Quote Originally Posted by Spartan View Post
Well, I don't know about that. Crime is a relative boogeyman. I can say that MWC did some very proactive municipal planning to land the town center and some "downtown MWC" development. I'm definitely not knocking MWC, which in my opinion has done a better job than most of OKC's suburbs, which has kept it stable with some capacity for growth.

The reality is just that it developed in the "wrong direction" and ahead of its time, both due to proximity to Tinker. There are a lot of very high incomes at Tinker that drive through MWC daily, and have a choice to consider living there and taking the congested freeways out of their commutes. Most don't and instead live in Moore or Edmond, but nonetheless many do.

I think that this rail project can be a huge benefit to MWC and that area of the metro, but for the greater good of the GOCART system, I'm not sure it should be the first phase. Norman-to-Edmond has the potential to be a wildly successful line depending on the alignment and operation. I'm confident that they can do it right. Either way I don't mean to discourage anyone trying to improve MWC, which is working.
My understanding is that Phase 1 of expansion includes all of the above:

North: Route 1 - Commuter Rail via BNSF to Edmond [$360M/$5M/1,970 :: High-end Capital Cost/O&M/Daily Ridership]
Route 3 - Street Car via Classen to 63rd/Classen (Hopefully to a similar station as Route 1) [$830M/$3.5M/3,300]

South: Route 2 - Commuter Rail via BNSF [$410M/$5.5M/3,060]

East: Route 4 - Street Car via Reno+Old Rail ROW [$440M/$2.5M/2,260]

Totals: $2.04B Capital Cost, $16.5M O&M,10.6k Daily Ridership