I think they made the claim because the line was not active past a certain point. They happened to use the line once to store cars and a picture was taken. It's hardly a reason to call it an "active" line.

That's one account of the situation.

-- and doesn't that constitute use? I'm sure there's all kinds of law on that for people who have the time/energy/money to search the relevant databases.

That's one account of the situation.

-- and doesn't that constitute use? I'm sure there's all kinds of law on that for people who have the time/energy/money to search the relevant databases.

IF that constitutes "use", then the law and/or the definition is ridiculous.

IF that constitutes "use", then the law and/or the definition is ridiculous.

Law often doesn't make any damned sense.

If it did, you wouldn't need to hire lawyers.

Law often doesn't make any damned sense.

If it did, you wouldn't need to hire lawyers.

:bow:

KOKH FOX 25 :: Top Stories (http://www.okcfox.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/kokh_vid_2365.shtml)

There are always a few people stuck in time and/or overly impressed with their own opinions or perspective of "reality" who stand clearly in the way of constructive progress. Their constant petitioning and posturing serve no constructive purpose, and indeed add delay and cost to processes and action that better serve the public.

OKC needs the I-40 relocation. It is an unsafe road. Some posters and activists would rather see people killed, untold hours of drive wasted, and lots of tax payer's money spent rather than abandon their own narrow opinion. Instead of tilting with windmills, they should get on to productive activity forwarding the cause for our citizenry.

No one has been killed on that stretch of I-40. If there was any real danger of that, traffic should have already been rerouted (at least trucks) to I-240. Since this hasn't happened, it's doubtful that anyone will be killed.

Has everyone seen Austin Powers? Remember the scene where Robin Swallows and Austin get hit with a bazooka, they fall out of one of the top floors of the hotel, he lands on top of her, Patty O'Brien shoots at the both of them, Austin uses her as a shield and Austin then says to Robin "Why won't you die!"? That is how I feel about this thread. Why won't it die!!!!

Regardless of whether or not it's an unsafe road, it's definitely an unsightly road, and I believe Oklahoma City, as a city, has far more to gain by implementing Core to Shore than by saving space for people from Lawton and Shawnee to theoretically some day desire (in very large numbers?) to take the train to Oklahoma City daily.

Yes, we need to decrease out dependence on foreign and other types of oil, but let's be frank. The majority of anyone's driving is done locally. That includes people who live in Shawnee, Lawton, etc. We're not going to be saving massive amounts of oil by providing a very expensive way for a few people a day to travel to Oklahoma City. If we're going to work on decreasing emissions and saving oil, we all need to deal with it on a local basis. That may include trains of some form, but buses, especially those that utilize natural gas, are as reasonable a plan as any. That particular rail line, and especially Union Station, have very little to do with transit in Oklahoma City and reduction in consumption of oil.

No one is talking about not doing the crosstown.

At least not me.

Just move it a few feet to the south.

. . . by saving space for people from Lawton and Shawnee to theoretically some day desire (in very large numbers?) to take the train to Oklahoma City daily.

Yes, we need to decrease out dependence on foreign and other types of oil, but let's be frank. The majority of anyone's driving is done locally. That includes people who live in Shawnee, Lawton, etc. We're not going to be saving massive amounts of oil by providing a very expensive way for a few people a day to travel to Oklahoma City. If we're going to work on decreasing emissions and saving oil, we all need to deal with it on a local basis. That may include trains of some form, but buses, especially those that utilize natural gas, are as reasonable a plan as any. That particular rail line, and especially Union Station, have very little to do with transit in Oklahoma City and reduction in consumption of oil.

I-40 westbound, coming in from Shawnee, has a lot of cars every weekday morning. Some percentage of those would gladly take commuter rail if it were available, and spend that time doing something other than gripping a steering wheel. Since the traffic radio mentions wrecks on I-35 coming through Moore more days than not, I can only presume that flow is even worse.

With gas at $2 a gallon, we would fill up two trains each way easily. When gas gets to $10 a gallon, we had better have the bugs worked out and more trainsets on order.

regardless of whether or not it's an unsafe road, it's definitely an unsightly road, and i believe oklahoma city, as a city, has far more to gain by implementing core to shore than by saving space for people from lawton and shawnee to theoretically some day desire (in very large numbers?) to take the train to oklahoma city daily.


that's a great sentence!

I-40 westbound, coming in from Shawnee, has a lot of cars every weekday morning. Some percentage of those would gladly take commuter rail if it were available, and spend that time doing something other than gripping a steering wheel. Since the traffic radio mentions wrecks on I-35 coming through Moore more days than not, I can only presume that flow is even worse.

With gas at $2 a gallon, we would fill up two trains each way easily. When gas gets to $10 a gallon, we had better have the bugs worked out and more trainsets on order.

Numbers? I seriously doubt people will take the train if they can only travel to OKC twice a day and return twice a day. I wouldn't. The only way that is going to work is if we've got regular service, probably every half hour. Perhaps when gas is $10 a gallon, people might be desperate enough to wait half an hour to hours for a scheduled train. And how many of those people are actually heading to downtown, or a place they can access from downtown? Again, people love the concept of rail, and I love the concept too, but it's got to be practical and cost effective. I don't want to spend millions and millions of city tax dollars that could be spent on Oklahoma City itself so a few hundred people from Shawnee can save two gallons of gas a day.

I-40 westbound, coming in from Shawnee, has a lot of cars every weekday morning. Some percentage of those would gladly take commuter rail if it were available, and spend that time doing something other than gripping a steering wheel. Since the traffic radio mentions wrecks on I-35 coming through Moore more days than not, I can only presume that flow is even worse.

With gas at $2 a gallon, we would fill up two trains each way easily. When gas gets to $10 a gallon, we had better have the bugs worked out and more trainsets on order.

yes in 2150 when gas is at 10 bucks a gallon .. we should have a plan ready ..

http://newsok.com/railing-again-train-zealots-never-tire-of-complaining/article/3366467?custom_click=headlines_widget

JetTrain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetTrain)
Bombardier Jet Train (http://www.trackwalker.ca/Train/JetTrain/JT_frameset.htm)
TGVweb - Acela Express (http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/acela.html#trainset)

The links above this paragraph offer an outline implying the possibilities with existing, operational technology for starting truly competitive rail service on conventional rail lines like the one between OKC and Tulsa.

The technology is operational -- but has been frustrated in deployment in the US, likely due to the domination of highway / petroleum lobby politics.

Trains like these could be operating between OKC and Tulsa and other markets nearly immediately -- and speeds and frequency increased as infrastructure upgrades permit. The trains themselves would create the public support for their own development. A start is what's required -- therefore, a start is what has been denied Oklahomans.

By the way -- if new orders for this equipment came, a new manufacturing plant would likely be needed. How about in Oklahoma?

JetTrain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetTrain)
Bombardier Jet Train (http://www.trackwalker.ca/Train/JetTrain/JT_frameset.htm)
TGVweb - Acela Express (http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/acela.html#trainset)

The links above this paragraph offer an outline implying the possibilities with existing, operational technology for starting truly competitive rail service on conventional rail lines like the one between OKC and Tulsa.

The technology is operational -- but has been frustrated in deployment in the US, likely due to the domination of highway / petroleum lobby politics.

Trains like these could be operating between OKC and Tulsa and other markets nearly immediately -- and speeds and frequency increased as infrastructure upgrades permit. The trains themselves would create the public support for their own development. A start is what's required -- therefore, a start is what has been denied Oklahomans.

By the way -- if new orders for this equipment came, a new manufacturing plant would likely be needed. How about in Oklahoma?

I just want to know when you're going to answer Steve's questions...

The trains themselves would create the public support for their own development.

Do you really believe this?

I promise I am not trying to be facetious. When I think of trains, I think LOUD. Loud, cumbersome and inconvenient. The only fully operational train system I have been around was in DC, but I was not impressed. I would certainly never choose to live in a neighborhood adjacent to a train track.

I recently took a survey about transportion and commuting that proposed several options for a suburban resident's commute downtown to work. Just thinking about driving to a train stop, paying the equivalent of 2 - 4 gallons of gas to ride each day, and then still looking forward to a bit of a walk in all weather from the train stop downtown to my office... it just doesn't not appeal to me in the least. How about a bus ride instead? Same issues, maybe less cost.

I know you love trains. Adore trains!! You have great enthusiasm for them. But I don't think you realize that most of the rest of us just don't get that excited about them.

Please give me a 30-50+ mpg efficient and clean personal vehicle, instead of still driving to the train stop, waiting waiting waiting, riding alongside throngs of strangers as a vulnerable tiny person, and then hiking to the office in the rain/heat/snow.

Do you really believe this?
Just thinking about driving to a train stop, paying the equivalent of 2 - 4 gallons of gas to ride each day, and then still looking forward to a bit of a walk in all weather from the train stop downtown to my office... it just doesn't not appeal to me in the least. How about a bus ride instead?

Okay, but you have to think of future circumstances. In 15-20 years, is gas going to still be ?$?/gallon what you're talking about now (on average $1.90)? It could very well be back up to $3.89, like it was before the economy crashed or because of worries in short supply, it could skyrocket to $10. You're not going to be paying anywhere from $6-$40 a day to ride a commuter train regardless.

Whether it is $1 or $10, I cannot envision paying for the INCONVENIENCE of a train commute. Even in DC, I preferred a bit of gridlock in my commute to an inconvenient and complicated (and kind of stinky) train. This is just my non-scientific subjective opinion... but one I think the majority may share. Looking at the cost projections on light rail - how would we ever generate enough ridership to support the expense? Our metro population is very low density and to date our traffic problems are next to nil.

Whether it is $1 or $10, I cannot envision paying for the INCONVENIENCE of a train commute. Even in DC, I preferred a bit of gridlock in my commute to an inconvenient and complicated (and kind of stinky) train. This is just my non-scientific subjective opinion... but one I think the majority may share. Looking at the cost projections on light rail - how would we ever generate enough ridership to support the expense? Our metro population is very low density and to date our traffic problems are next to nil.

I understand what you mean. I'm a rail buff. Not enough to be on the same side as crazy ol' Tom Elmore himself, but enough to think that rail transit in one form or another would be nice for the Oklahoma City Metro area.

The DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) has a ridership of 71,000 per day. The MSA of Dallas/FTW is 6.3 million. That's 1.1% of the population.

That 1.1% of OKC MSA would be approximately 13,200 people for ridership in our metro area. I'm with you on the fact that this is a pipe dream, and I don't exactly see it happening until fairly later in my lifetime (and I'm 31) if it ever does happen.

I do know that we can't just use a city like Dallas to compare to because Charlotte, NC, has a light rail system and it too is fairly popular. Their MSA is +500,000 strong compared to ours.

The way I see it is it's just another avenue for transportation & I think the reason people would ride it is because it's a direct link unlike our city's bus system (nightmare...ugh). And also the fact that, if gas does skyrocket, a lot more people than those that don't use a car already are going to be interested in getting that direct link.

Fifty years from now? Who knows. OKC is going to have to have a lot more downtown to attract the crowds from all ways, whether it be a future hopes of Maps 3, Core to Shore, or some other kind of future developments.

Salt Lake City is smaller than OKC and it has light rail. Seems to be popular there, but I don't know their numbers.

julieriggs wrote:

Whether it is $1 or $10, I cannot envision paying for the INCONVENIENCE of a train commute. Even in DC, I preferred a bit of gridlock in my commute to an inconvenient and complicated (and kind of stinky) train. This is just my non-scientific subjective opinion... but one I think the majority may share. Looking at the cost projections on light rail - how would we ever generate enough ridership to support the expense? Our metro population is very low density and to date our traffic problems are next to nil.
____________________________

Part of the value of a high quality, parallel transit system is to regularly accomodate those who would rather not drive but now have no choice, and to simply offer the choice, itself, to all others. As W. Edwards Deming noted in his last book, THE NEW ECONOMICS, "wasn't America supposed to be about choice?"

How can the power of market competition work if there is no competition -- and how can there be competition if there are no competitors?

Would the automobile industry and every business that goes with it have to work harder, or not, to compete, to build innovative, quality products at reasonable prices, if most urban and suburban dwellers, and perhaps others, had the choice not to drive at all, or to leave their cars in park-and-ride lots at commuter and interurban rail stops near their homes on any given day?

Be certain that General Motors and its partners didn't buy up and liquidate the nation's widespread electric trolley lines in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, facilities that played a pivotal role in central Oklahoma and many other places in winning the homefront battles of WWII, because it "wanted to compete" or "wanted Americans to have a choice." It did so because it wanted to dominate -- and, today, for better or worse, it does.

While I hope that you, yourself, will be eternally young and forever champing at the bit to brave street and highway traffic, wind in your hair, laughing like Captain Blood in derisive defiance as you joust with the trucks, the drunks, the deer, the baby ducks, the opossums, the racoons, the stray dogs, the panhandlers, the speedtraps and the construction zones in your own automobile, increasing numbers of Americans no longer do that comfortably. And just imagine how much more transcendent your ecstatic daily communion (I hope you have at least a little sense of humor) with steel, rubber, rich Corinthian leather and concrete would be if all those folks who'd rather not be driving had an alternative and could be out of your way.

Of course, along the way, you might find that you actually preferred the alternative yourself, as so many who have been won over by the new transit systems throughout the nation have had to admit.

The human reality is that age and related incapacity is not some sort of unfortunate, random anomoly. It happens to all who live long enough -- and to many whether they reach old age or not. In fact, with hundreds of thousands of injuries and an average of 43,000 highway deaths each year, the automobile itself is one of the major causes of "mortality and morbidity" among otherwise healthy and able-bodied folk in this country. It is also one of the biggest wasters of potentially productive "man-hours" ever conceived.

Driving an automobile safely every day requires only that we be fully up to the task -- every day, all the time, every time -- and that means "all of us," both ourselves and every other driver we meet. I don't know about you, but there are plenty of days in recent years when I don't feel much like Dale Earnhard or Mario Andretti in their respective primes -- and, though you obviously think you know all about me, I've been a "car guy" my whole life.

As to the question of "population density," I'd remind you that there was no population density at all, to speak of, in the interior of this nation before the railroads brought it. They weren't built to serve existing population density. They were built to create it -- and they did. And they're doing the same thing, again, in formerly down-at-the-heels urban centers all over the nation. Efficient lines of transportation alter development patterns and change population densities. In short, what OKC leaders are apparently trying to accomplish with the old urban core of their city would be more powerfully facilitated by rail transit interfacing with other forms of surface transport at Union Station, than by any other asset (including, notably, a mere "four miles of urban expressway with four big, new curves built into it, NASCAR-like, running five lanes abreast.")

As to cost, high quality transportation is just flat expensive. Like lots of other things in this nation, it's actually much, much more expensive than most folks ever consider. The cost of alternatives, of balance, of putting real modal competition back into the personal transportation marketplace will likely only go higher from here -- and you can be certain that ODOT understands it's not making transit alternative development "less expensive" by crippling and decimating the last grand urban rail passenger yard in the West remaining unused today with all its original space intact.

Consider with me, too, the possibility that the nation's newspaper industry appears to be going down with the US auto industry -- whose advertising revenue has kept it afloat since at least the end of WWII. What if those newspapers had pushed competitive transportation development, real competitive enterprise and innovation, instead of protecting the defacto highway monopoly?

We may never know, now.

In February 1974, Bradford Snell, a young government attorney, helped create the myth that General Motors caused the demise of America's streetcar system and that without GM's interference streetcars would be alive and well today. GM may have conspired with others to sell more of their automotive products to transportation companies, but that is irrelevant to his contention that GM helped replace streetcars with economically inferior buses. That they had done—just as they had earlier sought to replace the horse and buggy with the automobile.

The issue is whether or not the buses that replaced the electric streetcars were economically superior. Without GM's interference would the United States today have a viable streetcar system? This article makes the case that, GM or not, under a less onerous regulatory environment, buses would have replaced streetcars even earlier than they actually did.

TQ (http://www.lava.net/cslater/TQold.HTM)


The popular 1996 documentary Taken for a Ride alleges that streetcars were killed by a conspiracy headed by General Motors. It's a story that alt-transpo advocates have been eager to embrace, since it paints an automaker as the big bad bully.

But is it true? Probably not. Independent observers tell a very different story, saying that streetcars were on the decline anyway whether GM was involved or not. As Cecil Adams put it, blaming GM for the demise of streetcars is like blaming the inventor of gunpowder for war.

Taken for a Ride: Did GM conspire to kill streetcars or not? (http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/takenforaride.html)


Randall O'Toole of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argues that streetcars faded away at the invention of the internal combustion engine and rise of the private automobile and then the bus. At one time, nearly every city in the U.S. with population over 10,000 had at least one streetcar company. 95% of all streetcar systems were at one time privately owned.

Robert C. Post wrote that "nationwide, the ultimate reach of the alleged conspirators extended to only about 10 percent of all transit systems—sixty-odd out of some six hundred—and yet virtually all the other 90 percent also got rid of trolleys (as happened with all the tramcar systems in the British Isles and France)."

Great American streetcar scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy#cite_note-13)

Any reasonable person would expect GM and its co-conspirators to develop their own story.

They certainly have the resources to do it -- or at least used to have the resources. However, I've never seen Bradford Snell's research and arguments overcome -- and the deeper you dig, as the PBS show History Detectives uncovered recently in Cleveland, the better Snell's arguments look.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/pdf/410_electric_car.pdf

Meanwhile, your notation that nearly all the old trolley systems were "privately owned" ought to give pause to the self-desribed "champions of the free market," including the propagandists of the CATO, Reason, and Heritage foundations who regularly at least imply that, (1), There is a free, competitive marketplace in surface transportation today, (2) It brought about the outcome the automobile and related interests wanted.

(It might be helpful to recognize that while Ernest J. Istook, "distinguished fellow" at Heritage continues to preach his "highways-only gospel" to all others, he was the chief and pivotal funder of Utah and Arizona's rail transit starts while in congress. He was simultaneously the chief funder of the New Crosstown plan -- which, incontrovertibly, inescapably, would needlessly destroy the passenger rail center linking virtually all of Oklahoma's existing rail lines in the heart of its capital city.)

What private mode can compete with highways and airlines and the bottomless pool of public money / debt instruments supporting them?

Is this "the free, competitive market" at work? Innovators get to compete with the government and its favored special interests?

Perhaps it was "the free, competitive market" that demanded ODOT take the path of I-40 off its long standing corridor -- staying eight blocks south long enough to destroy the Union Station rail yard -- and then jump back up and rejoin its original corridor, all between the Amarillo and Dallas Junctions.

Garner Stoll insists it was well-known in the 1990s that's what ODOT was determined to do from the beginning, a position reportedly recently confirmed by former Mayor Kirk Humprheys who told a local media person that neither he nor any of the city council in his time as Mayor wanted the roadway put through the rail yard. They wanted the "B-3" alternative, right along side the existing Crosstown -- but Neal McCaleb called them into his office prior to the "official outcome of the comparative route study" and told them "It'd be the D-Option or nothing."

Of course, back in those days, it was a little easier to convince Oklahomans that no alternative to highways would ever be needed.

In the late 1990s, Gary Ridley was chief lobbyist for the Oklahoma Asphalt Paving Association; Neal McCaleb was ODOT Director and Secretary. Today, McCaleb heads "TRUST," the distillation of state highway lobby influence and Gary Ridley, McCaleb's successor, reportedly hand-picked by him, is Director of ODOT and the governor's Secretary designate.

What's the difference?

Where does the highway lobby end and ODOT leadership begin? The answer to that question is made all-the-clearer not just by listening to the obfuscatory things both of them say, but also by looking at what they have done to the exclusion of every other consideration.

One other piece of information might be useful here, if "the free, competitive marketplace" really matters: In 1943, the commercial railroads of the nation were given a statement by the US Congress that they had, by that time, completely repaid all federal support provided for their original creation.

The railroads are the only mode I know of that have ever done that. I know of no other mode from which repayment has been required. Today, massive, ongoing public subsidy of highways and airlines is treated by most politicians as a foregone conclusion.

What aspect of "free market economics" do you suppose explains the recent meteoric decline of the US automobile industry concurrent with the rise of successful new rail transit systems throughout the nation and an impressive rise in daily transit use?

It's probably safe to assume that Utah Transit's recent addition of 60 daily, fast, Salt Lake-to-Ogden commuter trains to its burgeoning multimodal transit system wasn't done for no reason.

I would repeat, with emphasis, that the only transportation asset Oklahoma City has today distinguishing it from other metropolitan areas with minimal, marginal bus transit systems is the Union Station yard -- purchased in 1989 for the express purpose of transit development. Take that away, and OKC will go to the end of the line, empty-cup-in-hand, with the full knowledge of a great many out-of-state transportation managers and policy people that, while our leaders say they want quality transit, they didn't want it enough to listen to expert warnings from other transit leaders as the the value of Union Station.

Of course, we could listen to such experts, many of whom have been there and done it -- or we could listen to the governor's new Transportation Secretary, a former asphalt lobbyist who never finished college. And did I hear somewhere that the governor, obviously a lover and respector of higher education, is now angling to become the next president of Oklahoma University?

Any reasonable person would admit that it didn't take a conspiracy to get the masses to prefer the use of personal automobiles over the inconvenience of traveling by train. But that has nothing to do with with the current situation at Union Station, does it.

The question is whether or not we want an abandoned, dilapidated railroad switching yard in the middle of our new central park on the chance that someone, someday might want to build a railroad switching yard there again.

I love the plans for the new central park and support a serious commitment to improving mass transit in a way that makes sense. Having a rail switching yard in the middle of our new central park makes no sense.

The good 'ol apostle Paul reminds us that "judging ourselves by ourselves" is not wise.

I'd guess that you weren't there when the urban / regional trolley and interurban systems of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries began to disappear -- and that you have no idea what kind of grassroots fight was mounted to keep them against the well-greased scheme that had already been quietly and carefully concocted by "big business and certain government officials" to get rid of them.

What do you do when your car breaks -- or leaves you on the side of the road in the rain at midnight? You're "on your own," aren't you?

Why is that superior to having a daily choice and a factor of strategic redundancy in our critical transportation system? Because we "have to spend so much on highways, cars and trucks that we can't afford anything else?"

Meanwhile, you're asserting that "no choice" is superior to choice -- and no competition is superior to competition? What school of Economics -- or common sense -- is that?

As to that "old, dilapidated rail yard," like many other things, seeing its value might well depend on your level of understanding. Suffice it to say that Dallas Union Station yard looked quite a bit like OKC Union Station's prior to its revitalization as that city's burgeoning multimodal center -- and leaders there, in the wake of the success of DART Rail have often been heard to breathlessly exclaim -- "...and we almost destroyed it...".

The prophets of old recognized that the truth is not for just anybody. It's quite often only for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. The question is this: Will we allow our confused leaders to judge all of us and all of our offspring unworthy of the Union Station facility -- which I would say ought to be seen as the gift of our great grandparents' generation to our own grandchildren?

"while our leaders say they want quality transit, they didn't want it enough to listen to expert warnings from other transit leaders as the the value of Union Station."

That's because the quality transit we all want is what we have available to us today--THE AUTOMOBILE. This city is built of roads. The infrastructure may be there to build upon for rail service in the future, but the implementation and rehab of such structures would take longer to put in place than it would take for the new Crosstown to be up and running.

You, Tom, are just fighting this through to the end because you want to see it happen in your lifetime. Truthfully, your life clock has a lot less time on it than most posters on this forum. Have fun losing the fight!

You're taking this a bit personally aren't you OKC?

I mean... you could have been just fine leaving out the 'you will die soon, so drop it' routine.

i definitely think that the new crosstown should be built, but is it feasible to build around union station? and if it is, wouldn't it be cheaper to keep the rail yard around so that it one day could be used for mass transit? i don't know, it just seems weird to me that ODOT would knowingly go through with a project that will destroy something that could one day be of good use to us all.

The new crosstown IS being built around Union Station. People are hoping that by saying Union Station will be "destroyed", they'll get people who don't bother to read the entire article all up in arms about destroying a beautiful building. We're talking about a couple of old rail lines going away, not the station. And there will still be rail lines existing...as many as cities like Chicago have for all of their mass transit. We've got a ways to go before we're so big we need more lines than Chicago.

You're taking this a bit personally aren't you OKC?

I mean... you could have been just fine leaving out the 'you will die soon, so drop it' routine.

It's nothing personal at all. I'm just saying how I understand that this is his big last battle. He wants to see it happen within his lifetime. Just like I'm happy that a new skyscraper is going to be built downtown within my lifetime. Just a simple observation is all that was. But, of course, being how a lot of people take things wrong on here--myself included--I figured it wasn't much time before anybody said anything about that. I'll be happy to remove it if anyone else is offended ;-)

The new crosstown IS being built around Union Station. People are hoping that by saying Union Station will be "destroyed", they'll get people who don't bother to read the entire article all up in arms about destroying a beautiful building. We're talking about a couple of old rail lines going away, not the station. And there will still be rail lines existing...as many as cities like Chicago have for all of their mass transit. We've got a ways to go before we're so big we need more lines than Chicago.

EXACTLY!!! whatever this guy says doesn't matter, its getting built and we will still have union station and rail lines..... so why is there an argument, b/c he wants to keep rails that are completely covered with grass and rocks and dirt and so worn out they could never be used? its stupid!

Time to retell the highly relevant truth: A few years back, a documentary historian working for Parsons Brinkerhoff Engineers went with OKLAHOMAN columnist Ann DeFrange to Union Station. There, they talked about what was being threatened by ODOT. He explained that the State Historic Preservation Office's "mitigation" prescription for the planned destruction of the Robinson and Walker underpasses was to "photograph and document them" before ODOT smashed them to bits. DeFrange was duly horrified, as any reasonable person would be. Why would they do this? The historian's answer -- based on years of this kind of work -- was simple. "Highway builders don't care what they destroy," he said.

DeFrange printed his response verbatim in her story below a photo of one of the beautiful old balustrades along the top of the South Walker underpass.

This hit ODOT so hard that they reportedly threatened the historian and threatened his pay -- unless he "reinterviewed" with DeFrange and changed his statement.

This was done.

This is how it works at ODOT. This is how the plain truth is dealt with in ODOT's "culture."

Many people have told me, "It makes no sense."

Unfortunately, it makes a great deal of sense -- altogether too much sense -- to those who are willing to look at the sense it clearly makes. The question is -- do the people of Oklahoma and their elected representatives have the understanding, courage and fortitude to respond to such crass, arrogant affronts?

Bottom line: Union Station is NOT being destroyed and there will still be useable rail line adjacent to it.

Perhaps wishful thinking and mantra chanting is how some of us let ourselves out of our responsibilities. If any of the Union Station complex is important, all of it is important -- a good deal more important than any four miles of highway in the state.

Perhaps wishful thinking and mantra chanting is how some of us let ourselves out of our responsibilities. If any of the Union Station complex is important, all of it is important -- a good deal more important than any four miles of highway in the state.
Seriously? How many people travel through those four miles of highway compared to the Union Station complex?

Seriously.

Your question is interesting. It'd truly be interesting to know how many people and tons of goods passed through the Union Station corridor during its use by the SLSF and CRI&P Railroad Companies compared to ODOT's "fracture critical wonder." It'd be interesting to know how much comparative debt and comparative profit were made on each, and how much each cost the taxpayers. One thing is certain: US railroad performance and volume just during WWII was staggering, and that includes the urban / suburban and regional transit systems. And serving its builders, the Union Station facility didn't "cost tax money." It paid taxes.

Suffice it to say that the 80-year-old underpasses, more beautiful than anything ever built by ODOT, are still working just fine today, thank you. The Crosstown isn't even 50 years old.

To get down to cases, a modern single track railway has capacity for freight -- or anything else -- equivalent to a modern 20 lane expressway, all in a generally 50 to 100 foot wide right of way. Double tracking that line more than doubles its capacity -- and does so with far lower energy expense per ton-mile, one-third to one-fifth, far less negative environmental effect, far better maintainability, and far superior safety at far lower life-cycle cost.

Dallas DART Rail -- created with 115 lb per yard rail on concrete ties was built to a 100 year service life expectation, with no major maintnenance requirement for 40 years. Forty years is two, complete, standard Interstate Highway pavement service lives -- if the typically irresponsible politicians don't cave in to more of the trucking industry's efforts to increase legal gross weights or to further undermine weight enforcement capability.

The design of Union Station is elegantly functional, unquestionably historic and beautiful all at the same time.

Which of ODOT's highway projects meets any, let alone all of those qualifications?

Is it possible that one of the reasons the ODOT folks want this facility gone is that its very presence highlights their failures?

Seriously.

Your question is interesting. It'd truly be interesting to know how many people and tons of goods passed through the Union Station corridor during its use by the SLSF and CRI&P Railroad Companies compared to ODOT's "fracture critical wonder."

Seriously! Seriously. It's not about the past Tom. It's not about the future. It's about the NOW. The most critical aspect of any of this is there is not commuter rail in OKC as of today. Highway?! Yes, it exists and we need it replaced ASAP.

We don't need some rail yard to be preserved for the sole intention of one little group's interest to one day (20-50 years from now) have commuter rail service. I want to be able to enter downtown OKC from the west and not be scared to PERSONALLY drive my car on a brand new highway...

Sorry I don't have any links to stories from Denver or Dallas citing how OKC is making a critical mistake, hahahahahah...

Stop the histrionics. The facility is not going to be gone. The option for rail is not going anywhere either.

You'll have to pardon me for presenting actual facts -- while you chant your vague little mantras and diversionary happy talk. You might want to try getting up on your hind legs sometime and acting like a citizen instead of a "consumer," justifying whatever crumb the special-interest-lapdog bureaucrats want to toss your way.

The reality is that even the sadly evasive and disingenuous John Bowman, manager of ODOT's project, admits when pinned down by somebody with a little knowledge and an actual backbone that Union Station will be useless as a hub if his bosses' scheme is realized. So why has he publicly, officially insisted his project "won't hurt Union Station?" Because that's what they pay him to say.

Isn't it even a little strange -- even to you -- that our "Department of Transportation" thinks we need "ten lanes of expressway," but that we should be happy with one mainline and a siding at our Union Station?

You'll have to pardon me for presenting actual facts -- while you chant your vague little mantras and diversionary happy talk. You might want to try getting up on your hind legs sometime and acting like a citizen instead of a "consumer," justifying whatever crumb the special-interest-lapdog bureaucrats want to toss your way.

The reality is that even the sadly evasive and disingenuous John Bowman, manager of ODOT's project, admits when pinned down by somebody with a little knowledge and an actual backbone that Union Station will be useless as a hub if his bosses' scheme is realized. So why has he publicly, officially insisted his project "won't hurt Union Station?" Because that's what they pay him to say.

Isn't it even a little strange -- even to you -- that our "Department of Transportation" thinks we need "ten lanes of expressway," but that we should be happy with one mainline and a siding at our Union Station?

Oh my God. What page do we have to go back to to find the arguments where everybody--myself included--thinks that Union Station is toooooooooooo small to be a hub???

With two tracks it will be a nice little stop off on your train set when that day comes. It doesn't need to be a hub and it never will be. We'll all be driving below grade in about 5 years. Again, it may tie in a lot of branches but there's not one single spot in OKC where all the rail lines converge & if there is, it's about a mile to the east.

BTW, nice snub at the top of your post. I got more brains than you think. I'm not some po' ole country boy who can't survive.

Again, this city's "current" source of transportation is roads. The only passenger service I currently see is buses and trolleys--which also use roads--and Amtrak, which as we all know uses the Santa Fe station and has no plans to go over to the old Oklahoma City Union Station. Keep on preaching brother. I just wish you had a formal choir behind you because so far everybody here is against you...besides old downtown guy.

I just wish you had a formal choir behind you because so far everybody here is against you...besides old downtown guy.

That'd be wrong.

And why the snide tone? I mean really, it's a question of transportation development. Hardly an issue to get hot and bothered over. No one has challenged your honor or your intellect. Folks just have a different opinion than you do and if you read Tom's posts, his opinion, though it differs from yours is very well considered and thought through.

Two tracks is all the Metrarail has in Chicago. We're about one-sixth the size of Chicago, and one third the size of Illinois. I don't forsee a near future in which we need more lines than two for passenger rail. Nor do I want Union Station to ever be a hub, so I don't really care if Union Station is useless as a hub. There's a fundamental difference in philosophy here. There are plenty of people, me included, in favor of mass transit, but it doesn't necessarily all have to be rail, nor does Union Station have to be involved. Practicality is far more important than romanticization of our rail past and assuming that what worked then is best now. How much bigger and different is Oklahoma City and surrounds than when we last had passenger rail stopping at Union Station?

That'd be wrong.

And why the snide tone? I mean really, it's a question of transportation development. Hardly an issue to get hot and bothered over. No one has challenged your honor or your intellect. Folks just have a different opinion than you do and if you read Tom's posts, his opinion, though it differs from yours is very well considered and thought through.

Tom is a propaganda machine that is totally and completely obsessed with this issue. He has no respect for anyone else's opinion if it detracts from his agenda and he refuses to answer very reasonable questions. Because of this, he has lost the respect of the vast majority of the posters on this board and has been completely ineffectual in gaining support for his cause.

Apparently you missed this rude, pompous paragraph that Tom directed at the other posters that was nothing short of a personal attack.


You'll have to pardon me for presenting actual facts -- while you chant your vague little mantras and diversionary happy talk. You might want to try getting up on your hind legs sometime and acting like a citizen instead of a "consumer," justifying whatever crumb the special-interest-lapdog bureaucrats want to toss your way.

What might be harder not to miss is a tiny bit of not-too-subtle, which is to say "fairly obvious," humor -- confirming that some folks can "dish out" the trash talk, but they apparently can't take it. It's fun, occasionally, to fire a little bit of their kind of stuff back at 'em just to see.

Now -- let's see -- back to the issue at hand -- those who say Union Station rail facility is being destroyed because they understand that the existing facility could be a regional multimodal hub are apparently wrong because they're right... Because those who think they don't want it to be a hub, although they really don't understand what a hub is, want it to be destroyed so it can't ever be a hub. They just don't want anybody saying it's gonna be destroyed because that's "histrionic." Although that claim is made by folks who actually hope most of its train handling space is destroyed.

Do I have that about right? (Of course, I understand that being "right" necessarily makes me "wrong" in the opinion of those who don't want me saying the rail facility is being destroyed -- because they want it destroyed. They just don't want anybody stirring everybody up by saying so. Right?)

And we don't want a longstanding rail facility left there, at grade, because that would detract from our imaginary park -- but a ten lane expressway in a shallow ditch frothing night and day with cross-country semi trucks of every kind carrying cargoes of every kind as well as every kind of automobile from limos to boom-boom lowriders, boom-boom pickups, boom-boom SUVs, etc., is what we would like to see. Because that wouldn't detract from the imaginary park.

Do I get it yet?

I mean -- as long as we're going to deal with random opinion and not facts, I'm just trying to understand my fellow Oklahomans. Just trying to "blend in and be one of the crowd." (You are Oklahomans, aren't you? Which is why you want our historic assets destroyed? Just asking...)

Yep.

Yep.

I think maybe I have it now.

Tom is a propaganda machine that is totally and completely obsessed with this issue. He has no respect for anyone else's opinion if it detracts from his agenda and he refuses to answer very reasonable questions. Because of this, he has lost the respect of the vast majority of the posters on this board and has been completely ineffectual in gaining support for his cause.

Apparently you missed this rude, pompous paragraph that Tom directed at the other posters that was nothing short of a personal attack.

:congrats:

That'd be wrong.

And why the snide tone? I mean really, it's a question of transportation development. Hardly an issue to get hot and bothered over. No one has challenged your honor or your intellect. Folks just have a different opinion than you do and if you read Tom's posts, his opinion, though it differs from yours is very well considered and thought through.

I think that's part of the problem - Tom thinks he's well considered and thought through, and so do most of the other posters who contradict him.

Personally, Tom has considered and thought through his points, but because most of his premise is that rail will see a massive resurgence in state-wide travel, the theory starts to fail.

I've met Tom, I've heard him talk, and I've seen his love for rail. That can't be questioned, nor can his knowledge of certain rail history. However, we can question what the best option for the development of rail in OKC can be.

My thoughts: If we have any type of intermodal exchange facility near downtown, it should only be between passenger modes of transportation, not for rail freight. Freight exchanges would be loud, 24-hour, and too expansive. Passenger exchange would take place between commuter, interstate, and streetcar rail and buses or taxis. This requires much less space, which therefore means we can use space other than Union Station for further development, space that makes more sense on the current large, busy line (BNSF).

I've heard that the Midwest City line from Bricktown to Tinker really has legs - if true, then Union Station wouldn't be in the picture at all, because the lines don't easily interchange. Using Santa Fe station, or maybe a new station in Bricktown itself, where tracks already exist, would be even easier than using Union Station...

That'd be wrong.

And why the snide tone? I mean really, it's a question of transportation development. Hardly an issue to get hot and bothered over. No one has challenged your honor or your intellect. Folks just have a different opinion than you do and if you read Tom's posts, his opinion, though it differs from yours is very well considered and thought through.

With all due respect, Mid... and I due respect you greatly... Mr. Elmore's snide and dismissive tone certainly isn't winning any hearts and minds over to his point of view — at least for me.

I happen to be a proponent for mass transit, but I'm also REALISTIC. Mass transit is NOT a high priority to the vast majority of the general population in the OKC metro area, thus the NEED for it is greatly diminished. Our primary mode of transit in this city is our roads with the Crosstown being a critical artery within our transportation system. That critical artery is in dire need of replacement. That NEED is IMMEDIATE. At the present, exponentially more people need and are demanding an improved Crosstown as opposed to how many people are clamoring for mass transit, light rail or preserving Union Station.

I simply asked the question of Mr. Elmore because I was having a sincerely difficult time taking the following statement seriously...


If any of the Union Station complex is important, all of it is important -- a good deal more important than any four miles of highway in the state.

There certainly are times when the need of the many SHOULD outweigh the "need" of the few. Right now, the need for a revitalized Crosstown — vital now and the foreseeable future — far outweighs the need to preserve Union Station, which may or may not be utilized in the not-so-near future.

It's easy to say you support transit -- it's a fine and noble concept. Politicians do it all the time. But do you actually support it if you don't support what's necessary to have it?

Talk is cheap. Work is expensive.

I can often answer reasonable questions about the technology and its capabilities in general terms, and, therefore, why the Union Station terminal is so well-suited to serve it, and I generally do so. However, what I've found in practical terms is that those who say they support something but don't support what's necessary to have it don't really support it at all.

Neal McCaleb and Gary Ridley will profess night and day to support the Heartland Flyer. They just didn't support implementing the original business plan for the train -- which would have made it self supporting from the beginning, given it and other services a real, near-term future with great potential benefit to the state, and taken it off "the highway lobby's whipping boy list."

Reality? They don't support passenger service at all. They use the Heartland Flyer's subsidy requirement, which they, themselves, created, to kick rail passenger service development, generally, as "unaffordable." There is no significant difference in the service as it operated on June 16, 1999 and today -- except for the millions of dollars unnecessarily down the rat hole over the last ten years supporting what should have been a financially independent service.

As sure as I'm sitting here, if McCaleb and Ridley and their favored special interests are allowed to destroy Union Station's rail facility, they'll then cry crocodile tears about it for the rest of their lives -- "We could have had a system if we'd been smart enough to keep the Union Station rail facility, but now, since you all let us destroy it, it's just way too expensive."

After all -- we don't work for them. They work for us. Right? Therefore, what they do, good or bad, is "on us." (...we knew dang well they wuz a snake before we took 'um in....)

The value of OKC Union Station is intrinsic, immutable and self-evident to those who understand the difficulties of the most difficult and yet most critical aspect of rail passenger / rail transit development -- which is getting a start. It's there, it's available, and it was built relatively late in the original heydey of commercial rail passenger services, representing something of a "distillation of all they knew," a "high water mark," sort of like the US Navy's Iowa-class battleships, which turned out to have a powerful modern use despite those who dismissed them as antiques.

What that means is that it would be hard to duplicate and nearly impossible to beat. And its preservation and intelligent reuse would benefit the entire state. Four miles of road, at best, is just four miles of road, making it as necessary as any other four miles of road. Along the way, however, to its hoped-for replacement, ODOT leadership apparently decided to use it for something else, as well -- and that was to preempt and preclude rail development by the unnecessary and generally unwanted destruction of the longstanding rail facility, a facility that had already been pledged for transit development in 1989. After all, "We were never gonna need rail..."

OKC Union Station's intelligent reuse would bring a new mobility, potentially to the entire state -- with strong portent of a revolution in quality of life and perhaps even in the state's basic economy.

We could have that, develop that -- straight away, with existing assets -- or we could allow the road lobby to destroy it for "the most important four miles of road in the state."

I have enough experience with bureaucrats and special-interest lobbies to know what that means -- and the Heartland Flyer, itself, is a good example of what that means, ten years later.

In short, if you're not willing to identify what's needed to achieve a goal, and, if required, fight for what's needed when it's time to fight, you're not even in the game.

You can take that for what it's worth. My colleagues and I are fighting for balanced multimodal transportation by fighting for what's manifestly required to have it. I guess my suggestion to others of good will would be, "lead, follow or -- well, you know..."

Tom, would people be willing to listen to you more if you were willing to answer questions, even if you don't like them, instead of simply trying to fillibuster your audience into submission?

Hi, Steve -- I don't mind your questions. It's just that I think you already know the answers to all of them. Meanwhile, while your employer's editorial writers take cheap shots at me, personally, its board and ownership have long had a standing offer to debate me publicly at a time and place of their own choosing on this matter about which they have so much to say.

If you want to ask somebody some questions, I'd suggest you ask them. I mean "the owners." What is their role in this matter. How do they stand to profit? And why are they so determined to destroy our historic rail center?

Tom, I don't know all the answers. And I'm not a part of the editorial board, and you know that. I've spent an entire week with some pretty critical coverage on my blog of the city's traffic engineers. But guess what - they've answered my questions, no matter how much they didn't like them.
If you'll recall, I was one of the early reporters to write all about your concerns. We walked the rail yard together, I took notes, and I posed your concerns to ODOT. And if you really read all the coverage on this issue, you should have no question as to how much I grilled ODOT during the early phases of this.
Show some guts Tom - answer my questions.

Tom, you are doing more to discredit yourself and your cause than The Oklahoman could ever do. You are the one dissuading people, like myself, who would typically be more sympathetic and supportive of your efforts, because your method of advocacy is so caustic.

I'll answer your questions in detail, Steve, when I get a few minutes -- which might be a few days.

And, Brad, I appreciate anyone who is willing to engage in discussions in forums like these under his or her actual name. I would observe, however, that if your support and willingness to work for preservation of Union Station is contingent on your perception of the "attitudes" of advocates who have fought their guts, their lives and their pocketbooks out for preservation and intelligent use of this one-of-a-kind facility for fifteen years, perhaps you don't know much about such work nor about people who would "bother" in this way.

I was a young man when I started this effort. As has been somewhat humorously pointed out on this thread recently, I'm "not quite so young anymore." And there are a good many others who have spent the efforts and time of their older age, together with significant portions of their substance keeping this effort alive.

I well remember, during my time as president of the Oklahoma Railway Museum, folks from one of the smaller, outlying area communities who showed up one night at one of our board meetings -- bitterly berating us because "we had stolen their locomotive."

The locomotive in question is the little blue 0-6-0T Porter tank engine sitting today on one of the platform tracks at the museum.

Somebody sicced them on us -- because the locomotive had served at a power plant near their community in the post-WWII years -- and it "should have been ours."

They "wanted it back," they said -- and that was all there was to it.

As we explained to them, as diplomatically as we could, if we had waited for them to get interested in saving that locomotive, there wouldn't be anything to argue about on this particular night. And, by the way, wagging a dead, 50 ton hunk of steel like that around during the intervening years wasn't necessarily the easiest thing to do.

My point is only to say that people "on the outside looking in" can be "awfully sensitive" sometime. What does that do for our state's economic future and for our grandchildren?

Time to retell the highly relevant truth: A few years back, a documentary historian working for Parsons Brinkerhoff Engineers went with OKLAHOMAN columnist Ann DeFrange to Union Station. There, they talked about what was being threatened by ODOT.

(snip)

This hit ODOT so hard that they reportedly threatened the historian and threatened his pay -- unless he "reinterviewed" with DeFrange and changed his statement.


How the F*** does ODOT threaten the pay of a guy working for a New York City based engineering firm?

Where's your source on this Tom? Let's just leave it at the fact that I don't believe a word you write.

Hi, Steve -- I don't mind your questions.

And this isn't a snide remark Midtowner? It's as if he's saying Steve is qualified enough to receive the answers that the rest of us want to hear because he works for one of the state's two leading newspapers. But the rest of us, don't deserve the answers he can't provide?

I don't know...maybe I'm reading too much into it...

BTW Tom, my name is Braden. If you'd like, I can find a lovely pic of me so you know who you're being argumentative with. Have a good day :)

What's frustrating Tom is that if you are trying to be an advocate for rail, why wouldn't you answer questions in a respectable manner and try to at least empathize with the other side? Instead, you belittle everyone that has a different opinion than you and bring up things that might matter in your head, but when said out loud, you sound like a schizo. That is the reason that you will get very little, if any, respect from me and a lot of people on this forum.

It's as if he's saying Steve is qualified enough to receive the answers that the rest of us want to hear because he works for one of the state's two leading newspapers. But the rest of us, don't deserve the answers he can't provide?


For what it's worth, considering this is a community forum that Tom has chosen to address, I don't think I'm anymore entitled to having questions answered than anybody else. And I've seen some good questions being asked.
I'll leave it up to you to decide why Tom has seen fit to write and post dozens of times since I first asked my question but has been unable to find the time to answer questions aimed at him.

It's as if he's saying Steve is qualified enough to receive the answers that the rest of us want to hear because he works for one of the state's two leading newspapers. But the rest of us, don't deserve the answers he can't provide?


For what it's worth, considering this is a community forum that Tom has chosen to address, I don't think I'm anymore entitled to having questions answered than anybody else. And I've seen some good questions being asked.
I'll leave it up to you to decide why Tom has seen fit to write and post dozens of times since I first asked my question but has been unable to find the time to answer questions aimed at him.


Steve, I believe maybe that Tom Elmore is not telling the truth, and he just trying to do whatever he can to stop the downtown growth and the I 40 relocation.