Core to Shore

[HOT ROD]

I personally think people are getting too cute with regard to all of this hybrid naming of things. Streetcar is a streetcar, Light Rail is light rail. There is a difference in the two, and as someone who has ridden both and whose city has both - I can attest there are major differences, most of which come from capacity and transit times.

It is rather stupid IMO to build a Streetcar/Tram longer than a 5 mile journey, because of the nature of Streetcar (frequent stops, small capacity). Streetcar is basically one step above a bus, the benefit of which it shares with LRT in that the rails are fixed. But it is what it is, and Streetcar has too many stops and too small of vehicles to be considered for long distance or 'metro' type of operations. Who would want to be on a Streetcar for the duration of NWX into downtown - something that most likely would take over one hour given the stops and likely would be a white elephant given the headways.

this is why I say, just plan for the NWX to be light rail. LRT will be cheaper in OKC anyways, and with LRT you can plan for a 'metro' like system with stops every mile. If you all are afraid that OKC will not fill up a Light Rail train, then just use one car/pair instead of running hour long Streetcar runs.

If you're going to have limited stops along NWX (say, every mile - which makes sense), then you might as well do it as LRT. NWX and Classen are 'classic' LRT corridors with traffic separation you can run trains in the median and be able to have 'shorter' trip durations using 'higher' capacity LRT cars and less frequent stops (say 1 mile along NWX, major destination hubs/streets in the inner city).

Streetcar is a great idea for downtown and the inner city, given the frequent stops and short distances. But over the 3 mile trip threshold, Streetcar starts to lose its appeal. This may all be speculation, but I think it is important for the city to plan for an overall transit network. And we need to capitalize on technology that exists and use the best of whats out there for our needs and not "force" technology to do extended service just because we are scared about usage and/or cost.

In the long run, I think 'Rapid' Streetcar would fail - because its name 'rapid' is a misnomer. Streetcar by definition and design is ALREADY rapid, and what the 'Rapid Streetcar' people are really pitching is "Extended/Long Range Streetcar" - which by nature will fail (small cars/low capacity, long distances, lengthy headways, frequent stops). It would be a waste.

[Urban Pioneer]

I personally think people are getting too cute with regard to all of this hybrid naming of things. Streetcar is a streetcar, Light Rail is light rail. There is a difference in the two, and as someone who has ridden both and whose city has both - I can attest there are major differences, most of which come from capacity and transit times.

It is rather stupid IMO to build a Streetcar/Tram longer than a 5 mile journey, because of the nature of Streetcar (frequent stops, small capacity). Streetcar is basically one step above a bus, the benefit of which it shares with LRT in that the rails are fixed. But it is what it is, and Streetcar has too many stops and too small of vehicles to be considered for long distance or 'metro' type of operations. Who would want to be on a Streetcar for the duration of NWX into downtown - something that most likely would take over one hour given the stops and likely would be a white elephant given the headways.

this is why I say, just plan for the NWX to be light rail. LRT will be cheaper in OKC anyways, and with LRT you can plan for a 'metro' like system with stops every mile. If you all are afraid that OKC will not fill up a Light Rail train, then just use one car/pair instead of running hour long Streetcar runs.

If you're going to have limited stops along NWX (say, every mile - which makes sense), then you might as well do it as LRT. NWX and Classen are 'classic' LRT corridors with traffic separation you can run trains in the median and be able to have 'shorter' trip durations using 'higher' capacity LRT cars and less frequent stops (say 1 mile along NWX, major destination hubs/streets in the inner city).

Streetcar is a great idea for downtown and the inner city, given the frequent stops and short distances. But over the 3 mile trip threshold, Streetcar starts to lose its appeal. This may all be speculation, but I think it is important for the city to plan for an overall transit network. And we need to capitalize on technology that exists and use the best of whats out there for our needs and not "force" technology to do extended service just because we are scared about usage and/or cost.

In the long run, I think 'Rapid' Streetcar would fail - because its name 'rapid' is a misnomer. Streetcar by definition and design is ALREADY rapid, and what the 'Rapid Streetcar' people are really pitching is "Extended/Long Range Streetcar" - which by nature will fail (small cars/low capacity, long distances, lengthy headways, frequent stops). It would be a waste.

I understand what you are saying and don't disagree with it. However, the technologies have blended together somewhat over the past 5 years to be more cost effective.

So the question that I was stressing was we might feel that NW Exp deserves "true" Light Rail, but should the MAPS streetcar sections be an early investment allowing for such a future extension? If so, "Dart" type rail prep would cause the streetcar infrastructure to cost more. If you believe that a bigger/slight heavier streetcar could serve those future needs, it would allow you to spend less on heavier rail as part of this Phase 1 project.

Not to get into semantics or a debate, but it is something that we intend to study. Obviously the future passenger load is the question.