Streetcar

[Oil Capital]

This article is why I laugh at people who say it can't be done today. With a population of just 65,000 there had been 54,000,000 trips and a peak of 192 trains a day.

You're exaggerating a bit. The 54,000,000 trips was for both the interurban and the street cars and covered a period of 42 years. The 65,000 population you quote was for just Oklahoma City in 1911. The interurban system served more than just Oklahoma City, including Guthrie, El Reno and Norman. Further, by 1944, the end of the period during which the 54,000,000 commutes had been accumulated, OKC's population was over 200,000.

Further, we need to add a bit of perspective to the 54,000,000 commutes. The quoted number of trips sounds huge, of course, but it covers 42 years. So it averages just 1.29 million trips per year -- 24,725 trips per week. Fewer than 5,000 trips per work day. That means fewer than 2,500 people using the system per average work day (allowing for zero usage on non-work days).

The "success" of street cars and interurbans in those years (and it did eventually fail, after all) by no means proves that a rail system would be succcessful in 21st century OKC.

[metro]

The next MAPS 3 Streetcar/Transit Subcommittee meeting is:

January 25th, Wednesday
3:30 PM
420 Main (10th Floor Conference Room)

Jeff, as of now, when is the earliest we will see the first tracks laid?

[BoulderSooner]

Jeff, as of now, when is the earliest we will see the first tracks laid?

late 2014 early 2015

[Just the facts]

You're exaggerating a bit. The 54,000,000 trips was for both the interurban and the street cars and covered a period of 42 years. The 65,000 population you quote was for just Oklahoma City in 1911. The interurban system served more than just Oklahoma City, including Guthrie, El Reno and Norman. Further, by 1944, the end of the period during which the 54,000,000 commutes had been accumulated, OKC's population was over 200,000.

Further, we need to add a bit of perspective to the 54,000,000 commutes. The quoted number of trips sounds huge, of course, but it covers 42 years. So it averages just 1.29 million trips per year -- 24,725 trips per week. Fewer than 5,000 trips per work day. That means fewer than 2,500 people using the system per average work day (allowing for zero usage on non-work days).

The "success" of street cars and interurbans in those years (and it did eventually fail, after all) by no means proves that a rail system would be succcessful in 21st century OKC.

The story wasn't written clearly but I think it is 54,000,000 trips per year at peak - not cumulative. I base this on other stories of similar sized cities that did make it clear the 50 million range was annual peak.

For example, despite having a much smaller population and a less robust system, Tampa peaked at 24 million riders per year.

Tampa's first electric streetcars were introduced in 1892. The streetcar reached its peak of popularity in the 1920s. In 1926, almost 24 million passengers were carried.

Even Jacksonville which was barely populated in 1930 and much more concentrated peaked at 5.2 million riders per year.

At its peak in 1930, over 100,000 residents rode the 65 miles of streetcar track weekly. Remnants can be found near downtown and in Avondale.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/lett...#ixzz1jujqVUIX

[mcca7596]

late 2014 early 2015

But there's probably another year after that until procurement of the cars and the system becomes operational I believe.

[Oil Capital]

The story wasn't written clearly but I think it is 54,000,000 trips per year at peak - not cumulative. I base this on other stories of similar sized cities that did make it clear the 50 million range was annual peak.

For example, despite having a much smaller population and a less robust system, Tampa peaked at 24 million riders per year.



Even Jacksonville which was barely populated in 1930 and much more concentrated peaked at 5.2 million riders per year.

Barely populated? Jax had 130,000 people in 1930. Interesting data. Here is another link with different data for OKC.
http://www.retrometrookc.org/the-george-winn-collection

I still contend these numbers have little meaning for us in the 21st century.

[Just the facts]

I stand corrected - still not bad numbers though.

http://www.retrometrookc.org/the-george-winn-collection

The system continued to growth through the early 1920s, with ridership peaking at 25.5 million in 1920. The city’s population that year totaled 91,000, which, if broken down by just locals, averages out to 280 rides for every man, woman and child.

[Tier2City]

Agenda and packet for this Wednesday afternoon's transit subcommittee meeting have just been published at http://okc.gov/AgendaPub/mtgviewer.a...doctype=AGENDA.

Looks like a lot to digest in the presentation on ADG's review of Core to Shore.

[king183]

This concerns me. From the report:

Modern Streetcar

Findings:
• There was general concern among stakeholders interviewed that the
transit component of the MAPS 3 program needs additional study and
planning. Questions that were raised include:
- What is the market for transit?
- What is the demand?
- How will it connect employment centers and housing?
- What is the rider profile? Who is this transit serving?
- How can transit in Oklahoma City be leveraged to spur high
quality development?
• There was concern among interviewed stakeholders about possible
streetscape clutter created by an overhead wire system.

Have these issues not already been addressed/studies? Why are they coming up in this report, in this context, if they have? It concerns me that someone is attempting to set the stage for a scaling down of the streetcar.

[OKCisOK4me]

OMG!!! Its the attack of the wires! Geez... who brought up these crap questions??

[Just the facts]

OMG!!! Its the attack of the wires! Geez... who brought up these crap questions??

Devon.

It is pretty clear we have two streetcar committees. One is called Streetcar Committee and one is called Convention Center Committee. I'll let you guess which of these two came up with these nuggets.

A consultant should be hired to study and verify the most viable route based on all relevant factors including potential economic development impact

Options for powering the streetcar without wires should also be investigated.

[ljbab728]

This is no surprise but brings it closer to reality. It sounds like it may be a fairly painless process between agreeable parties.

http://newsok.com/board-says-oklahom...rticle/3643914

[Urban Pioneer]

Great article! I will be posting an audio recording of the MAPS 3 Transit Subcommittee meeting once the levels are mastered.

[Urban Pioneer]

http://soundcloud.com/moderntransitp...maps-3-transit

[Steve]

xxx

[Urban Pioneer]

Can't thank you enough Jeff for taking the time to record and post this. Really appreciate it!

There is a TON of relevant information about what the planners and "stakeholders" think about C2S, the Convention Center, the Boulevard, and the Central Park that happened at this meeting.

It was a great meeting to record I intend to try to do it for all of our meetings.

[Hutch]

Wow...where to start.

I attended the MAPS 3 Transit Subcommittee meeting on Wednesday mainly to be there when they voted to recommend the acquisition of Santa Fe for the new hub, which took place near the end of the meeting. I had no idea that the controversy over a so-called MAPS 3 Limited Core-to-Shore "Study" would completely dominant the meeting and overshadow that vote. Everyone interested in transit and the Modern Streetcar project should listen to the audio recording of the meeting while looking at the ADG slide presentation on the "study" that is available for download on the City website...I think someone placed a link to the document earlier.

A few observations and questions on my part:

1) Mike Mize of ADG admitted when questioned by the committee that the "study" was actually just one-on-one interviews with a select few "stakeholders" in Core-to-Shore and MAPS 3 conducted and completed in just 36 hours.

2) After questioning by the committee as to who these "stakeholders" were, Mr. Mize read the names of those involved. You can listen for yourself as to who those were.

3) Mr. Mize stated the purpose of the "study" was to assess the impact of MAPS 3 projects on the Core-to-Shore Plan to determine if it remained viable. The "study" looked at the Park, Boulevard, Convention Center and Modern Streetcar components of MAPS 3.

4) The summary slides for the Park, Boulevard and Convention Center provide mostly supportive comments from the "stakeholders" about how the projects will benefit Core-to-Shore, with a few relevant concerns also expressed. Those summaries contained no overreaching questions as to the overall validity of the MAPS 3 projects themselves.

5) The summary slide for the Modern Streetcar containes no supportive comments whatsoever as to how the streetcar could benefit Core-to-Shore. Instead, as previously pointed out, a number of general questions were posed that appear to question the validity of transit in general and which had nothing to do with Core-to-Shore or the so-called purpose of the "study".

6) The recommendations for the Modern Streetcar call for hiring a consutlant to undertake additional studies to answer questions that have for the most part already been thoroughly answered through an extensive 2-year Alternatives Analysis process involving a detailed technical review by Jacobs Engineering, extensive public and stakeholder input into that process, and simultaneous coordinated efforts with the Transit Subcommittee.

7) An additional comments slide near the end of the presentation specifically mentions that the "stakeholders" noted that the Core-to-Shore Plan needed additional focus on the linkage between Midtown, Downtown, Bricktown and the various MAPS 3 components. However, nowhere in the Modern Streetcar summary or elsewhere in the study is there any comment or acknowlegement that one of the primary goals, purposes and values of the Modern Streetcar is to do just that

8) At least one committee member from Park and Convention Center were mentioned as "stakeholders" who were interviewed. However, Mr. Mize told the committee that they were unable to make their schedule for the "study" work to allow Transit Committee Chair Nathaniel Harding provide comments for the "study". When asked by the committee why ADG did not then try to interview Vice-Chair Zane Boatright or another committe member, Mr. Mize provided no good reason.

9) There were a couple of individuals mentioned on the "stakeholder" list that I am personally familiar with and who I know are well acquainted with and support the Modern Streetcar project and transit on the whole. It was hard for me to believe that if the "study" was legitimate how those persons could not have provided very positive and supportive comments about the Modern Streetcar. So I called them yesterday and asked about their interviews. They had no recollection of being asked about their thoughts on the Modern Streetcar or transit, or of providing comments on the project, let alone raising the kind of questions that ended up in the summary for the Modern Streetcar.

As far as the Modern Streetcar, this was clearly not a "study" at all, but a hastily prepared, purposefully limited, biased summary of the personal opinions of a select few individuals with little or no knowledge of the Modern Streetcar project or transit in general.

So, just who was it that raised those questions about the Modern Streetcar and transit?

And who was it that made the decision to include nothing more than those questions and other negative "stakeholder" conerns in the Modern Streetar portion of the "study"?

And for what purpose?

Disturbing to say the least.

[Pete]

This whole survey/study thing is very bizarre.

Who commissioned it in the first place? It's exact purpose was not clear and the execution was extremely poor.

To ask a bunch of questions about the streetcar -- or any part of MAPS3 -- at this juncture is utterly silly as everything has already been approved and is years down the road. I don't blame the subcommittee members for not wanting it circulated because the whole thing is negative and counter-productive.

[Jchaser405]

I just finished listening to the recording. First Thanks Urban so much for posting it. I am amazed at the lack of consideration from the "stakeholder" for the sub-committees recommendations. From listening you can tell the committee is VERY knowledgeable about the subject and have indeed spent years researching and forming their recommendations.
I do hope they pursue the "3D rendering" of the route to help less knowledgeable individuals like myself visualize and get more involved with the project.

[Jchaser405]

Is this the proposed route the committee spoke of?

[kevinpate]

... It's exact purpose was not clear and the execution was extremely poor. ...

It's fairly clear.
Some folk do not support the streetcar, and they are not without substantial influence. You don't get your own 'survey' acting like the project is a square one open question otherwise.

Stuff like this is why those who were dead set opposed to a blank check ballot with some pretty off-ballot ideas were majorly skeptical back around election time. It's also why some folk held their noses and hoped for the best. Hope isn't lost, but from a country boy perspective, there do seem to be some foxes standing sentry duty over by the hen house.

[BoulderSooner]

Is this the proposed route the committee spoke of?

no

the route is described in this post http://www.okctalk.com/showthread.ph...121#post419121

only the central and north half have been "decided" (pending engineering)

north up robinson (from reno) west on 11th to dewey North on dewey to 13th east on 13th to broadway south on broadway to sheridan west on sheridan to EKG

the southern and eastern part of the route will be decided at upcomming transit meetings .. (into bricktown)

[Snowman]

Is this the proposed route the committee spoke of?

Getting all the way to the OU Medical Center or State Capital would require Federal funding to supplement our own at this time, we did not get the TIGER grant which might have made that possible. I believe the other one they applied for is to help pay for modifications to EK Gaylord, it has not been decided on yet, but they heard feedback that they needed to make some modifications to it because as the application currently is they would not get it either.

[mcca7596]

Getting all the way to the OU Medical Center or State Capital would require Federal funding to supplement our own at this time, we did not get the TIGER grant which might have made that possible. I believe the other one they applied for is to help pay for modifications to EK Gaylord, it has not been decided on yet, but they heard feedback that they needed to make some modifications to it because as the application currently is they would not get it either.

I thought the denied TIGER grant was to do work on the hub, and that an application for federal funds for additional rail would not be applied for until the first phase opened up?

[BoulderSooner]

I thought the denied TIGER grant was to do work on the hub, and that an application for federal funds for additional rail would not be applied for until the first phase opened up?

you are correct and the federal "process" is ongoing .. currently with the NEPA study for which we got a federal grant