Streetcar

[Pete]

Just FYI, when LA started it's light rail/subway they didn't even have turnstiles or anyone really checking tickets. They only got serious a few years after the system had been up and running.

And this was LA and the first lines ran through some pretty rough areas.

Yet, things were fine. They had a decent law enforcement presense and you soon realize 99.9% of homeless people are harmless.

[Bullbear]

Just FYI, when LA started it's light rail/subway they didn't even have turnstiles or anyone really checking tickets. They only got serious a few years after the system had been up and running.

And this was LA and the first lines ran through some pretty rough areas.

Yet, things were fine. They had a decent law enforcement presense and you soon realize 99.9% of homeless people are harmless.

OKC wants to be big but also wants to live in a suburban bubble where everyone is afraid of homeless people and people who don't look like them. I see change in some areas and hope that progresses.

[Pete]

"The Chariot of the People" is what they call mass transit.

In general, a big part of the divide in this country is because we don't interact with each other, especially those different than us. And it's exactly why I've always loved public transportation.

[Ross MacLochness]

^^public square on wheels!

[Midtowner]

My concern about a free streetcar ride is vagrants will remain there all day; it will kill the ridership. Regardless, we need to make sure patrons are using the streetcar for a day ride shelter; especially in times of inclement weather.

This is a pretty awful attitude. You might have to share a car with someone who doesn't have the luxury of a regular place to bathe and wash clothes? These look like big enough cars. Most of the regular downtown OKC homeless folks pretty much stay to themselves and don't bother anyone.

[jccouger]

People will be afraid to ride the street car because a homeless person might be on?

Good.

I'd rather sit next to a homeless person than the person afraid of the homeless person.

[Laramie]

Come on guys, I'm not afraid of homeless or vagrants--donate to shelters (money, clothing, appliances) and give money to street individuals frequently. Just my concern if you make the streetcar ride a freebee you could attact a certain clientele; he/she may want to stay on the streetcar all day.

Our goal is to make the streetcar rollout a success; plan for any unforeseen concerns where we don't discourage ridership.

Don't know if we have an established written code of conduct for the streetcars. Embark has something that governs the buses.

Kansas City Streetcar (Code of Conduct): http://kcstreetcar.org/how-to-ride/code-of-conduct/

[Plutonic Panda]

People will be afraid to ride the street car because a homeless person might be on?

Good.

I'd rather sit next to a homeless person than the person afraid of the homeless person.

LOL. Do me a favor then, will you come to LA and ride the red line with me so you can sit in between me and the homeless person? I'll sit one seat over so you don't have to sit next to me. I mean, I'm not 'afraid' of riding next to homeless people, but my point is tread carefully here. Smoking crack, smelling like they bathed in a sewer, sh!t and piss in their pants, screaming obscenities. . . if the OKC homeless don't do this, then that's a new one. Even DART has this issue.

[d-usa]

And every Oklahoma conservative is a racist homophobia Islam hating asshole, and every Oklahoma liberal is a baby killing doped up Christian hating hippie.

Since we are throwing stereotypes around.

[GoThunder]

This escalated quickly. Let’s just say the ~95% of people riding the streetcar who have visited or lived in larger cities and participated in mass transit probably won’t think twice about it. The other 5%, for whom this will be their first mass transit experience will either 1) be disgusted and stop riding or 2) shrug it off and continue riding.

[Rover]

This is what urban life is about. It isn’t just cool people riding around on neat chic streetcars to get to great restaurants, pubs and breweries. Mass trans is public and can be gritty. I think a lot of people romanticize real urban living. It isn’t Disneyland, it is real.

[Plutonic Panda]

This escalated quickly. Let’s just say the ~95% of people riding the streetcar who have visited or lived in larger cities and participated in mass transit probably won’t think twice about it. The other 5%, for whom this will be their first mass transit experience will either 1) be disgusted and stop riding or 2) shrug it off and continue riding.

I live in the second largest city in the U.S. People in large urban cities deal with it because they have to. There are discussion all the time about how to do away with it because it does bother people. Ridership is down in LA while the system has expanded(not uncommon in many large America cities). The migrants have been causing problems and if you followed updates from major urban areas and their issues, this issue is in fact just that, an issue. It makes a lot of people mad or uncomfortable, there are altercations that occasionally break out, there are very heated town halls because no one wants the homeless shelters in their neighborhoods, there was recently a possibility brought up by Metro that showers and bathrooms would be installed in transit stations and there was a huge uproar as people instantly point to the homeless abusing it and/or being attracted(ala, we don't want more homeless people on our trains and in our transit stations is how I read it) to it. . . I mean I can on and on here.

You make it seemed as if 'the big city folks' don't care about it and are used to it. Well, yeah ,they're used to it(just like traffic), but that doesn't mean they don't have a problem with it. Obviously all homeless people aren't causing problems, but a very sizable amount of homeless people do and it's an issue that needs to be brought attention. I see no wrong doing on Laramie's part in asking what they plan to do, because it is an issue. Just telling people in advance to not worry about it and citing homeless people that don't cause an issue is a sorry way of going about answering that. Even worse if that really is the plan.

[Plutonic Panda]

This is what urban life is about. It isn’t just cool people riding around on neat chic streetcars to get to great restaurants, pubs and breweries. Mass trans is public and can be gritty. I think a lot of people romanticize real urban living. It isn’t Disneyland, it is real.

Yeah, it's prevalent in large urban cities. So what's your point?

[Paseofreak]

The migrants have been causing problems

Huh?

[Plutonic Panda]

Huh?

I don't know why I said migrants... I confused the word with vagrant. :P

[dankrutka]

Smoking crack, smelling like they bathed in a sewer, sh!t and piss in their pants, screaming obscenities. . . if the OKC homeless don't do this, then that's a new one. Even DART has this issue.

I ride the DART every week and can't think of any time of ever seeing a person smoke crack or scream obscenities. Yes, some people who are homeless smell. It's not that big of a deal.

[Dustin]

Homeless people smell? You don't say!

[Plutonic Panda]

I see it everyday on the red line in LA.

It doesn’t happen as much on DART, but I’ve persoanlly witness it happen. It’s daily in Los Angeles and many large cities.

You say it’s not a big deal, Los Angeles is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to install odor neutralizers in the red and purple lines. BARTand muni are suffering from the same thing as well. It is a big deal for many people. It’s unsanitary.

[Plutonic Panda]

Homeless people smell? You don't say!

And obstruct ROW, and act disorderly, and piss and sh!t on the seats and in the sidewalks... I’m not going to go any further than this.

It’s nice to know OKC has been shielded thus far from many of the realities that have emburdened communities that suffer from this issue. I am not making fun of or trying to put down the homeless. I am pointing things that happen in major cities. Dallas doesn’t suffer as bad and Dan was quick to pick apart a small detail from my post as I probably didn’t clarify enough, which was my fault. But my point is it does happen and effects are seen on systems like DART, but not to be mistaken with the severity of it occurring on other systems in cities like LA.

Judging from the recent posts, it would appear you guys are content with treating the issue as it’s no big deal. This about much more then people just smelling bad. I would ride the streetcar only to support my city and its transit system, but realistically, it will almost always make more sense to drive. That isn’t the case in LA where sometimes it makes more sense to to take transit or I don’t have a choice. If the issue of the homeless and transit is treated as no big issue, you won’t see me riding the streetcar!

[hoya]

If they let homeless people hang out in the streetcars, it'll kill the entire program.

The truth is, there's an intensely political aspect to the streetcar, and if you don't think so you're fooling yourself. Every step in the growth of this system has to be a careful compromise. You can try and take some principled stance that we should all accept the guy who smells like feces and screams at the window, because that's what living in the city is all about. Do that and you will lose. Nobody will support the streetcar and it'll be dead in two years.

Same thing with future expansions. Any proposed new line has to include some "touristy" spots and fun things to do. If you try to run it just through the poorest neighborhoods because "that's who needs it the most", it'll fail. Nobody will vote for it because nobody wants to go to SE 15th and High. It has to go through trendy areas to destination locations.

[catch22]

I lived in Portland which has a much more serious homeless and vagrant problem. While you’ll see them on the Max and Streetcar they are certainly not rolling homeless shelters. The few that cause a scene are usually reported by the operator and a transit officer will board a train a few minutes later a couple stops down the line and keep them moving along. The ones that don’t cause a scene are usually very well behaved or at least make an attempt to be invisible.

I think we are fretting over nothing. Sorry if some of you all have to share a train with someone with no money and holes in their shoes. Just drive your Mercedes instead; I probably don’t want to sit next to you.

[jerrywall]

I will say this... I can sort of see both sides, or at least understand while there's a learning curve. Edmond's bus system is free, and while Edmond doesn't have near the vagrant population as OKC, when I was riding the bus daily there was almost someone on there. Never an issue. And I work in Film row, and again, have never had any problems, besides navigating the entrance to the McDonald's with all the backpacks and bed roles piled in there. But then you have incidents like this - http://www.newson6.com/story/3859226...machete-in-okc - which would certainly make some folks nervous. At the minimum, I could see not wanting to send your kid on public transit. I think folks will just have to adjust and get used to the idea. Just like the increased urban traffic, or not being able to park 10 feet from the door of a business you're going to. It's all part of a lifestyle that lots of folks aren't used to around here.

[Urban Pioneer]

In all honesty, I'm not worried. I was completely against having fares of any sort and but was overruled. The one benefit of fares is that it creates a mechanism to bump people off if they aren't paying. So if there are issues, presumably they will be temporary problems. OKC Streetcar has it's own security officers to supplement OCPD. We have extensive monitored cameras both on and off board.

With that being stated, I suspect our ticketing enforcement will be random at best if not only when called in by the operator. The aggressiveness of ticket enforcement can be moderated according to the frequency of issues on board.

There are tangential differences too. Yesterday I was on a test train and had the opportunity to really study our lighting, windows, and transparency as a rider. The feel inside those trains is completely different than many of the more gritty light rail vehicles I have ridden on across the US. Vista windows... And because we are using narrow-body cars the windows on either side are closer in view to scale than the wide-body types. It creates a much more illuminated environment. The operator cab also has a clear view of the interior of the train and conversely it is easy to look out ahead.

We have a crew of cleaners that maintain the trains and because there are only seven units, expect them to be able to focus on maintaining them excellently.

I am asking for more lighting at stops though. We are evaluating our lighting at each stop and will be working on more brilliance in some locations after our opening in December.

[Anonymous.]

The Law School stop is at best, creepy at night. At least about a month ago when I went by it at night, it had zero lighting. I am glad you are on this committee, UP.

[gopokes88]

I predict no matter what happens half the people are gonna be pissed the other half happy