidies of a million dollars or more.

If people in the Northeast or other heavily populated areas want passenger trains, this argument goes, they should form regional compacts and subsidize them themselves. But long-distance trains are a thing of the past and don't deserve taxpayer support, the critics say.

Congress has repeatedly rejected this approach, voting to keep a national passenger system in place, a position that a majority of Americans have said in surveys they agree with.

I have always considered the position of the Amtrak critics specious. Transportation systems have been a government function since the Romans started building roads and can't exist unless all taxpayers - not just those who use them - support them.

Airlines use airports that today are largely self-sufficient, collecting revenue from passengers. But most of them - including Philadelphia International - were built years ago at taxpayer expense. The air-traffic control system is supported both by user fees and all taxpayers. Some of the cost of aviation security also is borne by all of us.

Likewise, highways and city streets aren't built and maintained solely with gasoline tax revenue from motorists. When you back out of your driveway to start an out-of-town trip, you're on a public street that your property and income taxes helped pay for, on your way to an airport your grandparents helped build.

Perhaps we now have an administration in Washington that understands the role that all forms of transportation have in mobility and economic development.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Tom Belden
at 215-854-2454 or tbelden@phillynews.com.

The sooner we can get rid of a nation rail system and spend that money on regional rail systems the better.

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If you've ridden an Amtrak train recently, you know how time consuming it is. If cross country and interstate passenger rail is ever going to work in this country, we are going to have to have high speed rail, or we're going to have to go to the European system of giving everyone six weeks vacation in the late summer and fall. You cannot use Amtrak for a typical American vacation, because the transit eats up a significant portion of the vacation time.

Even high speed rail is time consuming. My son takes the Skinkansen from Tokyo to Nagasaki to visit his girlfriend, and it takes 5+ hours to get there. If he flys, it takes less than two hours. The price is not significantly better for the bullet train. Again, practicality has to be a significant part of the discussion when we plan for future transportation in this country.

3 days from OKC to LA...without delays.

Yeah, I agree betts, of all places to not have any high speed pax rail at all. It does take forever as it is now.

BTW- did anybody watch the report on union station on channel 9 this evening (5pm)?

Nope. What did they say?

It was a pretty even report. They talked about the folks that are fighting the i-40 vs union station issue and then they interviewed a guy from ODOT and a guy from OnTrac. It wasn't too in-depth and if I didn't have some knowledge on the subject, I might have been confused after the report.

Betts and all that may not have seen the report, here is the link with video...

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports | Group Wants to Derail Crosstown

OnTrac is off track in my book. They seriously try to claim that ODOT intentionally didn't maintain I-40 so they could move it south as part of some clandestine operation to destroy the possibility of creating a national rail hub at Union Station. How delusional are these people? What a bunch of crack-pots.

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