Union Station - Transit Discussions

[Tom Elmore]

The state of the existing Crosstown is ODOT's problem. They have cultivated and nurtured that problem now for many, many years, with the inexplicable support and protection of officials at several levels of government.

I'd suggest they fix the current structure, ASAP, and move on to some of the rest of the disastrous mess they've made of the state road system over the last 30 years. They might want to "put some bumpers on the piers of bridges over navigable rivers" and a few seemingly-common-sense things like that -- along with meeting some of the more obvious road-system needs.

Those of us who've urged a more rational course in the matter of the downtown I-40 segment over the last fifteen years have the same message for ODOT and its co-dependent facilitators today as always: As far as we're concerned, OKC Union Station's rail yard is not negotiable.

Intelligent, conservative reuse and careful maintenance of existing assets is plainly a large part of the answer to the trouble we now face. Of course, that would mean a complete "culture change" at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

Why would responsible citizens accept any less?

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

[betts]

This citizen wants I-40 moved, not repaired. I personally am more interested in the revitalization of downtown than preservation of a railroad line in an imperfect location that is not even wanted by it's current owner OR the city. I consider myself a responsible citizen who is interested in Oklahoma City moving beyond what it has been in the past, who is interested in our city becoming a beautiful place where people not only want to live, but where people not living here would like to relocate to. The Crosstown is too small, dangerous and an eyesore. It needs to go.

[jbrown84]

Well said Betts.

Mr. Elmore's time would be better spent pushing for light rail and commuter rail, something actually attainable.

[SouthsideSooner]

Right on, Betts.

Tom is fighting for the wrong cause and all he's doing is causing further delays and driving up the price on the new crosstown.

[CuatrodeMayo]

Good job on avoiding PJ's question, Mr. Elmore.

[jbrown84]

No surprise there.



There's only a couple possible answers...

[Tom Elmore]

Both the north-south BNSF Red Rock Subdivision line and the east-west lines are important to strategic intrastate and interstate connections. All will be needed.

OKC now has a choice -- which probably won't be on the table long -- to be a mere "stop" along regional lines centered elsewhere -- or to be the regional hub, itself. For that purpose, Union Station is the ideal -- and critical -- starting point.

Ready interchange was always possible between the north-south Santa Fe line and the east-west lines during the days of commercial passenger services. The paths of most of these interchanges still exist.

However, fast, through-access to Union Station yard for north-south trains is now more in reach than before, and would be absolutely required for passenger trains originating in Chicago or Houston but turning toward Tulsa / St. Louis or Lawton/Texas at Oklahoma City.

The opportunity to establish ourselves as the regional center for urgently needed rail development, and in the doing, establishing Oklahoma as the technological center for "advanced surface transport" is here, today.

Are any of our leaders willing to see it?

TOM ELMORE

[CuatrodeMayo]

Tom: I always thought you were advocating light rail.

Long distance rail?

[betts]

So, we're discussing national passenger traffic? I don't really care if we're the regional center for "urgently needed rail development". I thought we were discussing local needs for light rail and mass transportation? And why wouldn't the Amtrack station be a better option? It could be extended north and south, could go up more floors, it's still more centrally located, and it's already on a used passenger line.

[kevinpate]

Isn't part of the disagreement here tied into whether folks are talking about Union Station's fit as an inner city transport hub, or talking instead of Union Station's fit as a regional hub for commerce and also hanfdling local peep movement?

Sorry to be dense, but I've spent way, way more time the last few weeks with grandbaby play than transport matters, so I profess to being somewhat confused. However, I readily also concede being confused due to deliberate inattention has been absolutely fantastic.

[BoulderSooner]

Union station lines are DEAD .. this will only delay the new cross town and cost of city a few mil extra dollars ..

the I 40 cross town is not "Odots problem" .. it is our entire states problem ..

and union station as a regional transport hud .. you are the one not liking what you are hearing ..

[Tom Elmore]

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

[betts]

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.

[jbrown84]

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.

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

[kevinpate]

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.

[betts]

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.

[jbrown84]

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.

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?

[blangtang]

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.

[jbrown84]

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.

[Tom Elmore]

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.

[betts]

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.

[Kerry]

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.

[OKCisOK4me]

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.

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.

[CCOKC]

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.

[edcrunk]

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