What "multimodal hub" means is -- an urban interface point for intercity passenger trains, regional commuter trains, urban/suburban light rail and local trolley services and corresponding, coordinated bus services.

Such a hub would immediately require, (1) 2 dedicated intercity passenger train platform tracks, (2) 2 dedicated mail and express sidings, (3) 2 dedicated light rail platform tracks with overhead electric catenary power, (4) 2 dedicated regional commuter train platform tracks, (5) 2 yard bypass tracks for through freight trains.

Urban center trolleys could be handled on SW 7th Street, linking to the rail yard through the terminal building. Plenty of room surrounds the Union Station terminal building for bus platforms and parking.

This kind of room and free-flowing, surrounding steets is simply not available at the downtown, former Santa Fe depot -- nor would increasing congestion with the activities required of a multimodal center be desirable this near the center of the CBD.

Union Station is in precisely the right place for a multimodal hub: Close enough to the center of downtown to offer ready access -- but far enough away not to create new congestion problems.

The obvious value of OKC Union Station is increased by an existing ready rail link to Will Rogers Airport and other strategic transportation assets across the state.

Oklahoma City and Tulsa lie along a designated federal High Speed Rail development corridor. Only Union Station has the train-handling capacity to serve as a hub and marshaling point for advanced rail development as well as the mail and express handling facility to support all intercity rail services.

TOM ELMORE

It would be ugly. There's nothing beautiful about bypass tracks for freight trains, regional commuter train platform tracks, overhead catenary power lines. Has anyone been in one of these stations in other cities? It would completely ruin Core to Shore. You talk about wanting to preserve Union Station, but all I see it being preserved for is a building that people walk through to go someplace else. Move the station east, where at least it would replace existing ugliness. And, who needs freight lines north of the river? Aren't there several active freight lines south of the river? Couldn't those be used for commercial passenger traffic if we're already talking about using lines that aren't currently being used for passenger travel anyway? Again, there is a lot of land that could be used for a multi-modal station either east of Broadway or south of the river. If we're piling people on a bus anyway, a few more blocks won't matter.

Tom, have you zero interest in beautifying our city, making an iconic park we can all be proud of? Or is everything to be sacrificed (since religion has already been thrown in) to the god of transport?

Oklahoma City has a lot of ugly land, so I don't see why we have to put something like that where we've got something beautiful planned. I've continued to ask if replacing or adding to those lines elsewhere would really be any more expensive than obtaining right of way for the Crosstown somewhere else and haven't gotten an answer.

You are delusional if you think all of that already exists at Union Station. It does not. There's maybe three platforms.

jbrown, I realize you are on opposite ends of El,more on US, but he doesn't say these things are already there, but that they would be needed immediately for such a hub.

I don't know how it shakes out, but those strongly in favor of US certainly seem to have more time to make a case for their position than seemed available even 7 weeks ago.

I'm very confused about the "immediate" part of this. There is no immediate need for the lines for cross-country passenger travel because it doesn't exist. There is obviously no immediate need for those lines for freight, because the current owner doesn't even want to use them. We have no immediate plan to use them for light rail, because it's not light rail track, we don't have light rail trains, and we don't even know if an east-west route is going to get that much use.

Elmore's whole stance is based around some fictitious notion Union Station already has all these lines that would be a disastrous loss and could never be rebuilt anywhere else. That's just not the case. There's 2, maybe 3 lines in existence there. So if we need to BUILD all that that he describes, why does it have to be Union Station?

the union station to me is like the gold dome debate from a few years ago.

anyway, every been to union station in D.C.? it would be a shame if it were not there today.

oh and seattle is building rail from their downtown business district to the airport that will be finished and operating next year.

blangtang, this is NOTHING like the Gold Dome debate.

Union Station will not be torn down. That is not in question. It never was. The debate is over a few sets of tracks behind the building.

Interurban blues
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
By Keith Gaddie

Comment at: Interurban blues | OKG News.com

Old-line Oklahoma residents didn’t enjoy the first two rounds of oil shocks that hit the U.S. in the Seventies and Eighties. The most recent round visited Oklahoma, and the reality of automotive and oil dependency is being driven home.

The time is now to revisit mass transit.

Oklahoma once upon a time had clean mass transit. It was called the interurban line, with tracks running all over the city. Passenger trains also went back and forth to destinations surrounding Oklahoma City, not so different from the commuter train lines that survive to this day in the northeastern corridor of the U.S. As I talk to old-time Oklahoma City residents about gasoline sticker shock, they speak in wistful terms of both the old trolley line and the trains that they would catch to Norman or Edmond to do a day’s business.

We lost our trains. We can get them back. But we have to understand why we lost them.

The assumption is made that automobiles and highways killed electric mass transit. That is, in a sense, true. In the post-World War II Forties, General Motors Corp. had a lot of production capacity geared up to make heavy transport vehicles, including trucks. The Standard Oil Corp. had been providing fuel to the war machine at peak capacity. The two firms colluded together to create a system that ultimately wrecked electric mass transit in the United States. How?

They created a series of shell corporations and holding companies to purchase private electric trolley and electric bus lines. They then pulled up the trolley car tracks, crushed the electric buses, and either replaced them with diesel-burning buses or just let the local transit system languish. What was left? Cars, driven by individuals, on highways built with public money. GM and Standard got nailed on antitrust violations, but the damage was done, and clean mass transit disappeared from most of the United States.

What would such a system look like here? The east-west leg would run from Will Rogers World Airport to downtown and then east out to Tinker Air Force Base. The north-south line would run from Norman, parallel to Interstate 35/235. The line would then split, going out Northwest Expressway or up to Edmond and Guthrie in the other direction. Localized lines could also be developed at relatively “low” cost.

The egregious failure of Ernest Istook to help fund an Oklahoma City rail system while he was transportation appropriations chair in Congress leaves Oklahoma in a must-need situation. Under these conditions, startup and construction costs will increase while the time delay of getting meaningful rail online in the metro is extended.

The approximate cost of constructing a light-rail system to effectively serve the Oklahoma City metropolitan area is $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion. This price tag seems daunting until you consider that a conservative estimate of fuel costs of commuting metro residents is more than $2 billion a year.

Build the trains! We’ll use them to get around. But there is, in my opinion, one catch. These should be public transportation systems, but not publicly owned and operated. The vehicle should be a private-public venture, run by a private franchise accountable to a public audit. Build trains, and watch development follow the tracks.

Gaddie is professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma and president of the Southwestern Political Science Association.

No one is disagreeing with Gaddie. We're just disagreeing with the location of the station. If you run the north-south line parallell to I-35, then the logical location for the hub is the site where the north-south and east-west lines intersect. And, if we're talking about light rail, since there are no lines, the east-west lines can go anywhere, including down our new boulevard that will replace the existing crosstown.

Multi-modal doesn't mean what T.E. says it means. It just means that multiple modes of transportaion exist at a single geographic point. A true multimodal station would have to combine rail, buses, waking/biking, automobile, etc. I did notice that Tom really loves that express mail thing. 2 sidings for it. To bad they are moving the main mail sorting facility out of Core to Shore. It is probably part of ODOT's master plan to ruin Union Station.

BTW - I do have one point of disagreement with the article. It should be free to ride. If the goal is to save the environment or get people off the road or whatever, then just make it free and get ridership to peak capacity. More people equals higher advertising rates to help off set the annual operating cost.

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

It costs a $1.10 to ride Trinity Rail Express from a radius of 10 miles out from downtown Dallas. That's the same cost as buying a bottle of Evian water with tax, or in most places outside of Oklahoma, a fourth the cost of a gallon of gas! Either way, that's nearly free.

The one time I road DART I got 3 tickets from a machine but did not find a turnstile to put the tickets into before I got on the train. Thought that was strange since I have ridden the subways in NYC, Washington, Chicago, London, Paris and Barcelona and they all have turnstiles of some sort. So I thought they must take your ticket on the train. Nobody ever took my ticket. I asked my brother in law who lives there about it later and he tells me that DART works on the honor system. So it seems to me that a lot of people don't even pay the 1.10 to ride. This has been a few years but I don't think the pay system has changed.

there are dart police that check every so often on the trains.

For $1.10 why even go through the hasel of dealing with cash at all. All of the work that has to go into collecting $1.00 just isn't worth it. Make the suburban station large enough to house about 10 business and collect rent plus a portion of sales. They could have Starbucks (or local coffe shop chain), Hallmark Store, Sundry Shop, McDonalds, flower shop, newsstand, a small bank, and similar type stores.

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

Modern Patriot Chronicles

An Eleventh Commandment Free Zone

Vol. 7, Issue 11

July 6, 2008

By Craig Dawkins

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See Candidate Websites!!!

BRENTRINEHART.NET

Jim Inhofe United States Senate

Welcome | Bob Barr for President of the United States

Welcome to the Stan Inman for County Clerk Homepage!

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TOM ELMORE WAS RIGHT

Imagine the year 2010. Oil per barrel hovers at around $200 and unleaded gas is $7 per gallon. That’s the projection of a recent study. How will your transportation habits change at $7 per gallon? Or do you completely deny the possibility of this scenario?

For many years, Tom Elmore has been pounding the table for the need of a passenger rail system. But when gas was under $2 per gallon, NO ONE wanted to listen. NO ONE believed there was a need for rail. NO ONE was concerned about mass transit because we had cars and cheap gas. I too ignored Elmore’s plea to pay attention to the option of passenger rail service. That is history people. Welcome to the new world. Tom Elmore was right.

At $7 dollars per gallon, the study predicts that over 12 million vehicles will be scrapped due to low fuel efficiency. New car sales will dramatically fall to new lows and will be dominated by small fuel efficient vehicles. We will start driving vehicles that look more European than American. Smaller cars are a reality. Americans will increasingly view mass transit as a viable transportation option more than ever.

And I predict it is not only large fuel hogging cars that will be in less demand, but also large 3000+ square foot homes that will suffer demand in the future as well. Big homes in the suburbs will be harder to sell. Homes closer to the large cities will increase in price. Cities that are isolated had better develop a survival plan now. Perhaps rural cities should foster destination based mass transit options to the major employers in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Shouldn’t we already be looking to construct high speed rail between Tulsa and Oklahoma City? I can already hear people shouting back rebuttal arguments. But shouldn’t we look to help promote a mass transit system that affords people the opportunity to travel in an economic environment of $7-8 per gallon fuel costs? Or should we just wait and hope for a magic solution?

Change is staring at us. Its nose is bumping against our faces. Ignoring reality is not an option. We must come to terms with the idea that we will be relying more on some form of mass transportation in the future. Not exclusively mass transit, but a significant amount of our transportation needs will be met with mass transit. How soon?

I get the sense that people are holding out for an alternative fuel believing that they will be able to maintain traditional American transportation habits. I hope they are correct. But alternatives are only alternatives because the current price of fuel is at a high level. I doubt the costs of a future fuel will fall to pre-Katrina levels in real or nominal terms.

So embrace change. Start planning now for much higher fuel prices. If I were an elected official today, I would look to fund the construction of high speed rail between Tulsa and Oklahoma City as a first step. The cost of building it will be high. The cost of delaying action on will be much higher.

There's no question we need better mass transit in this city and a link to Tulsa would be nice. Unfortunately our city leaders are not visionary enough to see this. I've heard Mayor Cornett personally on more than one occassion talk about gas would have to reach $20 a gallon before mass transit will be effective in this city. I think he's completely wrong saying that and he probably has realized that number is MUCH lower, but I have heard him say that on record more than once and he was serious about it.

A lot of newer transit system operate on the honor system, allowing cities to not have to build expensive entrance and exit type stations with turnstiles or access control gates. From classes I've taken, I've seen stats that suggest about 85% of patrons still pay the fare. The 15% loss in revenue does not warrant the construction of turnstile or ACG admission.

I don't see how a small automated vending machine is a hassle for collecting fares. Most stations have 3 to 6 of these machines that require little human interaction or maintenance. Also, many chronic riders just use a farecard that can be recharged or billed direct.

Most importantly, collecting a fare is more than just a means of recouping costs - studies (don't have a link yet) suggest that collecting some kind of fare, whether it's $0.25 or $1.10 reduces the amount of "free loaders" (homeless and kids) who sometimes joyride trains and buses for fun or to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Additionally, there is a negative perception, (much like the train is sexy, but buses are gross mentality) that "free" transit is somehow inept or unequipped to transport patrons efficiently and quickly.

Most "free zones" that seem to work, such as the downtown Portland circulatory or the downtown Denver mall shuttle benefit from small geographic areas, high volumes, limited immediate coverage, and physically smaller/shorter trains (easier for the driver or operator to monitor).

It seems to me that one problem with the present Core to Shore proposal is that it needs a real southern anchor, something that would bring lots of people. And nothing would do that like revitalizing Union Station exactly as Tom Elmore envisions it -- the hub of a multi-modal regional transportation system. Everywhere transit goes, development follows.

Four years ago I spent ten days in Rome. I stayed at a hotel close to the Termini Station. I was able to go anywhere I wanted thanks to the dense nexus of transportation options that centered on that station. No taxi or rental car was needed.

Regular shuttle buses or light rail lines could connect Union Station with Bricktown and other parts of downtown and the core to shore development.

I-40 Crosstown? Well, the original idea to put it in a ditch has fallen victim to the lack of proper engineering studies in advance. So why not elevate part of it so it runs over the existing rail network the present plan proposes to destroy? That way we can have our cake and eat it too -- a new freeway, which will be finished about the time gasoline makes it to $10/gallon, and a multi-modal transit center based on the intelligent and cost-effect adaptive reuse of heritage assets.

That way the construction could go forward. The way things stand now, there is no way that ODOT and BNSF can avoid a lengthy and drawn out abandonment proceeding, and the construction can't destroy the rail line until that proceeding has been finished and the STB has made its ruling. If I understand correctly, if a railroad wants to abandon a line, other railroad companies can apply to take it over. So once the hearing process gets started, there might be one or more railroad companies intrigued by the possibilities of serving the existing customers there and perhaps adding something radical like a place to load trucks onto trains. UPS isn't so very far away from this area, after all, and with the price diesel, they might be very interested in that service.

Two facts that are know to all mankind - but denied by some.

1. Union Station is in the wrong location for a central multimodal hub.
2. Seattle doesn't have an NBA quality arena.

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

Again, we're talking heavy rail at union station, folks. If you want light rail, it's going to have to be added. Why not put light rail where people want it to go, and avoid all the buses? I don't want to wait for a train, then sit on that train for 20 minutes, and then wait for a bus that will take me where I really want to go. You've heard the horror stories about the trollies? Imagine having a train ride precede your wait for the second mode of transportation you will have to take.

^ For any transit system to work, buses are essential. Especially in the radial hub and spoke system required for Oklahoma City. As residential patterns change, so too can bus routes. Many people across the country utilize two-mode commuting, whether its kiss n' rides, park n' rides, bus and train, or heavy and light.

Heavy rail is not an option for Oklahoma City, the cost is too substantial. Commuter, BRT, or LRT is the appropriate choice.

BTW, since I don't have the time to read every post in this thread, what are some alternative locations for a inter-modal hub?

Heavy rail is the only thing that exists at Union Station. That's my point. I think we need light rail, and it would have to be added there. I think it's an out of the way location. If we were going to do a hub, I would think it should be at the intersection of a north-south line and an east west line. That's the most logical place for it, IMO. I've heard suggestions that the north-south line follow I-35, although I'd love to see a way for it to go down either the Broadway extension or Classen. I'd like to see an intermodal hub just south of Bricktown or the Ford Center, closer to downtown, so that people could get off closer to their destination. Also, since we're going to have a boulevard there (I hope), that's an ideal location for east-west light rail, IMO.

I know its a little off topic but does someone have an indebth plan of the crosstown relocation. and where does union station fit into that plan?

I was driving on I40 eastbound the other day and they had numerous support beams going up just before you get to the 235 interchange.

Ideally, light rail can be placed within exsiting heavy rail right of ways for part or all of its length. BDP has proposed a very good rail system recently. A good central location for a multi-modal hub is along the BNSF right of way south of Santa Fe station. As an added advantage, it can adjoin the station and link local light rail with interstate amtrak rail.