Tom, you'd probably be better received from other posters if you condensed your links in one post instead of 7 within the last 35 minutes.

Yep, Metro -- you're right. I should've condensed the information. Doesn't look like there's a way to delete and re-edit, however, so kindly put up with me this once and I'll try to do better in the future.

TOM ELMORE

Just saw a blurb on news9 about the feds putting some sort of stop on the new crosstown because of false information being submitted about the Union Station yard and tracks. I wasn't fully listening to what was said...Tom, someone...what is going on. Are we going to be able to save that gem?

Decision: 06/05/2008 - AB_6_430_X (http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readingroom.nsf/51d7c65c6f78e79385256541007f0580/b2e02629dbdb0c5f8525745e005bf812?OpenDocument)

Well, I read it, and understand what it says...but what does it mean for the long term as far as Union Station yard is concerned?

Thanks Tom...and you did good on the News9 report last night.

The decision voids the September, 2005 BNSF abadonment application "ab initio," because BNSF -- backed closely by ODOT -- methodically misrepresented meeting the qualifying standards allowing the abandoment.

BNSF has insisted there is no demand for rail service on this line. Of course, ODOT has run off most of the longstanding businesses in the corridor. However, BNSF, again in league with ODOT, has continued to serve one of the largest carload generating businesses in the state -- Producers Coop Oil Mill -- from this line.

They have had no choice but to misrpresent the situation for many different reasons stemming from the chaos ODOT has created in somewhat intricate and long standing railway infrastructure between Byers and Santa Fe Avenues.

It was apparently the day following the crashing defeat of Neal McCaleb's "State Question 723" effort to raise our fuel taxes that BNSF crews were called to cut the old delivery lead (a rail line from mainline track to industry) from the former Frisco line (the southerly track from Union Station) east of Santa Fe Avenue -- so that the former Rock Island (northerly) track could be moved to accommodate ODOT's digging around the "southerly extension of the Bricktown Canal."

This cut wholesale lumber company, Midstates Lumber, off from its vital direct rail access. Since that day, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation has apparently been paying (your money and mine) to truck Midstates' business between its facility (just north of the Producers Coop Mill) to a remote rail facility. All of this -- while BNSF, in league with ODOT, insisted there is no demand for rail service.

The short way to tell the story is that ODOT has lied, like water running, with utter impunity since the beginning of this whole mess -- as it lies about pretty much everything else. But, in this case, the lies appear to be catching up to the liars.

If you lie to the federal Surface Transportation Board, they will void your proceeding "ab initio."

So -- if BNSF, in league with ODOT, persists in attempts to formally abandon this key Union Station yard segment and rail line, they will have to begin all over again, at square one -- of a lenghty process. However, this time they do so with the full knowledge of the STB that they have deliberately, persistently misrepresented the situation -- while calling those of us pointing out the truth, "liars."

While we all recognize that "lying" only seems to be considered outrageous and extraordinary if a "baseball player does it before the US Congress," this little deal is manifestly very serious and its gravity may well continue to reverberate through the halls, both of the STB, and, hopefully, of ODOT and this absurd effort to destroy the center of the state's railway network.

Remember what Gary Ridley, the "P.E. without a dee-gree," told me when I asked him why ODOT had never seriously addressed, let alone actually responded to any of the many, very highly documented concerns brought against the ODOT's plan to destroy the rail yard by Oklahoma Citizens.

"Well, Tom, there WAS a time when we didn't even have to ASK you what you thought," he sneered.

Once again -- we're "telling him what we think," whether he wants to hear it or not.

In any case, as I hope you can see -- reports of "the death of the Union Station rail yard" appear to have been "slightly exaggerated..."

TOM ELMORE

Thanks Tom, now we get to see are governemnt piss away more tax dollars to run around in circles for a few months. In the end, the project will continue and take even longer to complete.

Meanwhile the crosstown will continue to crumble until cars fall through the decking.

Lightrail would be nice but, not at the expense of the taxpayers. If the taxpayers build it, the taxpayers will fund it forever.

Lightrail wil make Tom Elmore a rich man. Why else would he want taxpayers to pay for it?

Our state is run by thugs.

This is acceptable to you?

Does it mean anything to you?

Do you bear any responsibility to deal with it?

Those of us who have called government and its minions to account in this matter have no financial stake in it -- period (other than what it has cost us over the last 15 years).

What's at stake is the integrity of our government and economic and mobility futures of this state.

Talk is cheap. Work is expensive.

It doesn't cost you much to finger that keyboard, friend.

Done anything else lately?

TOM ELMORE

My question would be, if I understand this correctly, if the railroad that owns the lines doesn't want them, and if the city doesn't want them, what is the point of this? Again, this is a lousy location for a mass trans station, I see a north-south line as being much more important, and we're not talking about light rail anyway.

I once had a dream. I dreampt that I would be able to drive along I-40, without dodging holes at least one, time before I die. I also dreampt that I could enjoy Oklahoma City's Central Park at least once without being brought here in a wheelchair by my granddaughter. My life expectancy at this time is about 26.2 years and it appears that Tom Elmore is determined to delay the construction of a decent highway long enough to make my dream a vain hope.

Tom, your platitudes are so general that they apply to you as well as they apply to anyone.
"What's at stake is the integrity of our government and economic and mobility futures of this state.

Talk is cheap. Work is expensive.

It doesn't cost you much to finger that keyboard, friend.

Done anything else lately?"


Look in the mirror my friend.

...you know, Badg, I can't even find my mirror these days for the dusty stacks of "hundred dollar bills I've been raking in all these years."

It's a real problem around here.

And the price of motor fuel again this morning was --- (?)

(All together now...)

TOM ELMORE

Perhaps you have hundred dollar bills. I don't. And I'm still dodging potholes.

Although fuel prices are high, and I agree that we need to start looking at light rail, I still say it needs to be very carefully considered, with lines going precisely where we can get riders. We don't need extremely expensive rail with no riders. I'm thinking more and more that Memorial Road might end up being as important a east-west route as any. But regardless, I have a mini Cooper and my husband is buying a Prius. I can travel the 20 miles my daughter rides on Marta in Atlanta for less in my car (and my husband even less) than she spends for Marta. Although rail is going to be important, it needs to be very carefully thought out and planning needs to look at future needs of our population in terms of location and destinations. In the mean time, I think promoting fuel efficient cars is as important as light rail in terms of cost-benefit analysis.

Well, count me as one on board for saving the yard and trying to restore some rail use through that historic area. Why can't they move the interstate 50 yards south of the yard?

Paul the Apostle comments on Esau's sale of the birthright of his father for a single meal -- a little "momentary personal comfort" -- like this: Don't be profane, like this man.

Look at the metro rail map on the opening page: NATI - Solutions to the Nation's Transportation Problems (http://www.advancedtransport.org)

OKC Union Station's yard is the center of, not just the state, but the region's existing rail lines. We have it today. It is in our hands -- thanks to far-sighted forbears who left it here for our use.

Development and quality of life flows to efficient transportation corridors. It's axiomatic -- a "lead pipe cinch." That's the way it has always been, and the way it is today -- which is why the most valuable property in any of America's "new transit cities" is any property adjacent to the rail transit corridors. Of this, the "plum property" surrounds the central terminals. (Check it for yourself. Educate yourself on this matter while there's time.)

Jacobs Carter Burgess - Information Center / Intermodal Centers: More Than Transit Hubs (http://www.c-b.com/information%20center/transportation/ic.asp?tID=23&pID=186)

Don't you ever wonder why people who can't keep up the highway system they're charged with managing are so hell-bent to destroy the center of the state's railways?

Don't you understand that a mature central rail system frees resources to provide better roads -- and that the automobile, driven by suburban and rural dwellers to park-and-ride lots in cities across the nation today -- is part of the multimodal system we must have here to compete? It's not an "either-or situation." It's each mode supporting and making the others better and more user-friendly -- or, perhaps in the near future, simply "affordable."

A few honest citizens working against all odds for many years have given Oklahomans yet another opportunity to stop -- and think -- about the future and the rapidly diminishing alternatives we've left ourselves to meet it. We can leave ourselves in the hands of the "pothole kings," or we can grasp the opportunity and historic assets that we still, thankfully, have.

Be certain that with costs rising and revenues falling, cities that already have modern transit systems on the ground and operating will likely be first in line for boosted federal funding.

That leaves all the others -- the long list of unprepared cities standing in line, empty cups in hand. The only thing that differentiates Oklahoma City from any of these -- is our existing rail network and our Union Station yard.

Throw that away -- and "get back in line" with "completely unprepared."

TOM ELMORE
NATI - Solutions to the Nation's Transportation Problems (http://www.advancedtransport.org)

What are we arguing about here? If it's to keep Union Station and somehow work it into commuter rail, I'm all for it no matter how long it takes. Of course I'd like to see the major park that is to be built near it finished as well.

so tom, even tho i'm a huge fan of hebrew history and culture, i'm a tad confused with your references to jacob and esau. are you saying that because people enjoy driving they are profane or because we want a new highway that will destroy the railyard?
i love driving... i don't ever plan on giving that up even if trains are available.
btw, i went to the rail yard and only saw two tracks. i saw where one used to be a long time ago but had been torn up. i know that odot is preserving one of the lines that is being used and is leaving enough space for another to be built if needed.

Our state is run by thugs.

This is acceptable to you?

Does it mean anything to you?

Do you bear any responsibility to deal with it?

Those of us who have called government and its minions to account in this matter have no financial stake in it -- period (other than what it has cost us over the last 15 years).

What's at stake is the integrity of our government and economic and mobility futures of this state.

Talk is cheap. Work is expensive.

It doesn't cost you much to finger that keyboard, friend.

Done anything else lately?

TOM ELMORE


and you act like a "thug" .. pressing your agenda .. this will do nothing but slow the new I-40 .. and maybe not even that ..

those rail yards are going away .. it is only a matter of time .. and it is good for our city

Why mention Esau?

Alright -- here's a long post.

As I've written before, I contend that OKC Union Station should be viewed by today's Oklahomans as the gift of our great-grandparents' generation to us -- and to our own grandchildren.

It's a legacy. A birthright. A patrimony -- but not just for us. It's for those who will follow us.

Thinking only of himself and his own momentary hunger, in a fit of blind, petty greed, Esau altered his own life and the futures of his own offspring. For a "mess of pottage," a single meal, he threw away the birthright -- and the blessing of his father. Nor did he later find a place for repentance, "though he sought it with tears..."

Compared to lots of other places, Oklahoma City doesn't have much history. But that sure didn't stop the big shots from razing much of our architectural legacy and identity in the 1970s. Once the Criterion and the Biltmore and others were gone -- they could not be retrieved. And downtown lay hollow for many years -- and continues to lay somewhat hollow -- partly because of this. The immense synergy of modern reuse of those historic buildings had not even been seriously considered. They were preemptively cast away -- and with them, all the power that might have been there.

I'd argue that the lesson of Esau should have informed what was about to be done back then -- before it was done. Unfortunately, like Esau, it was mostly greed -- a few coins -- "the quick buck" -- that drove those bad decisions.

Is there value in such tragedy?

Sure there is -- if we learn from it. But it's plain that OKC leaders have learned absolutely nothing. Nothing, at least, that would keep them from, once again, trading the quick buck for another irreplaceable gift of our forbears.

I see in the foolish, arrogantly dismissive attitude toward the Union Station yard -- the spirit of Esau. Crass profanity. At the moment of his bad decision, Esau apparently couldn't see any tangible value in the blessing and the legacy. Heck -- his father was still alive. His father might outlive him. And he was hungry, "now" --- and so on.

..and, like Esau, if we succeed in casting this treasure away, there will, inevitably be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth -- when it's too late to do anything about it.

Some years ago I had a conversation with a big time highway contractor who lives in Enid, a "Bellmon man," and former state highway commissioner. He told me, "We all know you're right about intermodal. We know we can't keep on doing what we're doing now forever. But, you know, life is short and my job isn't to reinvent the wheel. My job is to get all I can for my side while I can."

To this, I responded, "That's great -- but what about the mess you're leaving your children and grandchildren?"

"Well, Tom," he said, "the little boogers'll just have to figure it out for themselves."

Welcome to Oklahoma.

That's what this generation has left its grandchildren. "$40 + billion in unfunded highway maintenance need -- in our own state, alone." And on and on. Apparently a generation of locusts -- despoiling, using up, casting away all they touch -- and sending the bill down the line to their unborn offspring using "debt instruments."

Unfortunate examples abound here.

I would argue that, in the spirit of the legacy of Isaac and Abraham, his father, there's much, much more to OKC Union Station than meets the eye of most people. But that clues to that depth of value are visible only to the reverent, thoughtful eye -- although it should certainly be much more apparent to all today than just a few years ago. It's true value would be realized only through putting it to use, as its builders desired.

There is no excuse -- and no "pretty" explanation -- for what ODOT and OKC leadership have determined to do to this facility. Like turning an antique Tiffany Lamp over to a bunch of gorillas, it's not a question of "what will happen," -- but, "when."

Among other things, Union Station is -- "an IQ test for leaders."

When ODOT gave the Union Station yard a numerical weight of "zero" in its "comparative route study," ODOT wasn't really rating Union Station. Union Station and its designers and builders were rating ODOT.

And who doesn't "love to drive?" But all must qualify, by age and ability, to do so -- and the time will likely come when age or disability disqualify us. Shouldn't there be reasonable alternatives? Why would Americans allow themselves to be dominated and limited by any single technology? Why allow public highways to become a Procrustean bedstead -- a concrete cross -- a vast, hyper-expensive "tar baby" to which we are all irretrievably stuck?

Surely you see that our automobiles are potentially and ideally part of a very efficient, convenient, economical and people-friendly multimodal transport system offering "choice," to all users, every day -- and with it, the blessings of "market competition." See it in Parker, Colorado or Garland, Texas. There are many such suburban communities now served by modern transit. Watch their overjoyed, prime-of-life drivers gladly leaving their Lexus and BMWs in park-and-ride lots to take fast trains on the daily, "necessary trips," saving their cars for more pleasurable outings or times when only a car will do.

If I'd had that choice in 1978, maybe the odometers in my '77 Camaro (special order, pre-Z/28 Type LT, substantially tweaked LM-1 350, 4-speed, F-41 suspension) or my swoopy little '87 Accord LXi would show only 100 K miles today -- instead of three times that.

Isn't "competition" what drives the American market system? Can it work -- really work -- without competition?

If most central Oklahomans once again had a real choice in how they would go where they go on any given day, would the price of automobiles and all that goes with them be more likely to go up -- or down? How about the price of motor fuel? Of "downtown parking?" How about if we just "didn't have to drive so far, every day?"

If all the people who can't, or would rather not, use public highways had efficient, ready alternatives -- would the daily "highway experience" for regular road users improve or decline?

Would the lives of Oklahoma families -- trying to hold on to family farms in rural areas while necessarily holding down jobs in cities and 'burbs to make ends meet -- be easier -- or harder -- with fast passenger trains crisscrossing the state on our historic rail corridors?

What about the elderly in small town and rural Oklahoma -- who, when at their worst and feeling their worst, now have no choice but to get out on the unforgiving roads and joust with the trucks just to get to OKC or Tulsa for medical care?

If more freight -- of all kinds -- could move most of its usual journey by rail instead of by public highway, would highways likely be better -- or worse?

Ain't it "strange" that, to hear the highway-lobby-hypnotized tell it, "We don't have the population density to support transit" -- but we DO "have the population density" to bear pot-holed, truck-choked public roads and tens of billions in "unfunded highway maintenance requirement?" How in the world did Anton Classen's quaint little electric trolleys succeed in building such a place? How much "population density" did the interior of this continent boast -- before railways created it?

OKC Union Station is more than just an old passenger station. It is one of only a very, very few such facilities in the nation that still has virtually all of its key service capability in place. Probably two-thirds of the 55,000 sq ft surface floor space is elegant intermodal Mail and Express Freight handling facility -- carefully designed for fast turns.

Today's United Parcel Service is the direct corporate descendent of Americas once-ubiquitous Railway Express Agency. Not strange, then, that UPS is BNSF Railway Company's best customer (although the nearest piggyback facility for OKC's UPS terminal is 200 miles south -- Ft. Worth Alliance Yard...since May, 2005).

Oklahoma is plainly a nearly perfect, natural surface transport center. Why not use this historic station facility not just for passenger services -- but to restart fast, efficient, intermodal Mail and Express Freight handling to meet the needs of today's internet economy, forging a place of leadership for ourselves at the head of an advanced surface transport revolution? And not just "the service," as a distribution center -- but a manufacturing base for advanced surface transport technologies? Research and development? Advanced propulsion and energy transmission? Digital traffic and business management?

Imagine what this state could be, freed from absolute dependence on its traditional "boom-bust" economy. Everybody needs efficient transport every day. Why parlay our unique assets into world leadership in that field? And imagine what new found leadership in these businesses could mean to Oklahoma's oil and ag industries.

If you think of your grandparents as I think of mine, it's not hard to believe that they would reach down through time to help you in special ways if they could. In many ways, they already did that, as did their parents. OKC Union Station, I would argue -- is our great-grandparents -- reaching down through history, giving us exactly what we need -- right now -- at the time we need it most.

And we can have it.

It's ours -- right here in our hands.

Unless, like Esau, we are so profane, arrogant and blind as to throw it away -- or "turn it over to the gorillas."

TOM ELMORE

'Thinking only of himself and his own momentary hunger, in a fit of blind, petty greed, Esau altered his own life and the futures of his own offspring. For a "mess of pottage," a single meal, he threw away the birthright -- and the blessing of his father. Nor did he later find a place for repentance, "though he sought it with tears..." '

You miss the point of this story Tom. This story is being told to the descendants of JACOB, who becomes its hero. The central point is how Jacob WON a birthright through careful planning and quick action. Let's not throw away our opportunity for a modern highway and a Central park that will be the envy of cities twice our size, all while keeping Union Station and two lines of track for future use. You would keep us from doing anything while the rest of the country moves forward. Let's not waste another twenty years throwing up obstructions to progress.

I'm with Okiebadger. If anything, the people who want to see the Core to Shore plans realized want to preserve and enhance Union Station. I'd like to see it's architecture cherished, and having it sited in the middle of an iconic city park, being admired and used by people as a place to dine and celebrate isn't throwing our older architecture away. No one that I know of wants to tear the building down. The way it stands now, no one sees it, because it's in the middle of blight. When I take people down there and drive them through the core to shore area, they're always amazed, not only at the vision, but what ugliness we can do away with. Oklahoma City is poised on the cusp of losing it's blah, dustbowl at best persona, and laughingstock at worst persona. A beautiful central park will make us a true city that appreciates it's urbanness. A train station for light rail that is designed for modern times and much more practical can be built in a location that is actually logical and will be used, when we determine the best location for it....a location that will encourage the use of rail, not discourage it by being out of the way. Because, if we don't develop the area around the station, no one will want to be dropped off there. I wouldn't consider taking a train that dropped me off in the middle of all that mess, and neither would any little grandmothers from Clinton or wherever.

And again, if the railroad that owns the line doesn't want it, and the city doesn't want it, who does? What private business wants it? That's my second question.

My third question is, why is it reasonable to expand an elevated highway at higher cost, when we know elevated highways require more maintenance? We all know that I-40 is inadequate already. To keep it as it is requires more than simple repair....it requires expansion. It doesn't matter if we hope that highway travel will go down eventually. Without sure knowledge of that, we need a bigger highway, not just a patched one. Why should we spend money expanding an elevated highway in a location where we don't want one? As I've said, I would have been fine with I-40 going south of the river. But, I don't know how difficult obtaining right of way would have been or would be now. But I, and almost everyone I know, is more interested in getting rid of I-40 where it stands now than preserving a railroad line. I'd like to know the cost of rerouting the rail line if we end up with a company that wants to use it. How does it compare with rerouting I-40 south of the river or anywhere else?

You said it well Betts. Let's restore Union Station and make it centerpiece for civic activity and an anchor for a beautiful park.

I am curious how useable are the existing lines shown in the NATI map you provided Tom? Can they currently support heavy rail traffic and if not how much would it take to get them back to snuff? How long would it take to do so? If my understanding is correct it is more about the right of ways then it is the current actual tracks in place today is that correct?

Also I am curious Tom do you see no value in the Core to Shore project and what legacy it could leave for our grandchildren?

What you think you know is what ODOT and its propagandists have told you. As I've noted -- you are "taking the word," however plainly irrational and manifestly deceptive that word may be -- of "the pothole kings," the "fathers of the current Crosstown," the "creators of $40 billion in unfunded highway maintenance requirement" -- and "declaring it the truth."

Is "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice -- shame on me" completely lost on you?

Ask the federal Surface Transportation Board if it's not good advice.

The truth, however, is right before you. It's just that you apparently haven't seen it. ...or perhaps refuse to see it for reasons best known to yourself (speaking generally, rhetorically and logically.)

And "the rest of the country moving forward?" It was no less a leader of one of the best-known Western cities making most notable progress -- former Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City -- whose voice may be still heard today on KGOU's website declaring the "New Crosstown Plan" -- "insane."

The Utahans say they "have their fourth congressional seat nailed for 2010." Could it be that we "lost that seat" in 2000?

And, Badg -- as to the story of Esau -- As I noted when I brought this up, my reference is not Genesis 25. My reference is the commentary of the Rabbi, Saul of Taursus, known among the gentiles as the Apostle Paul -- Hebrews 12:16-17.

Tell him he "misses the point."

I'd argue that he's trying to tell you something.

TOM

Do we promote a rail line at the cost of every other improvement the city would like to make? Does the blight surrounding I-40 not matter? Does the fact that I-40 needs to be replaced, not repaired, matter? How does the cost of losing the existing rail line and having to replace it in another location someday perhaps compare with having to obtain right of way for a new I-40 in a different location or with expanding and repairing our elevated highway? How practical is Union Station for a multi-modal transportation location? Would it be easily accessible for buses or trollies? Could light rail AND heavy rail be run on those same tracks? Would any rail line that owned them object to light rail on those tracks, as I know that is an issue that other cities have had to deal with. Is that really an ideal location for an east-west line, and is an east-west line going to have a significant number of travelers? Where do most of the people who work downtown and go downtown live? Has this been studied? These are all questions I have, the answers to which interest me far more than the explanation of Biblical references to Esau and Saul.

I-40 can follow a different route.

Yeah, some developers who bought land when they knew ahead of time which route would be left out in the cold, but I can live with that.

Holy crap all ready. It doesn't matter if the rails to Union Station were made out solid gold and mag-lev trains went over them at 1000 mph. THE STATION IS IN THE WRONG PLACE TO BE USEFUL!!!!!!!!!

If you think someone is going to ride in from the burbs to Union Station and then wait around for another train to go the last 8 blocks to Bricktown/downtown then you are stupid. Any modern mass transit hub will dwarf anything that is feasable at Union Station.

tom, i don't think anyone discounts the need for rail in our future. the map on your website does nothing for me... i wish i could see a detailed map of union staion. i don't understand why a staion by the ford center couldn't link up with the same lines that union does.

simple layman's terms please.

Here's what's needed and what can be immediately developed at Union Station:

(1) Two dedicated platform tracks (one east, one west-bound) tracks for fast, intercity passenger trains. Union Station yard interfaces with north-south BNSF Red Rock subdivision line via renewed interchange ramps near Santa Fe Avenue.

(2) Two dedicated sidings for rapid, intermodal mail and express equipment marshalling and switching supporting intercity and commuter train services.

(3) Two dedicated platform tracks for fast, frequent, regional commuter trains.

(4) Two dedicated platorm tracks with overhead electric catenary for developing, local light rail services.

(5) Two dedicated through-tracks for mainline freight train bypass (one for UP, one for BNSF)

(6) Two dedicated through-tracks for special train handling - tourist, private, military, etc.

(7) Trolleys from north-south streets circulate through Union Station, initially via 7th Street, ultimately via new dedicated yard platforms.

(8) Generous interface with corresponding, connecting bus services, auto parking and pedestrian facilities.

(9) Direct, coordinated ties via existing rail lines to Will Rogers Airport and Tulsa International Airport and state military facilities.

Interim startup services could be started immediately via existing lines. Fast-track development could bring all other basic services on line, at the outside, within a few months to three years.

Check the existing layout yourself, via maps.live.com "Birdseye" function, starting scan at 300 SW 7th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73109-5320.

TOM ELMORE

And again, do you seriously think anyone will be interested in all of this rail line if the area remains blighted, which is what will continue if I-40 is not moved? And everything you're talking about is east-west. There's no way to run it north-south, as it would have to run directly through the CBD. Is east-west REALLY what we need? Do you care at all about a park, making our downtown a viable place for people to live, or do you only care about freight yards and a theoretical rail system for transportation, which we don't even know is assuredly financially feasible? Do the UP and BNSF want these lines?

You didn't answer my question on how much would it take to get them ready for heavy rail traffic? I see the time line for heavy usage but no mention of costs??

Union Station speaks for itself. Take a look. Don't let the weeds blind you to what's actually there. I'm sometimes available to lead tours of the facility. The number is 405 794 7163.

First phase DART Rail tracks, built on long standing existing railway corridors, are 115 lb (per yard) welded rail on concrete crossties. Lightest mainline track in the Union Station yard is 115 lb welded rail on generally good quality wooden ties and extremely high quality road bed. Mainline bridges are in good condition.

First phase of Dallas system -- Electric light rail lines and mixed-traffic commuter line using 13 updated Budd Rail Diesel Cars -- was built with proceeds from a penny sales tax. DART officials say the development was created at roughly one-fifth the cost of building the same amount of new capacity with highways.

Compare the likely one billion dollar+ cost of the "New Crosstown" to total $1.1 billion cost of entire Dallas rail system first phase -- a development which immediately drew tremendous surrounding commercial development exceeding its own cost and had 40,000 daily riders within two years. System is now well along to tripling first phase size, moving over 70,000 daily riders.

Union Station lines have always interchanged with north-south, former Santa Fe lines in a number of ways. Significantly improved fast access is now more in reach than ever for several different reasons.

Via the 2.86 cent per gallon Federal Transit Trust fund contribution from each gallon of motor fuel purchased, Oklahomans reportedly send something over $70 million per year to support Federal Transit Programs.

Money and assets have never been the real problem in Oklahoma. The problem has been that our highway-and-auto-lobby influence sodden leadership has consistently undercut what should have been done.

A Regional Transit Authority (Central Oklahoma Metropolitan Transit - COMET) including Oklahoma County and all immediately surrounding counties could be rapidly established, bringing the political clout of all together for common funding.

Existing facilities in most corridors would support rapid startup services nearly immediately to key locations in each county. Use of commercial lines would be negotiated as standard business arrangement with the rail companies by the Authority. Ultimately, Authority operations might be competitively bid to commercial operators which would function somewhat like utilities under public franchises.

All predictable factors being typical / nominal, rail services may be expected to significantly outperform highways in construction cost, life-cycle maintenance cost and actual service life. Nothing else comes close to the mix of speed, carrying capacity, energy efficiency and flexibility, environmental cleanliness, affordability and safety of rail.

TOM ELMORE

Use of commercial lines by mass transit has been problematic in other cities. And again, we have to build a new Crosstown. We can argue about where, but it is going to have to be built. We're not talking about a local highway. We're talking about one of the only three major east-west interstate highways in the United States. The current road is inadequate in size, and it's crumbling. So, the billion dollars you estimate cannot be taken away from the highway for city use for mass transit. It would have to come from other moneys during or after expansion of I-40.

Is DART used for commuter traffic? How many people in Dallas are actually using DART for transportation to work or even to get to downtown events from outlying neighborhoods? DART is cute, but is it more than a tourist mover?

How many people in Oklahoma City actually work downtown or in areas immediately accessible to rail lines? How many of those people would be willing to use mass transit? What would the price of gas have to be to make use of commuter rail cost effective for the general population? What number of people would have to use mass transit every day and for what distance to make the expenditure of a billion dollars, not to mention the cost of maintenance, justifiable?

Those are questions that need to be answered. Again, we all agree that light rail is a great thing.....if it is actually used by enough people to justify the massive costs. But we can't simply say, "Light rail is great!" and spend the money without careful thought. Again, I think Union Station is a lousy location. Precisely how and where would those Union Station lines interface with north-south? The inconvenience of having to wait for a bus or trolley after taking the train is going to decrease usage, unless the CBD comes to Union Station. And that's not going to happen as long as the Crosstown is in place.

Again, it's not that anyone is anti-rail. I'm simply anti "let's have rail because it will decrease our dependence on the automobile and truck but we don't really know how practical our current locations are or if anyone would even ride it or how much it would cost to build and maintain" enthusiasm. This needs to be thought out carefully, or we could be throwing a billion dollars, and then some, into a white elephant.

betts, during my 6 years in dallas i totaled two cars a year apart from each other (amazingly in the same lane, at the same intersection, hit on the same side both times by uninsured, illegal immigrants... which is another story for another time) and i had to take the dart during those times. one would see a lot of business people downtown, but they would start thinning out around city place and mockingbird station... which makes me think they did it to avoid parking downtown and everything involved with that fiasco. that's when the make up of travelers would end up mostly as lower income folks that can't afford a car and what not (similar to the types of people that would ride the bus).
the only thing i disliked was the large amount of young thugs and gangsters. which there was a large amount of... even all the way up to plano.

I ride the 'Sooner Express' bus from Norman's OU campus to downtown OKC from time to time. its 2.25 for the 20 or so mile trip, each way. my car gets less than 45 miles p/gal so it makes sense to ride it now.

problem being, the damn transport system doesnt run that line on saturday or sunday. so much fun to ride up on friday and wait till monday morning to return...

when I ride it back from the downtown transit center in OKC it picks up a ton of suit wearing folks from the federal building area and drops them at the park and ride on robinson/I35 in Norman.

I think the bus system in OKC is awful, god awful to say the least. If you've ever been to portland, oregon/denver/dallas,etc, you okies might realize that we are way behind the times when it comes to people moving.

I think the union station is kind of like the gold dome, something that needs to be preserved and utilized once the time is right.

but on the other hand i think the mass transit bus system needs to be revamped and expanded. isn't that the next MAPS project?

cheers!

The tone the talk about transit always takes among OKC leaders and Chamber-types has always just amazed me. "Can't be done -- won't work here" -- although trolleys, interurbans and other rail services literally built Oklahoma City.

It's so shrill, so frenzied, so carefully rehearsed as to go "robot monotone," and so completely, transparently absurd that any rational observer immediately understands that these people are simply, blindly protecting the status quo from which they, themselves profit. "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," and all that -- the real motto of typical Oklahoma "leadership."

Tiny Gainesville, Texas, a city of less than 15,000 in extreme north Texas (where blue collar Ardmore dwellers have driven daily for years to work at good paying jobs...) made absolute monkeys of every city government in Oklahoma when the Heartland Flyer was dropped in its lap. No thought was ever given there to "leaving customers out in the weather," without restrooms or out under some "open-air gazebo.

Texas proud, Texas savvy Gainesville leaders -- whose historic Santa Fe depot building was not quite ready for service by June 14, 1999, moved a portable school classroom into the parking lot north of the depot building -- where Heartland Flyer riders were met from the git-go with an air conditioned, clean, people-friendly, temporary facility sporting comfortable seating, sparkling restrooms and a well-stocked marketing desk showing you where to go to spend your money in the area.

More than this, however, they already had something substantially in place that no Oklahoma community has to this day -- a real, people-friendly, multimodal transportation hub.

Heartland Flyer passengers would have no trouble reaching Gainesville's Frank Buck Zoo, the historic downtown square, North Central Texas College venues or Factory Shops outlet mall. They had only to walk across the historic Santa Fe depot platform to find that the city's transit vans had already been based there -- and passage was, and is, one dollar.

While Oklahoma leaders were whining and stalling and leaving customers without even restrooms because "everything wasn't perfect" -- the folks in a city nearly too far north to be in Texas -- created a start for modern, multimodal transportation mostly out of their own pride and will.

What if they'd had a facility like OKC Union Station -- which could have and should have been used for THE HEARTLAND FLYER from day one?

THE FLYER should have been supporting itself with a revenues from a healthy mail and express service on the route from Kansas City to Ft. Worth via OKC from the outset -- but Neal McCaleb and ODOT deliberately prevented this, even as Amtrak's Ed Ellis, whose wife's family is from Duncan, worked frantically and persistently to convince McCaleb to tap the opportunity he had carefully tailored for the train. The mail contract was already being trucked up and down I-35, awaiting the train.

But it was a train that never came. McCaleb was not about to do the right thing -- nor were OKC leaders going to insist. They apparently didn't want the train to succeed on its own terms, either -- or Union Station might well already be the Southwestern Hub for the Amtrak intermodal mail and express network that should have been.

So -- the $23 million startup fund that accompanied the train, righteous money by any standard, was burned up covering overhead costs in about four years -- instead of proliferating service to Tulsa, etc. The train now subsists on state subsidy.

THE FLYER was to have been the showpiece of Ed Ellis' "new Amtrak." A man of understanding with the courage to risk his career and reputation trying to bring common sense to Amtrak, Ed had gone "back to the future," with an advanced, intermodal version of the revenue sources that had supported commercial railroads' successful passenger trains from the beginning -- business the railroad industry literally created -- general, economical First Class Mail routing and fast, reliable and inexpensive Express Freight capable of handling literally anything.

But Neal McCaleb and Frank Keating simply would not have it. And it wasn't "enough" just to frustrate THE FLYER's sterling, innovative business plan. They were clearly hell bent to destroy Union Station's usefulness forever -- by putting a highway through the rail yard of the terminal building that had been purchased a decade before with federal transit grant funds for the stated purpose -- documented in reams of accompanying data and analysis -- of becoming our regional transit center -- all done with the written approval and under the signature of Neal McCaleb, Henry Bellmon's Transportation Secretary, in 1989.

That's right. The study of Union Station's suitability for use as our transit center was done pre-1989. COTPA's got it. You'll have to pay 'em to copy it -- and bring a hand-dolly to carry it out.

TOM ELMORE

I remain wholly unconvinced and the very thought that this is going to slow down construction of the new crosstown even further is very frustrating.

Tom sounds like an automated recording that just keeps regurgitating the same tired message.

I've read everything he's written and studied the maps and aerial photos and all I see is a hub in the wrong place and tracks going where no one wants to go.

The city should have been designed with transportation in mind, and our current layout will be a costly mistake when gas hits $10/gal. (To call that crazy now is no different than calling $4/gal crazy a few years ago).

Our way of life will change, one way or another. I'm considering moving to within walking distance of downtown, I would also consider moving to a place that was on a rail hub going downtown.

It all seems expensive, but not as expensive as where this is going.

I remain wholly unconvinced and the very thought that this is going to slow down construction of the new crosstown even further is very frustrating.

Tom sounds like an automated recording that just keeps regurgitating the same tired message.

I've read everything he's written and studied the maps and aerial photos and all I see is a hub in the wrong place and tracks going where no one wants to go.

Union Station services places where there is current development as well as places where there used to be development.

In the case of the later, you would think the city fathers could use this as an opportunity to develop new communities serviced by rail. It is and has always been true that development follows closely behind the addition of rail access.

I wouldn't be opposed to a 2-hub system -- one primarily serving lines running west to east, another serving north to south lines.

As we move on, demand for west-east transit is going to do nothing but increase. In fact, at first at least, our best public transportation customers are coming from NE OKC.

I remain wholly unconvinced and the very thought that this is going to slow down construction of the new crosstown even further is very frustrating.

Tom sounds like an automated recording that just keeps regurgitating the same tired message.

I've read everything he's written and studied the maps and aerial photos and all I see is a hub in the wrong place and tracks going where no one wants to go.

I would agree with most of that.

The idea of a multi-modal, central transportation hub is good. Crossroads might be a better choice though.

The central transit station needs to be under the new Boulevard with direct access to the Ford Center, New Convention Center, and the downtown Cooncourse system. A modern multimodal transit hub would have to be 3 or 4 times the size of anything that could ever be built at Union Station. You need places for transit police, sales, administration, operations, airline check-in and on and on and on.

Kerry - I don't disagree with you on service to the central city but the metropolitan area is so much larger now than when Union Station was viable.

A Crossroads location for the big hub would be in a good location to server Tinker and east, Will Rogers and southwest, OU and south, as well as going through downtown to UCO and north.

I agree with you on size, too - at least 3 or 4 times and maybe larger. I really don't even see Union Station that well positioned for a neighborhood hub.

Still no answers to my questions.

The Heartland flyer is nice, but it's transportation that competes with cars and planes for leisure time travel. No one goes to Dallas every day to work. Personally, I've never taken it, because I don't want to end up in Fort Worth and have to take public transportation or cabs everywhere I want to go in Dallas. I've thought about it, and I might take it to OU-Texas this year to see how it all works, but to try and compare it to public transportation in Oklahoma City is comparing apples to oranges.

1. What percentage of people living in Oklahoma City and it's east-west suburbs (El Reno, Yukon, Del City, Midwest City) actually work downtown or work at Tinker or another business that would be served by an east-west line? How does that compare to the number of people who would use a north-south line?

2. What percentage of those workers live far enough away from their place of business that it would be cost effective to ride a train to work?

3. What percentage of those workers would be willing to take a bus from Union Station to their place of business once they had arrived?

4. What would we charge for transportation, including rail and bus service that would make it financially feasible for people to ride the train and then take the bus instead of driving? Approximately what price does gasoline have to reach before a significant number of people would be willing to stop driving?

5. How many people would rather replace a fuel-inefficient car with a hybrid or fuel-efficient car than take public transportation?

6. What kind of time frame would most people who took public transportation have to anticipate for getting to work? How would that differ from drive time?

7. If we had commercial east-west rail, where would it go? How many people could we anticipate would take rail from their hometown into Oklahoma City? Would where they arrived, and transportation options have any impact on whether they would be likely to use such service?

8. What kind of subsidies would be needed to make commercial east-west rail feasible?

9. What honestly is needed to make the Crosstown safe and large enough to handle current traffic? Can we expect traffic increases in the future that need to be anticipated? Where is the most cost-effective place to locate it that also allows for future development of our downtown and removal of urban blight.

These are all questions I have. This is why I would like to see this issue studied in depth. Unless someone has answers to those questions, simply saying we need light rail or even commercial rail is not enough. Again, we need to make sure we have rail that would be utilized. Otherwise, we'll be throwing billions of dollars out the window for rail that runs empty.

i went and checked out union yard thinkoing i would encounter a web of tracks.... i found two sets of tracks. maybe i was looking in the wrong place.

Holy crap all ready. It doesn't matter if the rails to Union Station were made out solid gold and mag-lev trains went over them at 1000 mph. THE STATION IS IN THE WRONG PLACE TO BE USEFUL!!!!!!!!!

If you think someone is going to ride in from the burbs to Union Station and then wait around for another train to go the last 8 blocks to Bricktown/downtown then you are stupid. Any modern mass transit hub will dwarf anything that is feasable at Union Station.


You're exactly right, Kerry.

The station is a beautiful structure and will be a great facility in the new C2S park. But in today's Oklahoma City, it is situated in a location that does nothing to bring commuter rail traffic downtown. The central business district is the target of dreams of a viable light rail system and Union Station isn't located there.

Perhaps Tom has something in that the railyard could work for mail or shipping. But that's it. Passenger, long range and commuter isn't going there.

Tom, for years now, you've been railing against any and all public officials who dare to disagree with you on this topic. Knowing many of the city officials and even being involved in the process from the inside, I know how off base many, if not most, of your claims are.

My question to you, tho, is: Do you have any kind of document or study, created by an independant source, such as a private consultant not hired or supported by either you or the local public agencies, that supports your numbers and theories? You obviously know your side of the debate. What do you have to back up your claims that everyone would agree is an unbiased source.

Paul the Apostle -- to the Corinthians -- again comes to mind:" For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."

Some years back the OKC NW Republican Club asked if a colleague and I would debate the issue of the value of Union Station versus ODOT's New Crosstown Plan. The answer was "yes." "Anybody you wouldn't debate?" they asked. "We'll debate any of 'em, any of 'em and their brothers, any of 'em and their brothers and their dogs -- any time, any place" was my answer.

The time and place was set -- but nobody was found at repeated requests who would take the challenge of defending the ODOT plan. Not ODOT, not the OKC Chamber, not any of the "highway lobby partisans." Finally, one of their own members, long time state highway users federation director Paul Matthews and state Traffic Engineering Council chair Leonard West agreed to take up the task.

The audio from the debate is on KGOU's archive. Their chief point? As always, echoing the wise and courageous bureaucrats at ODOT, "We're gonna do it and you can't stop us."

In 1999, I worked several months with the Citizens League of Central Oklahoma to assemble a transit development program for an evening forum at Metro Tech. My organization paid its money to bring real experts to town to represent several aspects of successful transit development from their own experiences - a DART official, the CEO of the Dallas McKinney Avenue trolley system, and the Executive Director of St. Louis Citizens for Modern Transit.

When we got to the forum, we discovered that the program had been turned over to Drew Dugan, apparently a "chamber man," who refused to allow the experts to make their presentations. Instead, he passed the microphone around among the local citizens asking, in effect, "what do you think about transit?."

What the visiting experts from cities with real transit systems saw that night has stayed with them through the years. As one told me as we reminisced several years later about the events of that night -- "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I've always heard how backward and corrupt the situation in OKC is, but until I saw what happened at that forum, I would never have believed the depth of it. I've never seen anything like it. It's made a great conversation piece. I've told the story of what I saw that night every where I've gone."

When nationally respected OKC Planner Garner Stoll offered his very unflattering personal opinion of ODOT's plan in a four-page critique, written at the request of a state rep, his view was rebuffed. His position here in OKC was ultimately "very courageously defunded" by a city councilman who, like the rest, insisted on endless, unsupportable sprawl development. If you can't shut 'em up, "defund 'em."

As I've noted, the "Fixed Guideway Study" and its predecessors were pretty much all completely transparent shams -- produced by people and organizations obviously beholden to Neal McCaleb and the highway lobby.

Having witnessed years of the same games in his own state, New Mexico Governor Richardson put the "Rail Runner Express" commuter trains to work without "a study.' He'd seen far too much public money blown on other sham "studies" designed to fail. He knew the trains would work -- and they are working today.

My colleagues and I have always been completely willing to debate and compare our views with the views of any others. I don't recall ever shutting anybody out of any forum I was handling. We urge and encourage open debate. Our views have been gladly forged in the polemic fire. We have engaged in give and take with world experts on this and other transportation projects -- like the late Malise C. Dick, a native of Scotland and longtime World Bank lead transportation economist, who lived in Norman for a time during the late 1990s.

It was Malise Dick who insisted during his time here that the "New Crosstown" proposal -- sold as a "$236 million project" would cost at least $500 million even then. Of course -- he was directly on-target, and ODOT was exactly wrong. He considered the plan to destroy Union Station's rail yard completely wrong-headed.

I've never talked to a single transportation expert anywhere -- who did not work for ODOT or was in someway beholden to the special interests surrounding this mess -- who thought the whole idea of the destruction of the last grand rail yard in the West to make way for four miles of urban expressway was anything but suicidally absurd.

As former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson said of the plan (and I repeat) -- "it's insane."

Broadcast news today is saying "$5 a gallon gasoline by the Fourth of July."

How about it?

TOM ELMORE

How about answering some of the above questions? I'd be happy to debate, or at least see what you think about them. It doesn't matter if gas is $5 a gallon if the mass trans doesn't go where the people want to go.

I don't claim to have specific operational answers to all questions, Betts. I think I've offered many links to information from cities that are running these services today from which you could draw reasonable conclusions. But operational reality is hard to model.

I'm always suspicious of people who don't seem to want to talk to those who've done it -- or who, as I've all-too-often seen here -- go to great lengths to keep others from hearing from them.

I've consistently found the "new transit cities'" leaders very eager to discuss their own experiences and to make recommendations. I don't know of one "new transit system" that has failed -- or is not experiencing a boom in use today due to the motor fuel price tsunami we're all now facing. But no rational individual would expect financial performance from one mode that is not demanded of the dominant mode, especially in early development stages.

I believe it's entirely self-evident that it would be a shame -- verging on a death wish -- to allow a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats who, manifestly, can't successfully manage the roads on which they claim expertise to destroy the center of our elegant, one-of-a-kind state rail network at a time like this.

My view of the value of OKC Union Station and our existing rail network has been informed by and universally and energetically supported by any and all transit leaders in other cities that I've come to know. Only "certain Oklahomans" scoff at these assets -- and I've come to learn that most of these "have their reasons" for doing so -- reasons that generally serve exclusively themselves in fairly shockingly "near-term" ways.

I'd urge all to recognize that we are fortunate to possess a wealth of existing transportation assets that could help us immensely -- unless we allow civic vandals to mindlessly destroy them.

You have my contact information in these posts. If I can offer other resources or information, I'll always try to do so. But there's a lot of good information out there for all to find if they're willing to seek for it.

TOM ELMORE

I don't claim to have specific operational answers to all questions, Betts. I think I've offered many links to information from cities that are running these services today from which you could draw reasonable conclusions. But operational reality is hard to model.

I'm always suspicious of people who don't seem to want to talk to those who've done it -- or who, as I've all-too-often seen here -- go to great lengths to keep others from hearing from them.

I've consistently found the "new transit cities'" leaders very eager to discuss their own experiences and to make recommendations. I don't know of one "new transit system" that has failed -- or is not experiencing a boom in use today due to the motor fuel price tsunami we're all now facing. But no rational individual would expect financial performance from one mode that is not demanded of the dominant mode, especially in early development stages.

I believe it's entirely self-evident that it would be a shame -- verging on a death wish -- to allow a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats who, manifestly, can't successfully manage the roads on which they claim expertise to destroy the center of our elegant, one-of-a-kind state rail network at a time like this.

My view of the value of OKC Union Station and our existing rail network has been informed by and universally and energetically supported by any and all transit leaders in other cities that I've come to know. Only "certain Oklahomans" scoff at these assets -- and I've come to learn that most of these "have their reasons" for doing so -- reasons that generally serve exclusively themselves in fairly shockingly "near-term" ways.

I'd urge all to recognize that we are fortunate to possess a wealth of existing transportation assets that could help us immensely -- unless we allow civic vandals to mindlessly destroy them.

You have my contact information in these posts. If I can offer other resources or information, I'll always try to do so. But there's a lot of good information out there for all to find if they're willing to seek for it.

TOM ELMORE

the truth is that you have answers to almost nothing .. you speak in vast generalities and keep talking like a broken recored .. everyone on the inside is "corrupt" and i am the answer. Sure you have no agenda?

the union yard is not in a good place for a transit hub .. .period

Tom - no one is arguing that OKC doesn't need a rail system. In fact, this site might contain the largest number of rail supporters in the state. Where we disagree with you is the place Union Station plays in a future rail plan. You think it is the centerpiece of a rail plan and if the yard at Union Station is removed them OKC will forever lose the ability to have a rail system. The rest of us think Union Station barely qualifies for a stop on future rail plan let alone being the central hub.

Tom - no one is arguing that OKC doesn't need a rail system. In fact, this site might contain the largest number of rail supporters in the state. Where we disagree with you is the place Union Station plays in a future rail plan. You think it is the centerpiece of a rail plan and if the yard at Union Station is removed them OKC will forever lose the ability to have a rail system. The rest of us think Union Station barely qualifies for a stop on future rail plan let alone being the central hub.

Agreed 100%

I remain wholly unconvinced and the very thought that this is going to slow down construction of the new crosstown even further is very frustrating.

Tom sounds like an automated recording that just keeps regurgitating the same tired message.

I've read everything he's written and studied the maps and aerial photos and all I see is a hub in the wrong place and tracks going where no one wants to go.

So no one wants to go to Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker AFB, The Adventure District, or Guthrie? No potential commuters from Edmond, Norman, Choctaw, Shawnee, Spencer, Midwest City, Yukon? Tinker is the largest employer of OKC, if not the state, and they have tracks leading right up to it.

I live in NE OKC and work in SW OKC. I have to drive I-35, I-40 and I-44 or at least I-44, so I've been on the crosstown quite a bit. As a hypothetical alternative, I could take what was known as the "Sooner Sub" from where I live directly to where I work via Union Station. I also checked the bus schedules. I'd have to walk about 3 miles to the nearest stop, take 4 buses over 2 hours, and walk at least another 4 miles to my destination. Even if I took the earliest bus to the office and the last bus feasible home, I could only get in about 6 hours of work in.

With regards to the deterioration of the Crosstown, to quote Mr David Streb,


... However over the past 40 plus years, due to exposure of the bridge to weather, wear, age and even de-icing material utilized by the [Oklahoma] Department, the pins and straps have experienced degradation and eventually locked in place...

The bridge contains over 250 beams that are fracture critical members, meaning that if just one of those beams experiences a failure, a catastrophic collapse of that portion of the bridge is likely due to a lack of redundant support devices. The design of every component of the bridge was based upon an assumed traffic loading that anticipated a maximum daily traffic of 76,000 vehicles. Today there are sections of the Crosstown that carry approximately 120,000 vehicles per day. This leads to an increase in in the fatigue experienced by the bridge components and decreases the anticipated life expectancy of the structure.


This was written to me in January of this year, in response to a letter that I wrote a year prior that was apparently misplaced. If the bridge is so dangerous, why haven't through trucks been diverted across I-44 and I-240?

Keeping the math simplified, let's assume a larger auto of 4000 lbs (2 tons). That would exert 1000 lbs per wheel. Looking at the trailer only of a fully loaded semi, 80 tons would be distributed by 16 wheels at 10,000 lbs each.

-- Glenn

Agreed 100%

As do I.

So no one wants to go to Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker AFB, The Adventure District, or Guthrie? No potential commuters from Edmond, Norman, Choctaw, Shawnee, Spencer, Midwest City, Yukon? Tinker is the largest employer of OKC, if not the state, and they have tracks leading right up to it.
-- Glenn

I don't believe that is the issue. The question is, how many people that live in a suburb on the east - west line we're discussing work downtown or at Tinker. The Adventure district, Edmond, Norman and the Airport are not on that line, and would require separate tracks. How many riders would a line running east-west at it's current location generate, and would it be cost-effective to run trains there? Could those lines even be used for light rail, if that location were deemed desirable? And is it more cost effective to leave those lines there and find new right of way for the Crosstown, or would it be cheaper in the long run to obtain new right of way for rail in a more effective location? Would the new boulevard be considered for possible right of way for light rail? Using that location, we wouldn't need to obtain land, as the city will already own it, and it's a far better location relative to the downtown. If we used it for right of way, the north-south line could actually come directly into a station, rather than having to jog east or west, as it's not going to be able to run through the CBD into Union Station.

We're also discussing whether Union Station is the appropriate location for a multimodal hub.

We've got east-west commercial rail line south of the river. I must confess I'm ignorant about whether it is more highly used than the Union Station line, and whether the Union Station line is redundant. The answers to that would interest me as well.

It only makes sense to me that any light rail line that serves the distant reaches of OKC and the suburbs would need to go underground near downtown while precious downtown surface right-of-way is reserved for a circulator trolley system.

East/West could be built under the new boulevard and North/South would go under Schields/EK Gaylord/Boradway. They would connect in a large underground rail station that is directly connected to the Ford Center, Convention Center, and the Metro Conncourse. It would be a short trolley ride to bricktown, the riverfront, downtown office buildings, Myriad Gardens, and the National Memorial.

That's me, Hans -- the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench -- the pain in the .....

The Oklahoman Editorial Thursday, June 12, 2008

OFF TRACK Crosstown foes revel in slowing progress

You could almost hear the delight in a local rail enthusiast's reaction to a ruling that may delay construction of the Interstate 40 Crosstown in Oklahoma City. "It will mean a massive delay for them, we believe,” Tom Elmore said in a story Tuesday in The Oklahoman.
Isn't that swell? A highway project that's vitally important to Oklahoma City — indeed, to the nation — and has a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars may be delayed over a squabble involving abandoned railway line. Someone pass the champagne!

The stretch of track in question runs along the new Crosstown Expressway route. The hope is that the new expressway will be ready in 2012. The elevated portion of the current I-40 Crosstown is in bad shape and handles far more traffic than it was designed for. Delays in completing the new I-40 Crosstown would only exacerbate that problem, which has safety ramifications for motorists and truckers.

Of course that means little to Elmore and other obstructionists who have fought the new Crosstown because of their love of the rails. The owner of the tracks in question, BNSF Railway Co., wishes to abandon them. Three years ago, the railroad said the tracks hadn't been used for at least two years. Later it was discovered the railroad had moved some local traffic over the line during the time when it said the track hadn't been used. As a result, a federal transportation board has agreed to take another look at the abandonment request.

A delay in constructing the new I-40 Crosstown isn't a certainty. What is a certainty is that regardless of what rail lovers may think, the new highway must be built, and will be.

What a silly thing to celebrate.


Broken record.

It only makes sense to me that any light rail line that serves the distant reaches of OKC and the suburbs would need to go underground near downtown while precious downtown surface right-of-way is reserved for a circulator trolley system.

East/West could be built under the new boulevard and North/South would go under Schields/EK Gaylord/Boradway. They would connect in a large underground rail station that is directly connected to the Ford Center, Convention Center, and the Metro Conncourse. It would be a short trolley ride to bricktown, the riverfront, downtown office buildings, Myriad Gardens, and the National Memorial.

By all means, continue the long term underground plan. Eventually that would be needed. But, we have the right-of-ways NOW. They can be used while we are waiting for the tunneling.

-- Glenn