Light Rail in OKC

[mranderson]

No we can do it. We needed to start planning ten years ago now that gas is getting stupid and all the people who set the price should be doing time for grand theft.

Two or three routes from Moore to Edmond, Yukon to Midwest City could work at first. The transfer station could be near Baptist.

[BDP]

We probably don't have the density for urban rail transit yet, but we probably have enough to support commuter rail.

I agree with that. It makes more sense economically and functionally at this point. And then if you do bring in commuters by rail, an urban light rail system would work to supplement that in the future.

[RichardR369]

However to get the governor to 'BE' a governor and stop Union Station's destruction is another story.

[jbrown84]

Is Union Station being torn down? I thought it was just the rail yard behind it that was going.

[windowphobe]

The actual Union Station building will remain intact after the I-40 realignment.

[RichardR369]

That's where the confusion comes in. How does a train roll 'INTO' a station without its tracks? It doesn't. 2/3's of Union Station will be destroyed leaving just the depot behind.

The station isn't the building like Istook, the Dark Tower, ACOG and the Chamber wants you to believe.

[Patrick]

Most city leaders claim that Union Station is too far South to be used for commuter rail transit. What they forget is that once I-40 is move South, Union Station will be perfectly located for this use. I just don't understand why they couldn't move the highway a little further south or north to avoid removing the rail yard.

[RichardR369]

That's what a lot of people are questioning. It doesn't make sense. Not unless the city leaders DON'T want mass/rapid transit.

In Governor Bellmon's era, Union Station was reported to be perfectly suited for OKC's mass transit needs. But after Keating got into office, that quickly changed.

[HOT ROD]

that was my question also, why couldnt they align the freeway a block north to save the rail yard????

?????????

[RichardR369]

They want that station, the part that ecompasses the tracks, destroyed. Can we say 'oil companies'? How else are they going to protect themselves from a decrease of oil consumption?

[travis]

If you look at the original study, there were several alignments being studied. I think they chose alignment "D" for the lower ROW costs. The proposed alignments corridor goes through some unused land by the river, some housing areas that could probably safely be considered blighted, an abandoned rail yard, and several low density industries and salvage yards. Moving the alignment north would put it through many more businesses including the cotton coop, and moving it south would put it through more housing and possibly a historic church (much more difficult to get ROW from). Although when they picked this alignment, I don't think they realized they would also have to bridge the canal.

Also, keeping the new highway just south of the UP rail line eliminates the need to go under or over the line (the current I40 crosses this line twice, in addition to the elevated BNSF line). I believe the deciding factor was when the BN and SF rail lines merged, which would allow them to consolidate their lines and eliminate the two rail lines that go south over the river from the old Union Station rail yard, and keep these lines south of the river.

That is the history as I understand it. I still question this alignment choice however, since they are having to do a lot of rail relocation. And given the high cost of this project, I'm not convinced that it was the right choice. I think it may have been more of an effort to bring money in from the feds.

[RichardR369]

But why the short term goal instead of looking at the long term goal? That has always been Oklahoma's biggest mistake besides chosing this realignment.

[travis]

If and when OKC gets some type of rail transit, it would more than likely be seperate from the state, so their goals can be diffeent. Solving problems with heavily used infrastructure is the states immediate goal. OKC doesn't yet have any serious or realistic goal to use the rail yard. The passenger rail yard probably hasn't been used since the late sixties, and was in decline for several decades before that. I really can't blame ODOT for veiwing it as wasted space.

[RichardR369]

ODOT's empty heads are wasted space.

[HOT ROD]

No argument there!

[Tom Elmore]

You have to understand the true history of the situation.

Of ODOT's apparently inexplicable "plan" to destroy OKC Union Station's usefulness, many -- once standing on Platform 2 in the middle of the OKCUS rail yard -- have said, "This makes no sense. Why would they do this?"

Of course it makes sense. We just have to be willing to "look at the sense it makes."

The Union Station terminal building was purchased -- way back in 1989 -- by COTPA. It cost the agency nothing. They made the case for the facility as our regional transit center, and thus won a $1.2 million grand from the Federal Transit Administration. Among those writing letters in support? Bellmon Transportation Secretary Neal A. McCaleb.

So why would McCaleb and company, less than 10 years later (just one of the many disastrous consequences of "the Keating Administration"), write off the rail yard -- and determine to put four miles of expressway through it?

Why would ODOT, in its cardboard-front "comparative route study," give Union Station a numerical value of "zero?"

The value of Union Station is intrinsic -- and self evident. In assigning this "value" to such an obvious treasure, the debt kings at ODOT were actually "rating themselves."

Then there was Bob Blackburn and Melvena Heisch of the State Historic Preservation Office -- who, in their statutory role to rate the negatives, glibly said, in effect, "the complete destruction of the Union Station rail yard -- which was the actual historic triumph of OKCUS -- will not negatively affect the historic setting or function of OKC Union Station...."

What did this ugly, crass and completely transparent betrayal get them? What was the quid pro quo?

Perhaps ... "a new historical museum building?"

Think about it -- "destroy the real deal to build a place to put photos of it...."

But, back to the challenge. It all "makes sense." We just have to be willing to look, candidly, at the "sense it makes."

Garner Stoll warned them. Dr. Dan Monaghan of the DART Board of Directors warned them. Denver Transit warned them. The Mayor of Salt Lake warned them. These warnings were no surprise to McCaleb and company. They already knew very well what they were doing -- and why.

It is apparently very, very important to ODOT to destroy the OKC Union Station rail yard -- and, especially, the Robinson and Walker underpasses, which are "nearly 80 years old and functioning just fine, thank you" -- unlike so much "ODOT infrastructure..."

A few years back, OKLAHOMAN columnist Ann DeFrange interviewed documentary historian Robert Jackson, employed at that time by Parsons Brinkerhoff, and assigned to "photograph" the historic assets in the "New Crosstown Corridor" as a means of "mitigating their proposed destruction...." Horrified by what she saw, DeFrange asked Jackson -- "Why?" "Well, Ann, highway builders don't care what they destroy," he told her.

For speaking this truth -- which was printed in DeFrange's column -- Jackson's pay was reportedly threatened by ODOT until he "reinterviewed" with the columnist and "altered his statement."

Still -- "a little light got under the door." But did anybody in Oklahoma notice, or care?

Late state Supreme Court Justice Alma Wilson called it as it was, and is, when she called the massive, illegal bond-indebtedness involved in Neal McCaleb's "billion dollar highway package" of 1997 -- ....evil, then warning that it would inevitably lead to more evil, more misuse of the taxpayers for the benefit of the special interests.

She was absolutely right -- and ODOT's ongoing, hell-for-leather effort to get "the kitty as far out on the limb as possible" with a highway project it knows it can't afford, is absolute proof of the out-of-control evil set in motion by Neal McCaleb and his minions.

We need a suspension of this project -- and full federal grand jury investigation. ODOT needs to be inverted, shaken out -- and the fallout vigorously prosecuted.

Anybody for "accountable government?"

By the way -- if you want to see some of the background and documents to which I've referred, check North American Transportation Institute's website. Also check "nomoron" (dot-com), and look at the Union Station section.

On the opening page of the NATI website are a lot of video and sound files you may find interesting.

TOM ELMORE

[mmonroe]

Why are these posts so long to read, I don't have that great of an attention span.

And I learned this today, COTPA means "Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority"

[PennyQuilts]

Frequent exposure to TV before age 4 (including educational programs) = ADHD and/or short attention span... Exposure during preschool development to <20 seconds before screen change interferes in the brain's ability to maintain attention beyond that time (contrast the pace of Indy movies vs. the Wizard of Oz). Such exposure undermines the development of circuitry necessary to maintain concentration beyond about 6 sentences or 20 seconds...

I wouldn't let my kids NEAR the TV (subject matter doesn't matter) prior to age 3.5...

[CuatrodeMayo]

Everybody is a conspiracy theorist.

[BDP]

Frequent exposure to TV before age 4 (including educational programs) = ADHD and/or short attention span...

Depends on the study. Nothing has been conclusive. Many studies have also shown a significant improvement in test scores for kids who watched educational programming starting at age 2 over those who did not.

Such is the way of behavioral studies....

What was this about again?

[mmonroe]

The REAL topic to this post is "WE" as citizens want to continue our travels around the downtown area but without the bite in our a$$es from the cost of fuel. As well as tagging on the fact that we would like a faster more simple way of travel in and out of the downtown area to are respected suburbs.

It also makes one want to figure the cost comparison of just continuing to pay for gas as it increases in a "5 steps forward, 3 steps back" price hike to the cost of parking fees, where applicable, riding fairs, possible taxes to build a light rail system, and other unforeseen fees accompanied by this.

All the while we argue about an old train station.. :]

[sethsrott]

Tom, why are you resurrecting old threads? The last post on this was in 2005...and this isn't the first on the topic of Union Station/Rail/I-40 that you have done this month.

I appreciate what The North American Transportation Institute and you are trying to do in saving the rail lines at Union Station...but why are you here resurrecting dead threads on this topic, when we all know that ground has already been broken on the new Crosstown Expressway, and that stopping progress on that is more than likely not going to happen? Isn't it like beating a dead horse.

Like I said, I would like to see Union Station's Rail Lines stay intact but I am not going to continue to beat the drum for that issue once it has passed...that would be like contentiously complaining about the way the vote went on the MAPS tax (I supported MAPS, just using as an example)

So please Tom, no offense, but stop resurrecting old threads on this issue.