Why would the state fairgrounds not be an ideal locationn for a light rail hub?

I would think somewhere near the CBD would be best because it is very near major N/S/E/W crossroads like I-40 and 235. The State Fair would be a great place for a secondary hub because it is right off of I-44 and near I-40 but a lot of the people that would be using it would be working DT. So instead of transferring to another line to get DT from the State Fair, it would make more sense for people going to the State Fair to have to transfer from a CBD line to State Fair line.

OKLAHOMAN anti-High Speed Rail editorial takes a whipping in its own website comments section: http://newsok.com/flight-of-fancy-ca...widget#comment

Tom - that has absolutely nothing to do with Union Station. High Speed Rail would need much more space than Union Station could provide. I'm fully in favor of HSR and the editorial is absolutely disgusting, but that has no relation to Union Station. Come back when you have good answers for Steve's questions.

Questions Tom still hasn't answered, plus another bonus question as promised:
1. Do you agree that the Union Station Building will be left standing as part of the Interstate 40 reconstruction? Or do you have proof that the state and city are lying about this building's fate?
2. ODOT engineers have provided plans showing there will still be room for rail lines if this ever becomes an intermodel station. Can you prove them to be wrong on this claim?
3. City leaders say this station is not the best location for an intermodal station. Why should people believe you instead of city leaders on this debate?
4. How much money have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee offered to support these rail lines they claim they need?
5. Have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee done the studies showing how many passengers they'll have traveling to OKC daily?
6. Since there's no freight at Union Station now, how is it going to affect to movement of freight between their cities and OKC differently?
Bonus No. 7: If one were to build an intermodal station from scratch, would one really want to build it at SW 7 and Hudson when the spot is seven blocks south of the Central Business District and seven blocks west of Bricktown and even further from the bulk of downtown residential (Deep Deuce and Automobile Alley)?
Bonus No. 8: Tom, you've identified yourself over the years as being with the North American Transportation Institute. What is the North American Transportation Institute and who funds it? What is your formal education? Who are you?

If Tom posts in this thread again without answering these questions, I'll add yet another bonus question (Tom, I continue to assure you the folks at ODOT, especially Terri Angier, still have bitter memories of the hardballs I threw at them. But at least they answered my questions).

Pretty intense and even seemingly invasive line of questioning coming from a guy with "only a first name," wouldn't you say?

Tom, I'm fully identified in my contact info and I thought you know that.
Steve Lackmeyer

And still no answers...

No answers? Have we had any questions, yet?

I want to have some of those "bitter memories" of those "blistering hardballs" 'ol Steve throws.

To date, I've walked to first base on "balls" -- in the dirt -- twice.

Whatever.

refer to post #730 above

Questions Tom still hasn't answered, plus another bonus question as promised:
1. Do you agree that the Union Station Building will be left standing as part of the Interstate 40 reconstruction? Or do you have proof that the state and city are lying about this building's fate?
2. ODOT engineers have provided plans showing there will still be room for rail lines if this ever becomes an intermodel station. Can you prove them to be wrong on this claim?
3. City leaders say this station is not the best location for an intermodal station. Why should people believe you instead of city leaders on this debate?
4. How much money have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee offered to support these rail lines they claim they need?
5. Have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee done the studies showing how many passengers they'll have traveling to OKC daily?
6. Since there's no freight at Union Station now, how is it going to affect to movement of freight between their cities and OKC differently?
Bonus No. 7: If one were to build an intermodal station from scratch, would one really want to build it at SW 7 and Hudson when the spot is seven blocks south of the Central Business District and seven blocks west of Bricktown and even further from the bulk of downtown residential (Deep Deuce and Automobile Alley)?
Bonus No. 8: Tom, you've identified yourself over the years as being with the North American Transportation Institute. What is the North American Transportation Institute and who funds it? What is your formal education? Who are you?
Bonus No. 9: Why won't you answer the previous eight questions?

(Tom, if you tell me you don't want to answer these questions, I'll quit asking them).

Thanks betts for your thoughtful answers. By paragraph, my responses would be:

2. We don't have to have intercity rail at Union Station. But right now, 5 blocks south of the Ford Center, there are direct rails to commuter destinations Mustang, El Reno, Tinker, Shawnee, Remington Park, Will Rogers Airport and regional destinations Tulsa and Lawton. Now Santa Fe station is in a great location and connects to Edmond, Norman, Fort Worth and Wichita. It may be that OKC only needs a small station (2 tracks) serving the N-S corridor and a small potential station (1-2 tracks) serving the E-W and NE-SW corridors. But once the Crosstown is built, we will never be able to change our minds to add more capacity to all of these potential destinations that are not served by the capacity-limited Santa Fe station. I guess what I'm saying is that Union Station rail yard is open land close to central OKC. We can fit the new Crosstown and the full rail yard in the same land (I think...)

3. I'd hope that we could get a smart urban planner to avoid the scenario you describe. I'd suspect that Santa Fe station would turn into the main N-S transit hub (as much as possible in that space) and Union Station would turn into the E-W/NE-SW transit hub. My guess would be that most transit trips are in/out of central districts with a maximum of one transfer (like a suburbanite who works downtown.) If you come from Norman, yes, you get off at Santa Fe station and you are at Bricktown. If you come from El Reno, you get to Union Station and take a trolley or walk to Bricktown. Just my educated guesses though.

I looked up the bus/rail data for Chicago (yes I have too much time)
Rail = 917k daily (536k El (light) + 336k Metra (commuter))
Bus = 936k daily
These systems are complementary. I'd often use both (take Metra downtown and then get on a bus or trolley)

3. I agree with you and Mick on this...surrounding communities must be a part of this and not only by passing resolutions. Operationally this would mean the creation of a multi-county transit authority (Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, etc.) that collects taxes for transit. But to get transit going, OKC as a government will need to be the leader in helping to secure funding. Norman, Edmond and Shawnee can't do this alone. All of these feasibility studies are done with federal dollars anyway--just like the federal dollars that fund our highways and airports. I'm not sure what interest group would be looking for transit dollar "handouts". Highway money seems equally if not more susceptible to this sort of issue. If we need Union Station rail yard for future transit needs, we would have study OKC transit issues before we destroy the yard. We've only done a study on highway needs (easiest place to put the new Crosstown.) Why not do a transportation study in a more comprehensive and forward-looking way. When this area doubles in size will we still all want to drive on I-35/I-40/I-44 or will we want the option to take mass transit. As other cities are finding out, mass transit is an important part of getting people between their destinations in addition to car and air.

Freight at Union Station is a non-starter. There is no one in that area who would need freight service. People who need freight service have a spur or send it to the intermodal freight yard. Passenger only at my downtown transit hubs.

Again, thanks for your responses betts. Those of us who support mass transit (possibly in the minority) and those of us who think that includes Union Station (an even smaller number) need to convince the majority. I think Tom should add a blog to his NATI website with his articles that he finds and add thoughtful commentary...just dropping links about other city's successes with mass transit doesn't really convince anyone. Persuasion is a give and take and it seems like people are talking through one another on this thread (at least what I have read.)

I'm trying to think of what kind of volume cities like Mustang, El Reno, Shawnee, Tulsa and Lawton could ever generate that would require more than 2 rail lines. Doesn't the Metra in Chicago only have 2 lines? That's a city over 5 times the size of Oklahoma City. Yes, the Santa Fe station has not got the capacity to handle large volumes, but there are other places that do. The Cotton gin area, which is going to be vacated, south of Reno, is immediately adjacent to rail lines and has a significant amount of land. I'd like to see a modern multimodal hub built in a location like that. We could build it to last for a long time, with adequate parking, bus stalls, taxi stands, etc.

So, for those coming into Oklahoma City from El Reno, they could get off at my Cotton Gin location and walk to the Ford Center, Bricktown or the CBD as well.

If feasibility studies can be paid for with federal dollars, then cities such as Norman and Shawnee should be lobbying for feasibility studies, not passing city council resolutions. They should be knocking on the mayor's door telling them what they want and how much they're willing to contribute. I think that when this area doubles in size, Union Station will be as ridiculous a location for the main transit station as perhaps the Santa Fe station is now, personally. I think a lot of people are interested in mass transit. Almost everyone who posts on this thread is interested in mass transit. We just have different ideas of what we think the city and surrounding communities truly need.

Thank you.

I'm interested in what you think about the city's plans for a "Central Park", and how having Union Station as a multimodal hub would impact that. I think that when you've been to Chicago's Grant and Millenium Parks, you realize just what can be done with a large greenspace in the center of a city, both in terms of improving recreational opportunities for people who live and visit downtown, and for creating a sense of community. My concern is that Union Station as a multimodal hub would essentially bisect the park and completely cut off the CBD's connection to the river. I realize that an interstate highway will as well, but obviously our water table negated a "Big Dig" equivalent, and below grade construction and the pedestrian bridge is a somewhat workable compromise. The required concrete around Union Station to make it a multimodal hub, as well as the space required to leave the railyard as it stands would create two mini parks with no visible connection, and no easy access to the river. I want a new, modern multimodal hub east of Union Station, and I want it to be preserved, but as a community gathering site, not a train station. That has nothing to do with my attitude towards mass transit, of which I'm a huge proponent. We're primarily arguing about location, not transit in this particular thread.

Top 10 list of people who I had trouble getting to answer my questions:
1. Brent Rinehart
2. The local president of the Teamsters in the early 1990s (what fight?)
3. Former Secretary of Transportation Neal McCaleb (the answers he gave on Route D of the new I-40 alignment have since turned out to be way off when it came to costs and scheduling. I'm still waiting to see if ODOT keeps his promise to build the boulevard, which still isn't funded)
4. Jim Brewer (he either hated me or loved me depending on what I was asking)
5. OU VP of Communications Katherine Bishop (I do not miss my short stint covering higher ed)
6. Nick Preftakes (guy I like, but he won't say anything about his arts district acquisitions)
7. Maurice Kanbar (owns half of downtown Tulsa)
8. Rep. Frank Lucas (he's great at releasing press releases about farm subsidies, but wouldn't do an interview about it).
9. Tom Elmore (He doesn't answer questions, he just gives links)
10. TV weathermen (not gonna say anything else on this one)

tom seems to be more of an empty suit than obama!

Denver Union Station: Environmental Impact Statement

http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/main_1

TOM ELMORE: Please answer the questions. Steve is a legit journalist, unlike metro, and you can use your answers as a bully pulpit like you do whenever you see a mic or camera around.

Ouch - not too nice of a statement on Metro there... Like Metro or not, he shares a lot on the board and often has well-formed comments.

Tom: here's the deal. I've got a website, OKC Central, that is the most read news blog at OPUBCO. Provide straight answers to my questions and I'll repost them, unedited, at the site with only an introduction to the questions and answers.
I will, as a bonus, list under the questions and answers your top five links. And as yet another incentive to better educate readers, I'll throw in yet another prize - you provide me with 10 questions to pose to ODOT - questions that do not slander but address the issues - and I'll pester ODOT as much as I've pestered you.
But wait, there's more. I'll also throw in a box of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat (seriously, if that's what it takes).

By the way, Metro would make a great muckraker - and I mean that as a compliment. I would not want to be a public official taking his call.

That's a heck of a deal Steve. But I doubt he takes it...

I've bought three new cars in my lifetime. I've listened to and learned from some of the most manipulative high pressure sales folks on Earth. Oh, and I also have a seven-year-old son.