OKC Regional Transit System

[David]

By way of Steve, a couple more quotes from the Mayor on this general topic from last night's town hall in Northeast OKC with Nikki Nice:

https://twitter.com/stevelackmeyer/s...61292328275968

OKC, Holt notes, has the burden of paying for infrastructure for one of the country's most spread out cities. Just NE OKC is 130 square miles - the size of Atlanta, @NikkiNiceOKC notes.

"The city is too big" - Holt.

If you think this is just a few randos on the forum arguing that the city is too big, you haven't been paying attention to the right people.

[Teo9969]

So, it is rich people that create sprawl and cost us a regional transit system? That’s what seems to be the focus of this thread.

Surcharges, taxes, fees, whatever, aren’t going to keep people who can afford it from living wherever and however they want. It may however force middle, lower-middle, and lower income families to pay higher costs when they are seeking a preferred lifestyle and educational opportunities for their family that doesn’t exist in the inner city.

I have a novel idea.... improve schools and job opportunities in areas you wish people to live. Use carrots, not sticks.

You have exactly 0% chance of improving schools in an area with 90% of residents being bottom 60% earners, so that pretty well discards whatever notion of carrots and sticks you're alluding to.

In general, it would be interesting to know whose arguments specifically you are referring to? It would seem an amalgam of various people's disparate viewpoints rather than an attempt at honest conversation.

What you said in your second paragraph is exactly the point. The people who can afford to build these new communities need to do exactly that. They need to build new communities. All that has been built in the last 50+ years in all quadrants of the city has been new subdivisions, with the developers always knowing that subdivisions come and fade and that they will have several more cracks at it before it's time to sell the business or hand it over to their kids.

Nothing you've offered here tells us what to do with the 50 square mile area from May and NW 10th to Council and Wilshire which is loaded with non-competitive housing and business stock, and there are no less than 5 similar (or worse) sections of this massive city that offer nothing but forgotten housing stock because it was built cheap and with planned obsolescence.

You overestimate the number of people in this metro who can stomach a $150/sq ft. build minimum barrier to entry + high taxes and long distances from existing job opportunities. A great many people buying in the Deer Creek area cannot afford to live there if they were to pay the true cost of what it takes to develop and sustain that area for any reasonable length of time (50+ years).

If the 5% of this population that can genuinely afford to develop these sparsely populated areas out of scratch want to pay for it...by all means, go ahead, but the requirements need to necessitate a 30 to 50 year investment rather than a 10 to 15 year investment. The problem comes when the city subsidizes the upper middle and middle classes to be able to overcome the barrier to entry ultimately to the benefit of the upper class that develops, sells for a quick buck, and moves on to the next "up and coming area". Had the upper middle class just stayed put and the middle class followed suit, whatever area they came from would likely have not fallen in status such that the "preferred lifestyle and educational opportunities" would have continued to have been fostered in the areas in question...unless your argument is that MacArthur and 63rd is "the inner city".

If you can make a solid argument for why Deer Creek in 2040 is not going to look like all sorts of Dallas suburbs built in the 90s look today, then by all means do so. That's all we're asking for. Assurance that a newly built "community" is not going to be irrelevant within 30 years. But the real absurdity is that that argument has to be requested in the 1st place.

[TheTravellers]

...
Nothing you've offered here tells us what to do with the 50 square mile area from May and NW 10th to Council and Wilshire which is loaded with non-competitive housing and business stock, and there are no less than 5 similar (or worse) sections of this massive city that offer nothing but forgotten housing stock because it was built cheap and with planned obsolescence....

You have no idea what you're talking about if you think the area from May/NW 10th to Council/Wilshire is made up of cheaply built housing with planned obsolescence. If that's not what you meant, then please clarify, but otherwise you're talking completely out of your a**. We live in Venice (1 block off of May) and our house was built in 1950 and will probably still be standing 100 years from now, along with almost every other house in Venice (although *technically* Venice isn't in your area, it literally abuts it). The Mayfair area is the same way, along with Lakeside, Windsor Hills, and just tons more that I don't have time to look up right now. Yes, there is crappy housing in that area (and some in Venice), but to make the generalization you did is just wrong.

[Rover]

You have exactly 0% chance of improving schools in an area with 90% of residents being bottom 60% earners, so that pretty well discards whatever notion of carrots and sticks you're alluding to.

In general, it would be interesting to know whose arguments specifically you are referring to? It would seem an amalgam of various people's disparate viewpoints rather than an attempt at honest conversation.

What you said in your second paragraph is exactly the point. The people who can afford to build these new communities need to do exactly that. They need to build new communities. All that has been built in the last 50+ years in all quadrants of the city has been new subdivisions, with the developers always knowing that subdivisions come and fade and that they will have several more cracks at it before it's time to sell the business or hand it over to their kids.

Nothing you've offered here tells us what to do with the 50 square mile area from May and NW 10th to Council and Wilshire which is loaded with non-competitive housing and business stock, and there are no less than 5 similar (or worse) sections of this massive city that offer nothing but forgotten housing stock because it was built cheap and with planned obsolescence.

You overestimate the number of people in this metro who can stomach a $150/sq ft. build minimum barrier to entry + high taxes and long distances from existing job opportunities. A great many people buying in the Deer Creek area cannot afford to live there if they were to pay the true cost of what it takes to develop and sustain that area for any reasonable length of time (50+ years).

If the 5% of this population that can genuinely afford to develop these sparsely populated areas out of scratch want to pay for it...by all means, go ahead, but the requirements need to necessitate a 30 to 50 year investment rather than a 10 to 15 year investment. The problem comes when the city subsidizes the upper middle and middle classes to be able to overcome the barrier to entry ultimately to the benefit of the upper class that develops, sells for a quick buck, and moves on to the next "up and coming area". Had the upper middle class just stayed put and the middle class followed suit, whatever area they came from would likely have not fallen in status such that the "preferred lifestyle and educational opportunities" would have continued to have been fostered in the areas in question...unless your argument is that MacArthur and 63rd is "the inner city".

If you can make a solid argument for why Deer Creek in 2040 is not going to look like all sorts of Dallas suburbs built in the 90s look today, then by all means do so. That's all we're asking for. Assurance that a newly built "community" is not going to be irrelevant within 30 years. But the real absurdity is that that argument has to be requested in the 1st place.

And yet you can’t give me a factual accounting of who actually pays for themselves and who doesn’t. You just want governments to design and force people to live in neighborhoods fitting your description of ideal. Why not just force lower income into government dictated subsidized inner city dense high rise housing? Oops... I think that has been tried before. I’ve been to China, Eastern Europe and Chicago. Saw the results.

Yes, there are dilapidated houses in OKC neighborhoods.... and rat infested high rises in ghettoes in dense urban areas. Neglect is neglect.

[Ross MacLochness]

His point, implicitly, it that we are already being forced to live in the pattern we are developing now, which is pattern unsustainable long term.

[GoGators]

And yet you can’t give me a factual accounting of who actually pays for themselves and who doesn’t. You just want governments to design and force people to live in neighborhoods fitting your description of ideal. Why not just force lower income into government dictated subsidized inner city dense high rise housing? Oops... I think that has been tried before. I’ve been to China, Eastern Europe and Chicago. Saw the results.

Yes, there are dilapidated houses in OKC neighborhoods.... and rat infested high rises in ghettoes in dense urban areas. Neglect is neglect.

This has been studied to death and proven over and over.

http://www.impactfees.com/publications%20pdf/sprawl.pdf

The cost of providing infrastructure and municipal services is higher with sprawl. Studies in California and Florida have shown these extra costs to be on the order of $20,000 per residential unit (Nicholas, et al., 1991 as cited, p. 1). Similarly, study by Rutgers University comparing a sprawl development in New Jersey with a more compact infill development found a differential of about $25,000 per residence (Bragado, et al., 1995). Another study, looking specifically at sewer hookups cost found that in Tallahassee, Florida, sewer hookups cost $11,433 in suburban areas compared to $4,447 for the mostly black, center-city neighborhoods nearest the sewage treatment plant. Despite this nearly $7,000 difference in real cost, all households pay the same price of about $6,000 for sewer connection. The urban residents paid $2,000 extra in hookup costs, while suburban homes received a subsidy of $5,000 (Longman, 1998).
Costs of services to different areas of a municipality are also influenced by location. Simply put, the further away developments are from the service centers that serve them, the more costly it usually is to provide those services. Another critical issue facing communities is whether new development occurs in areas where existing facilities, namely schools, libraries, parks and police stations can absorb capacity. Cities witnessing both rapid suburban growth and urban disinvestment at the same time can have situations where taxpayers are paying for new facilities while other facilities are being underutilized. Between 1970 and 1995, the number of public-school students in Maine declined by 27,000, yet the state spent more than $338 million building new schools in fast-growing suburban towns (Longman, 1998).
Finally, street connectivity and route distance can be more influential than physical proximity. The maze-like effect of cul-de-sac development, for example, makes it more time consuming and expensive for police to watch neighborhoods on the beat. Rarely, however, do communities try to quantify these differences and make different areas pay appropriately. (See case study on Lancaster, California for a write-up on one community that has set up location-variable impact fees).

[Teo9969]

You have no idea what you're talking about if you think the area from May/NW 10th to Council/Wilshire is made up of cheaply built housing with planned obsolescence. If that's not what you meant, then please clarify, but otherwise you're talking completely out of your a**. We live in Venice (1 block off of May) and our house was built in 1950 and will probably still be standing 100 years from now, along with almost every other house in Venice (although *technically* Venice isn't in your area, it literally abuts it). The Mayfair area is the same way, along with Lakeside, Windsor Hills, and just tons more that I don't have time to look up right now. Yes, there is crappy housing in that area (and some in Venice), but to make the generalization you did is just wrong.

"Loaded with" were the words I used, not "Made up entirely of"

[Teo9969]

And yet you can’t give me a factual accounting of who actually pays for themselves and who doesn’t. You just want governments to design and force people to live in neighborhoods fitting your description of ideal. Why not just force lower income into government dictated subsidized inner city dense high rise housing? Oops... I think that has been tried before. I’ve been to China, Eastern Europe and Chicago. Saw the results.

Yes, there are dilapidated houses in OKC neighborhoods.... and rat infested high rises in ghettoes in dense urban areas. Neglect is neglect.

You and I agree that neglect is neglect and that this is the problem. The responsibility of neglect essentially falls on the individual. Where cities are complicit is that in affording many the opportunity to be negligent because there are no real ramifications for the negligence. This is because moving out out out is relatively speaking cheap cheap cheap.

[Rover]

You and I agree that neglect is neglect and that this is the problem. The responsibility of neglect essentially falls on the individual. Where cities are complicit is that in affording many the opportunity to be negligent because there are no real ramifications for the negligence. This is because moving out out out is relatively speaking cheap cheap cheap.

Or like for being an inner city slumlord? City complicity isn’t confined.

[TheTravellers]

"Loaded with" were the words I used, not "Made up entirely of"

You're still wrong. I'd guess it's more like half and half, if even that. If you want to blast truly cheaply built housing with planned obsolescence, go north of Hefner Road all the way up to where-the-hell-ever (with a few exceptions). We used to live on NW 162nd Terrace between May and Penn, and there were literally houses that were the exact floor plan as ours with the exact same address, but on 161st Street, or 163rd Terrace, and that was repeated through the entire crappy subdivision.

[Rover]

You're still wrong. I'd guess it's more like half and half, if even that. If you want to blast truly cheaply built housing with planned obsolescence, go north of Hefner Road all the way up to where-the-hell-ever (with a few exceptions). We used to live on NW 162nd Terrace between May and Penn, and there were literally houses that were the exact floor plan as ours with the exact same address, but on 161st Street, or 163rd Terrace, and that was repeated through the entire crappy subdivision.

Guess you never looked just across May to your west when you drove into your choice of a crappy neighborhood. Or look anywhere else around you. Anyone familiar with that area would know of the many nice neighborhoods with well built houses up there. If you were so fired up that people shouldn’t want to live up there, you shouldn’t have done it yourself. Choose better for yourself next time. My guess is there a lot of people living in the neighborhood you despise who are grateful for being able to afford a house in a safe neighborhood with good public schools. Sorry it wasn’t good enough for you.

[TheTravellers]

Guess you never looked just across May to your west when you drove into your choice of a crappy neighborhood. Or look anywhere else around you. Anyone familiar with that area would know of the many nice neighborhoods with well built houses up there. If you were so fired up that people shouldn’t want to live up there, you shouldn’t have done it yourself. Choose better for yourself next time. My guess is there a lot of people living in the neighborhood you despise who are grateful for being able to afford a house in a safe neighborhood with good public schools. Sorry it wasn’t good enough for you.

We had 2 days to choose a place to rent in OKC when we flew here from Seattle because I got a job offer here and had to move in 2 weeks. You can only look at a few places in your price range and area in that time, we got inside 3 or 4 after driving around for all day each day looking at places. Our first choice was on 50-something-ish street not far from where we currently live, and he ended up taking so long to decide he didn't want to deal with cats that we had to settle for that place and never liked it nor the area, but it was what we had to choose at the time. Our only other choice was to live in a hotel once we moved here and had a truck full of our stuff sitting around until we found a place. Also, we don't have kids, so schools had nothing to do with our decision.

[Rover]

We had 2 days to choose a place to rent in OKC when we flew here from Seattle because I got a job offer here and had to move in 2 weeks. You can only look at a few places in your price range and area in that time, we got inside 3 or 4 after driving around for all day each day looking at places. Our first choice was on 50-something-ish street not far from where we currently live, and he ended up taking so long to decide he didn't want to deal with cats that we had to settle for that place and never liked it nor the area, but it was what we had to choose at the time. Our only other choice was to live in a hotel once we moved here and had a truck full of our stuff sitting around until we found a place. Also, we don't have kids, so schools had nothing to do with our decision.

Not questioning your choice, but rather your characterization of a whole sector based on a narrow experience. There are lots of very well built homes and whole neighborhoods of custom homes in unique neighborhoods near where you picked. But, as you say, price can be an issue. Just don’t say everything north of, or west of, or south of, etc is crappy when it isn’t true.

By the way, your experience shows why lots of people get where they are. You left what many on here think is Mecca to come to OKC for a job and probably affordable living. People go to and buy in areas that balance their ability to pay with their preferred needs and lifestyle choices, as well as their current situations. I assume you picked the neighborhood for cost, availability, and proximity to your new job.

[hoya]

A lot of this stuff will start to get fixed if we quit expanding outwards forever. Affordable housing isn't a bad thing, the problem in OKC is that we've got large areas of inner city and inner ring suburbs that aren't seeing reinvestment because it's cheaper and easier to go farther out.

[TheTravellers]

Not questioning your choice, but rather your characterization of a whole sector based on a narrow experience. There are lots of very well built homes and whole neighborhoods of custom homes in unique neighborhoods near where you picked. But, as you say, price can be an issue. Just don’t say everything north of, or west of, or south of, etc is crappy when it isn’t true.

By the way, your experience shows why lots of people get where they are. You left what many on here think is Mecca to come to OKC for a job and probably affordable living. People go to and buy in areas that balance their ability to pay with their preferred needs and lifestyle choices, as well as their current situations. I assume you picked the neighborhood for cost, availability, and proximity to your new job.

WTF? I'm not the one that said everything between NW 10th/May and Council/Wilshire was "loaded with" crappy houses, that was Teo, I said it wasn't, it was maybe half and half. I also said there were tons of houses north of Hefner were crappy, never ever said "everything" in any of my posts. Fully aware that Rose Creek right up the road from where we used to live (as well as other subdivisions) is full of nice houses. We had no choice in leaving Seattle, we moved there from Chicago because we were tired of the cold, got there and wife couldn't get a job in the journalism industry and I got laid off in the Great Recession 1.5 years after we moved there and 1 month before unemployment ran out, a job in OKC (never wanted to move back here) came up and we had pretty much no other choice or option, so we had to take move back to OKC, it wasn't voluntary. We rented everywhere until we bought 3 years ago, never purchased. And you assume wrong about picking the neighborhood - we had no choice, we could only find a few options in the limited time and had to choose that one, which was further away from my job than any of the other choices, but it was the only one that we could get into on such short notice. And I don't have a narrow experience of neighborhoods in OKC, lived here for decades before leaving in 1995. You're just wrong about all of what I said and did.

[GoGators]

Not questioning your choice, but rather your characterization of a whole sector based on a narrow experience. There are lots of very well built homes and whole neighborhoods of custom homes in unique neighborhoods near where you picked. But, as you say, price can be an issue. Just don’t say everything north of, or west of, or south of, etc is crappy when it isn’t true.

By the way, your experience shows why lots of people get where they are. You left what many on here think is Mecca to come to OKC for a job and probably affordable living. People go to and buy in areas that balance their ability to pay with their preferred needs and lifestyle choices, as well as their current situations. I assume you picked the neighborhood for cost, availability, and proximity to your new job.

Some people talk about our sprawl as some asset. No one from out of town is at the intersection of 164th and May passing Track house neighborhoods and a 7-11 and thinks "Yes OKC is the move for me"

No company is determining a potential relocation to OKC based on a new turning lane on 178th and Penn.

[citywokchinesefood]

Some of you are professionals at getting completely and totally off topic, let’s pull it together and talk about the RTA.

[Rover]

Some people talk about our sprawl as some asset. No one from out of town is at the intersection of 164th and May passing Track house neighborhoods and a 7-11 and thinks "Yes OKC is the move for me"

No company is determining a potential relocation to OKC based on a new turning lane on 178th and Penn.

First of all, sounds like you don’t know the area at 164th and May very well.

Secondly, companies do consider cost of living, availability of affordable housing, commute times, etc. when picking relocation and/or expansion targets. They may consider the quality of area public schools so their employees don’t need the cost of private schools. They also look at many other issues like product logistical issues, raw materials logistics and costs, cost of warehousing, local wages, available trained skilled employees, etc, etc. Maybe they locate to be near support function/service providers like banks, etc. Some locate near available customers. Everyone wants to make THEIR personal hot button the most major one, but it is rarely one thing, let alone THEIR one thing.

Companies may not relocate for a turn lane, but they don’t for a bus route either unless a majority of their employees are low paid.

[HangryHippo]

but they don’t for a bus route either unless a majority of their employees are low paid.

They certainly do consider access to transit/alternative modes of transportation.

[GoGators]

First of all, sounds like you don’t know the area at 164th and May very well.

Secondly, companies do consider cost of living, availability of affordable housing, commute times, etc. when picking relocation and/or expansion targets. They may consider the quality of area public schools so their employees don’t need the cost of private schools. They also look at many other issues like product logistical issues, raw materials logistics and costs, cost of warehousing, local wages, available trained skilled employees, etc, etc. Maybe they locate to be near support function/service providers like banks, etc. Some locate near available customers. Everyone wants to make THEIR personal hot button the most major one, but it is rarely one thing, let alone THEIR one thing.

Companies may not relocate for a turn lane, but they don’t for a bus route either unless a majority of their employees are low paid.

seemed to be pretty high on Amazon's HQ2 list of requirements,

[Rover]

seemed to be pretty high on Amazon's HQ2 list of requirements,

Yes, that’s why we lost it.

[Rover]

They certainly do consider access to transit/alternative modes of transportation.

As they do affordable housing, and cost of living, and good schools, and commute times, and support services, and weather, and entertainment, and cost of doing business, and access to high speed data, and local incentives, and tax rates, and .....
For most, bus stops is a relatively minor data point when considering the future health of a company.

[Plutonic Panda]

HQ2 is a complete scam and sets a horrible precedent.

[HOT ROD]

good thing it went to DC and NYC

[GoGators]

Yes, that’s why we lost it.

Never claimed it was.