Tom - no one is arguing that OKC doesn't need a rail system. In fact, this site might contain the largest number of rail supporters in the state. Where we disagree with you is the place Union Station plays in a future rail plan. You think it is the centerpiece of a rail plan and if the yard at Union Station is removed them OKC will forever lose the ability to have a rail system. The rest of us think Union Station barely qualifies for a stop on future rail plan let alone being the central hub.

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

Agreed 100%

So no one wants to go to Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker AFB, The Adventure District, or Guthrie? No potential commuters from Edmond, Norman, Choctaw, Shawnee, Spencer, Midwest City, Yukon? Tinker is the largest employer of OKC, if not the state, and they have tracks leading right up to it.

I live in NE OKC and work in SW OKC. I have to drive I-35, I-40 and I-44 or at least I-44, so I've been on the crosstown quite a bit. As a hypothetical alternative, I could take what was known as the "Sooner Sub" from where I live directly to where I work via Union Station. I also checked the bus schedules. I'd have to walk about 3 miles to the nearest stop, take 4 buses over 2 hours, and walk at least another 4 miles to my destination. Even if I took the earliest bus to the office and the last bus feasible home, I could only get in about 6 hours of work in.

With regards to the deterioration of the Crosstown, to quote Mr David Streb,

... However over the past 40 plus years, due to exposure of the bridge to weather, wear, age and even de-icing material utilized by the [Oklahoma] Department, the pins and straps have experienced degradation and eventually locked in place...

The bridge contains over 250 beams that are fracture critical members, meaning that if just one of those beams experiences a failure, a catastrophic collapse of that portion of the bridge is likely due to a lack of redundant support devices. The design of every component of the bridge was based upon an assumed traffic loading that anticipated a maximum daily traffic of 76,000 vehicles. Today there are sections of the Crosstown that carry approximately 120,000 vehicles per day. This leads to an increase in in the fatigue experienced by the bridge components and decreases the anticipated life expectancy of the structure.

This was written to me in January of this year, in response to a letter that I wrote a year prior that was apparently misplaced. If the bridge is so dangerous, why haven't through trucks been diverted across I-44 and I-240?

Keeping the math simplified, let's assume a larger auto of 4000 lbs (2 tons). That would exert 1000 lbs per wheel. Looking at the trailer only of a fully loaded semi, 80 tons would be distributed by 16 wheels at 10,000 lbs each.

-- Glenn

As do I.

I don't believe that is the issue. The question is, how many people that live in a suburb on the east - west line we're discussing work downtown or at Tinker. The Adventure district, Edmond, Norman and the Airport are not on that line, and would require separate tracks. How many riders would a line running east-west at it's current location generate, and would it be cost-effective to run trains there? Could those lines even be used for light rail, if that location were deemed desirable? And is it more cost effective to leave those lines there and find new right of way for the Crosstown, or would it be cheaper in the long run to obtain new right of way for rail in a more effective location? Would the new boulevard be considered for possible right of way for light rail? Using that location, we wouldn't need to obtain land, as the city will already own it, and it's a far better location relative to the downtown. If we used it for right of way, the north-south line could actually come directly into a station, rather than having to jog east or west, as it's not going to be able to run through the CBD into Union Station.

We're also discussing whether Union Station is the appropriate location for a multimodal hub.

We've got east-west commercial rail line south of the river. I must confess I'm ignorant about whether it is more highly used than the Union Station line, and whether the Union Station line is redundant. The answers to that would interest me as well.

It only makes sense to me that any light rail line that serves the distant reaches of OKC and the suburbs would need to go underground near downtown while precious downtown surface right-of-way is reserved for a circulator trolley system.

East/West could be built under the new boulevard and North/South would go under Schields/EK Gaylord/Boradway. They would connect in a large underground rail station that is directly connected to the Ford Center, Convention Center, and the Metro Conncourse. It would be a short trolley ride to bricktown, the riverfront, downtown office buildings, Myriad Gardens, and the National Memorial.

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

That's me, Hans -- the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench -- the pain in the .....

The Oklahoman Editorial Thursday, June 12, 2008

OFF TRACK Crosstown foes revel in slowing progress

You could almost hear the delight in a local rail enthusiast's reaction to a ruling that may delay construction of the Interstate 40 Crosstown in Oklahoma City. "It will mean a massive delay for them, we believe,” Tom Elmore said in a story Tuesday in The Oklahoman.
Isn't that swell? A highway project that's vitally important to Oklahoma City — indeed, to the nation — and has a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars may be delayed over a squabble involving abandoned railway line. Someone pass the champagne!

The stretch of track in question runs along the new Crosstown Expressway route. The hope is that the new expressway will be ready in 2012. The elevated portion of the current I-40 Crosstown is in bad shape and handles far more traffic than it was designed for. Delays in completing the new I-40 Crosstown would only exacerbate that problem, which has safety ramifications for motorists and truckers.

Of course that means little to Elmore and other obstructionists who have fought the new Crosstown because of their love of the rails. The owner of the tracks in question, BNSF Railway Co., wishes to abandon them. Three years ago, the railroad said the tracks hadn't been used for at least two years. Later it was discovered the railroad had moved some local traffic over the line during the time when it said the track hadn't been used. As a result, a federal transportation board has agreed to take another look at the abandonment request.

A delay in constructing the new I-40 Crosstown isn't a certainty. What is a certainty is that regardless of what rail lovers may think, the new highway must be built, and will be.

What a silly thing to celebrate.


Broken record.

By all means, continue the long term underground plan. Eventually that would be needed. But, we have the right-of-ways NOW. They can be used while we are waiting for the tunneling.

-- Glenn

Subways for OKC? I've got to think about that for a while.

"The owner of the tracks in question, BNSF Railway Co., wishes to abandon them." An railline which the owner, a busy RR company, doesn't want to use, is more importantto preserve for future use than getting people off the aging and dangerous crosstown and removing an eyesore?

Mapmgr and Okiebadger - The only part I see going underground is in the downtown area. Once the rail lines get otside the downtown core it can run at the surface or even elevated to avoid road crossings. See MARTA in Atlanta as an example. The underground portion can be done using cut and cover so tunneling won't be needed.

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

Jammed transit systems running on fumes - Consumer news - MSNBC.com

“The story is the same everywhere: In Seattle, commuter rail ridership recorded the biggest jump in the nation during the first quarter, with 28 percent more riders than during the same time last year. Ridership in Harrisburg, Pa., rose 17 percent. In Oakland, Calif., it rose 15.8 percent.

Nationwide, Americans took 2.6 billion bus, subway, commuter rail and light rail trips in the first three months of the year, 85 million more than in the same period in 2007, the American Public Transportation Association said. But it’s not clear that the nation’s transit systems are able to handle the load.

While many major cities cities have invested heavily in mass transit over the past 15 years, many more have not. Now that people are demanding service, there isn’t the infrastructure to provide it.

“We’re seeing it in a lot of other metropolitan areas where there just [aren’t] viable transit options — places like Indianapolis, Orlando or Raleigh,” said Robert Puentes, a transportation and urban planning scholar with the Brookings Institution, a public policy association in Washington. “They haven’t put the money into it. They haven’t put the resources into it.”

HOW ARIZONA GOVERNOR JANET NAPOLITANO GOT HER LIGHT RAIL LINE FUNDED

Napolitano's mission: Learn about Mormons

By Paul Davenport
The Associated Press
The Arizona Republic

Gov. Janet Napolitano plans to visit Salt Lake City this week to meet with leaders of the Mormon Church to learn more about the faith shared by hundreds of thousands of Arizonans.

A Napolitano spokeswoman said the Democratic governor will meet Friday with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leaders, including President Gordon B. Hinckley and other members of the three-man First Presidency, a policy-making body that has final authority on all spiritual and worldly matters.

The itinerary for the trip being made at state expense also includes touring church facilities, including Temple Square and the family history library, and being briefed on welfare programs, Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer said Monday.

The governor, who was raised as a Methodist but who L'Ecuyer said now regards herself as a practicing Christian, will be accompanied by three aides, as well as Arizona Chief Justice Charles E. Jones and other state officials who are Mormon.

"It just made sense to have people who are familiar with the church," L'Ecuyer said.

L'Ecuyer said the trip evolved from Napolitano's realization over the summer that she didn't know much about the church and its structure and activities in Arizona.

Subsequent discussions within the Governor's Office "having to do with the fact that we have so many people in Arizona who are members of the faith" led to phone calls between church officials and the governor's office, L'Ecuyer said.

The church has a reported 339,900 members in Arizona, with 685 congregations and with temples in Mesa and Snowflake.

The state will pay approximately $1,500 for air travel, hotel rooms and meals for Napolitano and her aides while the other officials will pay their own way, L'Ecuyer said.

No meetings are planned with Utah state officials, L'Ecuyer said. "This is all church-related."

Mormon Church spokesman Dale Bills said he could not immediately say whether church officials have hosted similar visits by other state governors and what benefit church leaders anticipate from Napolitano's visit.

Jones, a Republican appointed to the Supreme Court in 1996, is going because he has been active in church leadership and can provide introductions, Supreme Court spokesman Tom Augherton said.

L'Ecuyer said the trip has "nothing whatsoever" to do with Colorado City, a polygamist enclave on Arizona's border with Utah.

Colorado City and neighboring Hildale, Utah, are dominated by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church itself disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates those who practice plural marriage.

According to the Mormon church's Web site, some church members arrived in Arizona with a unit of Mormons preparing to fight in the Mexican-American War in the winter of 1846-47, while others arrived in 1873 after being sent from Utah to colonize the area.

azcentral.com
Originally published September 21, 2004

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Federal Funds Boost Prospects for Phoenix Light Rail System

Buoyed by the Federal Transit Administration's pledge of $587 million for the $1.3 billion, 20-mile light-rail system under initial construction between Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa, and by congressional approval of a $75 million down payment for its final design and engineering, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says this ''now guarantees'' that light rail will be built, but observers call for stronger support among Arizona congressional delegates and state lawmakers.

Noting that Oklahoma Republican Representative Ernest Istook and Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby, who chair their respective congressional subcommittees on transportation, visited the Valley and gave its light-rail project ''a thumbs up,'' The Arizona Republic names only two dedicated light-rail advocates among Arizona's own eight U.S. Representatives, Democrat Ed Pastor and Republican J. D. Hayworth.

At the same time, Business Journal of Phoenix writer Mike Sunnucks points out that the Republican majority in the state legislature gave its transportation committees to ''anti-rail conservatives,'' state Representative Andy Biggs and state Senator Thayer Verschoor. They both wanted to invest more in roads and criticized the $18.8 billion regional transportation plan, crafted by the Maricopa Association of Governments and passed by voters last month, which includes $2.3 billion for future light-rail expansion.

But stressing that ''(r)etail, housing and other development will be spurred near the light-rail stations,'' The Arizona Republic opines, ''Light rail has proved its worth in other major metropolitan areas -- and it will do the same here.'' -- The Arizona Republic, Business Journal of Phoenix 12/6/2004

This is bordering on:

ERNEST J. ISTOOK - THE REST OF THE STORY
Is there anybody Ernest "wouldn't throw over?"


Part 2

As far as I'm concerned, Tom has now earned his way on to a list that includes Steve Hunt and David Glover.

Attention whore wth an agenda.

These three need to learn that their place is to shut up and obey dear leader.

I would rather have a meaningful discussion than continous posting of silly articles and not responding to those who disagree with them.

Elmore posts are the definition of spam.

world.nycsubway.org/United States/Seattle, Washington/Sounder Commuter Rail

Amtrak Cascades

Seattle multimodal

^ Like that ^

Ex veritate vita

WHEW!!!
thank God i don't have an agenda... or i'd be up on that motherscratchin' list with them!

You know, it's mighty funny: On one hand, these fellers get tired of hearing "all of Elmore's blather." They want some testimony from "sources they can all agree are reliable and objective." .....so, I give 'em links to people and places who have "already done it" -- and they accuse that of being "spam."

Heck, they didn't really want "reliable and objective" at all. Somewhere along in there, they got "lonesome" and decided they'd rather "have a discussion."

Uh huh.

Yep.

TOM ELMORE
NATI - Solutions to the Nation's Transportation Problems

Tom,

Throughout the entire thread people have been asking you very pointed questions in an effort to engage in meaningful discussions about the issue.

Instead of answering said questions in a direct manner, you post blathering articles that have little or nothing to do with the questions being asked. In case you hadn't noticed, this is a discussion board.

Posting articles is not a meaningful form of discussion or debate. Everyone who has tried that tactic here, those who cannot come up with specific facts in particular, find themselves in the same situation you are now...pretty much being ignored at this point.

If you want to engage people in what you have to say, please give them the respect of answering what they ask of you.