New I-40 Crosstown

[The Old Downtown Guy]

.... i'm gonna do a BILL down I-40 and waste as much gas as possible! all while admiring the cool bridges overhead... and i don't give a flying fart if gas is 6 bux a gallon by then.

Gasoline will have left $6 well back in its price wake by then Ed . . . you may want to try a scooter.

[betts]

There are points I cannot refute, not having enough knowledge, but I agree that the Crosstown is about more than simply replacing a section of highway. With the Crosstown, even refurbished, in place and Union Station awaiting some future use as a intermodal station, we still have a blighted mile south of the crosstown. Is Oklahoma City actually going to move south towards Union Station with the Crosstown in place, because if it doesn't, Union Station sits half a mile from downtown, with no development surrounding it. I would like to argue that were the Crosstown to stay in place, Oklahoma City downtown development would move north towards 23rd Street instead, making Union Station even more functionless for location reasons. There will be no "Central Park" or Boulevard to give our downtown some cachet and uniqueness.

I would like to see any multimodal transporation center as an intrinsic part of our downtown, not in an area no one would walk to because it's ugly and dangerous to do so, as I believe no significant development would occur south of the crosstown if it's not at least below grade. Just my opinion, and an uneducated one at that.

[metro]

I agree with ODG and Tom. If anyone knows more about this subject, I have yet to meet otherwise other than Tom Elmore.

[edcrunk]

if it cost over a milion to put in a flippin texas turnaround... please tell me how 50 million will fix the crumbling crosstown?

[edcrunk]

Gasoline will have left $6 well back in its price wake by then Ed . . . you may want to try a scooter.

scooters are sexy.... but it doesn't give me the thrill that my acura RL does.
hopefully we'll start drilling offshore or in alaska more before things get to that point.
anyways, i've had to take the dart out of neccessity before and it's great fun sharing the seat with thugs and gangsters. rising gas prices are not gonna make me ride the rail.

[mmonroe]

Good god, saving money to invest in some sort of hybrid or alt fuel car keeps looking better and better everyday.

[Tom Elmore]

First DART Rail trains ran in June, 1996. Within a short time 40,000 daily riders were using the service -- on 23.5 miles of LRT / CRT. At a point in 1999 / 2000, a UNT (Denton) economist survey showed the most valuable commercial property in the Dallas area was suddenly any property adjacent to the rail transit lines.

Of this, the "plum property," though mostly out of reach by then, surrounded the central hub at Dallas Union Station.

This standard has been repeated time and time again. Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake are now about to triple the sizes of their systems to meet demand (and that was already the case before gas prices skyrocketed...)

(I've wondered why I used to hear "fear" in the voices of transit officials in Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake, even as they described their breakthrough successes. I now understand the reason. They'd by then seen the power of rail transit -- and, while elated, realized it would be a race to enough system maturity to meet possible crises -- like the one we're in the middle of, right now. Meanwhile, OKC leaders, with the best Union Station and rail network in the West, were methodically "stalling. (!))

Like oft-heard "population density theories," (inspired chiefly by the highway lobby), the idea that "blighted areas served by old rail corridors" won't be immediately, powerfully boosted by new rail transit services simply makes no sense. (We "have enough population density" to carry $40 billion in unfunded highway maintenance deficit on our backs -- but "not enough" to make a common sense rail system work? How did the Oklahoma Railway survive so long? Privately run?)

Two of the original DART lines south from Union Station went to the arguably, considerably less affluent south side areas. This appealed to Texas Instruments to the north, one of the corporation champions of "moving ahead with transit" -- as it ensured workforce mobility.

The Dallas Zoo, somewhat like OKC, was also "on the way" to the downtrodden areas. Those areas were immediately massively boosted. Zoo attendance first full year of service tripled. (Look where COTPA's "ORM Line" goes....)

Efficient access creates population and development density. "Chasing density" with rail lines is not the way to do it. Build the service. The surrounding areas will develop and/or redevelop. The density will come -- along with the demand for "more."

There was no "population density" at all in the interior of the North American continent before US and Canadian governments partnered to build rail access. Imagine how long "modern America" would have taken without it.

Do the easier, more readily available lines first -- before they're attacked by the special interests and destroyed -- and watch problems associated with the more difficult corridors soften.

Funding? As noted elsewhere, 2.86 cents of the federal "fuel tax" on each gallon of motor fuel goes to the Federal Transit Trust Fund. Oklahoma thus reportedly now contributes over $70 million per year -- but competition for those funds is very, very hot.

First phase of DART Rail was built with a penny sales tax. But our existing infrastructure is arguably better than theirs -- with virtually direct access, for instance, to Will Rogers Airport.

Insistent talk about "Norman to Edmond" misses much easier starting places that would be highly effective. "Experts" who say "start in the congested areas" understand this delays getting started. Is this what they want? (Answer: It's always worked for them and their highway lobby bosses before!)

An effiective start is what ends the argument and gets the public support in place. Union Station-to-Stockyards, Airport, Wheatland (Hobby Lobby), Mustang, the hot residential areas of Tuttle / Newcastle, Chickasha (yep "Grady County" -- and USAO); from there the lines diverge to Lawton / Ft. Sill and Altus and Rush Springs, Marlow, Duncan. To the northeast, that line goes to Del City, Jones, Chandler, Stroud, Bristow, Sapulpa, Tulsa -- on state-owned line.

A start with 60 mph commuter trains is doable. Go out as far as possible. Make sure the Midwest City link to Tinker is operational (MWC has its plan in the can right now.)

Bricktown, OU H/S Center, Douglas High School, OKC Schools Warehouse, ORM, Lincoln Park, Z00-Omniplex-Remington Park.

Penn / Reno, Fairgrounds, OSU Tech, I-40-Meridian, Yukon, El Reno (with connection north to Enid / Vance AFB), Calumet, Geary, Weatherford-SWOSU, etc.

These are largely state-owned lines, or low-traffic-density lines looking for good, steady business.

"Light rail" not required as a start. "Rail Diesel Cars" or loco/passenger car sets would do it, as was done with the Trinity Railway Express in Dallas. Check "Colorado Rail Car DMU" on your search engine. Even cheaper, "Modernized Budd Rail Diesel Cars for Transit."

What about downtown? Circulate "motor trolleys" and buses until vintage-trolley type service could be implemented, partly on track lying in the streets today, beneath the asphalt. (Check website for Memphis and Little Rock Trolleys and, especially, for McKinney Avenue Trolleys in Dallas. Great story: All volunteer, pre-DART Rail vintage trolley operating over track laid in street in 1887 creats $100 million in surrounding commercial development in 9 years -- beginning in the late-1980s.)

A start is what we need. A start is what has been denied -- from ODOT's deliberate "flipping" of the HEARTLAND FLYER's schedule, ensuring that southern Oklahomans wouldn't get any ideas about "rail commuting" -- to Istook's sucessful bluff that kept trolley rails from being laid in Mickey Mantle Way at the last possible moment despite the courageous work of COTPA director Randy Hume, father of Memphis' trolley system.

Think about this, as well: Why do we need an Interstate highway downtown? I-240 / I-44 "are" I-40 for purposes of the federal corridor -- and a new, broad, boulevard where the "old Crosstown" is today would bring urban mobility without the heavy, through traffic.

Why are Cornett and company trying to convince national media like USA Today that "that's what they're doing?"

If you've never really seen OKC Union Station, call me -- 405 794 7163 -- and I'll go with you.

TOM ELMORE

[betts]

IMO, for Union Station to be viable as anything, including a station, the elevated I-40 has to go. It could go south of the river....we've discussed that, but with the elevated I-40 in place, the entire area south of it will stay blighted and Union Station will be an illogical location for anything, including a light rail station.

Were we simply talking about a local highway, then the importance of light rail as an alternative to automobile travel is a valid argument. But, we're talking about one of the major east-west arteries in the US. It needs to exist, but it's existence in it's current location has ruined a significant amount of developable land near our downtown core. If people wish to push for moving I-40 south of the river in order to utilize the existing track, I would not oppose that, but I think it would be a waste to use Union Station as simply transit site. I'd be far more in favor of building a new multimodal transit building to the east of the area now being proposed as a convention center. That's blighted land as well, and would probably be a better location to link with a north-south line.

I would be strongly opposed to any proposal that would keep I-40 elevated and in it's current location. C2S is a wonderful, transforming vision for a city. We are incredibly lucky to have an opportunity to create something like that which is proposed. I don't think it and light rail are mutually exclusive at all, but the Crosstown in it's current incarnation has to go for it to be viable.

[bombermwc]

OK, Tom, let me first clarify that my comment about rail being dead was only in reference to OKC. I'm a supporter of light rail in OKC, I just don't agree with using the lines downtown. When OKC ripped out all the trolly lines around town, we killed rail....dead gone caput. I would LOVE to ride a train to work everyday, but it needs to be designed with traffic patterns in mind, not just because there happens to be a line sitting there right now. Look at the bus system now and tell me it's an alternative...no. So we can't just make rail be a copy of bus lines...we need to design it from the ground up and figure out where it NEEDS to go, not just where it's the most economical to build it.

Now as for I-40 being refurbished....no way. One of the main problems is that it can't handle the traffic it has now, much less any growth. You won't find many supporters in the community for keeping I-40 where it is. And I don't see anyone adding lanes to the current bridges either. We drive the death road everyday and we're tired of it. Having chunks of the surface fall out (feet wide by feet wide) isn't safe. It's a MAJOR interstate that needs to be redeisgned to fit the traffic of today, not 1960. How many major highways like that never get widened after 50 years...in a core of a city no less? Yes, OKC is using this as part of a development project as well, but that's why there are more funding sources involved than normal. And don't tell me projects like this haven't been done in other states...they may not have been as big, but they've been done.

I agree about the Bell Isle road being bad as well. People see the road surface and this it's OK, so the bridge must be ok. I know that's not the case with the underlying support structure on that bridge. However, I still believe I-40 needs to be finished first and is much more important.

[BoulderSooner]

First DART Rail trains ran in June, 1996. Within a short time 40,000 daily riders were using the service -- on 23.5 miles of LRT / CRT. At a point in 1999 / 2000, a UNT (Denton) economist survey showed the most valuable commercial property in the Dallas area was suddenly any property adjacent to the rail transit lines.

Of this, the "plum property," though mostly out of reach by then, surrounded the central hub at Dallas Union Station.

This standard has been repeated time and time again. Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake are now about to triple the sizes of their systems to meet demand (and that was already the case before gas prices skyrocketed...)

(I've wondered why I used to hear "fear" in the voices of transit officials in Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake, even as they described their breakthrough successes. I now understand the reason. They'd by then seen the power of rail transit -- and, while elated, realized it would be a race to enough system maturity to meet possible crises -- like the one we're in the middle of, right now. Meanwhile, OKC leaders, with the best Union Station and rail network in the West, were methodically "stalling. (!))

Like oft-heard "population density theories," (inspired chiefly by the highway lobby), the idea that "blighted areas served by old rail corridors" won't be immediately, powerfully boosted by new rail transit services simply makes no sense. (We "have enough population density" to carry $40 billion in unfunded highway maintenance deficit on our backs -- but "not enough" to make a common sense rail system work? How did the Oklahoma Railway survive so long? Privately run?)

Two of the original DART lines south from Union Station went to the arguably, considerably less affluent south side areas. This appealed to Texas Instruments to the north, one of the corporation champions of "moving ahead with transit" -- as it ensured workforce mobility.

The Dallas Zoo, somewhat like OKC, was also "on the way" to the downtrodden areas. Those areas were immediately massively boosted. Zoo attendance first full year of service tripled. (Look where COTPA's "ORM Line" goes....)

Efficient access creates population and development density. "Chasing density" with rail lines is not the way to do it. Build the service. The surrounding areas will develop and/or redevelop. The density will come -- along with the demand for "more."

There was no "population density" at all in the interior of the North American continent before US and Canadian governments partnered to build rail access. Imagine how long "modern America" would have taken without it.

Do the easier, more readily available lines first -- before they're attacked by the special interests and destroyed -- and watch problems associated with the more difficult corridors soften.

Funding? As noted elsewhere, 2.86 cents of the federal "fuel tax" on each gallon of motor fuel goes to the Federal Transit Trust Fund. Oklahoma thus reportedly now contributes over $70 million per year -- but competition for those funds is very, very hot.

First phase of DART Rail was built with a penny sales tax. But our existing infrastructure is arguably better than theirs -- with virtually direct access, for instance, to Will Rogers Airport.

Insistent talk about "Norman to Edmond" misses much easier starting places that would be highly effective. "Experts" who say "start in the congested areas" understand this delays getting started. Is this what they want? (Answer: It's always worked for them and their highway lobby bosses before!)

An effiective start is what ends the argument and gets the public support in place. Union Station-to-Stockyards, Airport, Wheatland (Hobby Lobby), Mustang, the hot residential areas of Tuttle / Newcastle, Chickasha (yep "Grady County" -- and USAO); from there the lines diverge to Lawton / Ft. Sill and Altus and Rush Springs, Marlow, Duncan. To the northeast, that line goes to Del City, Jones, Chandler, Stroud, Bristow, Sapulpa, Tulsa -- on state-owned line.

A start with 60 mph commuter trains is doable. Go out as far as possible. Make sure the Midwest City link to Tinker is operational (MWC has its plan in the can right now.)

Bricktown, OU H/S Center, Douglas High School, OKC Schools Warehouse, ORM, Lincoln Park, Z00-Omniplex-Remington Park.

Penn / Reno, Fairgrounds, OSU Tech, I-40-Meridian, Yukon, El Reno (with connection north to Enid / Vance AFB), Calumet, Geary, Weatherford-SWOSU, etc.

These are largely state-owned lines, or low-traffic-density lines looking for good, steady business.

"Light rail" not required as a start. "Rail Diesel Cars" or loco/passenger car sets would do it, as was done with the Trinity Railway Express in Dallas. Check "Colorado Rail Car DMU" on your search engine. Even cheaper, "Modernized Budd Rail Diesel Cars for Transit."

What about downtown? Circulate "motor trolleys" and buses until vintage-trolley type service could be implemented, partly on track lying in the streets today, beneath the asphalt. (Check website for Memphis and Little Rock Trolleys and, especially, for McKinney Avenue Trolleys in Dallas. Great story: All volunteer, pre-DART Rail vintage trolley operating over track laid in street in 1887 creats $100 million in surrounding commercial development in 9 years -- beginning in the late-1980s.)

A start is what we need. A start is what has been denied -- from ODOT's deliberate "flipping" of the HEARTLAND FLYER's schedule, ensuring that southern Oklahomans wouldn't get any ideas about "rail commuting" -- to Istook's sucessful bluff that kept trolley rails from being laid in Mickey Mantle Way at the last possible moment despite the courageous work of COTPA director Randy Hume, father of Memphis' trolley system.

Think about this, as well: Why do we need an Interstate highway downtown? I-240 / I-44 "are" I-40 for purposes of the federal corridor -- and a new, broad, boulevard where the "old Crosstown" is today would bring urban mobility without the heavy, through traffic.

Why are Cornett and company trying to convince national media like USA Today that "that's what they're doing?"

If you've never really seen OKC Union Station, call me -- 405 794 7163 -- and I'll go with you.

TOM ELMORE

you can't be serious??? .... we don't need an I40 across town .. really .. those 120,000 thousand cars will just drive around .. ... not possible ..

union station .. is a horrible location for a transit station ..

and the reason the us and canada built rail .. had almost 0 to do with public trans .. they wanted to ship goods .. period .. not very many 18 wheelers around back then ..

possible crises? .. what crises?? .. having the best economy in the USA .

and doug .. $6 gas is not coming in the next decade ...


and rail to the middle of no where ... nice agenda ...

and fyi .. in denver their light rail still doesn't support it self ..

[Tom Elmore]

On a Friday afternoon a few years ago, approaching rush hour, I happened to be northside on OKC trying to get back south. Radio news reported a truck with a leaky drum of acid had shut down the Crosstown. I looked around as I moved south on my usual surface-street route. No crisis. No confusion. I-40 traffic apparently took I-240, I-44 and surface streets quite successfully. No fuss. No muss.

A couple of years back, I had the privilege of accompanying the Norman City Council to ODOT's offices. The council seemed near passing a resolution asking the Governor to suspend and investigate the plan to destroy Union Station's yard. ODOT persuaded them to "come and see its evidence" -- which turned out to be the ususal dog and pony show.

First rattle, however, Director Gary Ridley (the "P.E. without a dee-gree"), came into the Planning Conference Room -- where he started talking about how dangerous the existing Crosstown is. I asked him why it was, if it's so dangerous, that ODOT doesn't shut it down, or at the least, placard it against use by the heaviest through trucks, understanding that there's plenty of superior bypass capacity to handle them.

The Crosstown, Ridley said, "is not unsafe. But it's increasingly unsafe."

I challenged that remark as blankly incendiary.

Ridley said something to the effect, "Well, everybody knows Mr. Elmore's qualifications..."

I responded, "We're not talking about my qualifications, Mr. Ridley. We're talking about your qualifications -- and you're not a bridge engineer, are you? Where ARE your bridge engineers today?"

Ridley looked at the council members -- and said, "Well, I didn't come here to debate Tom Elmore."

He turned on his heal and left -- and we didn't see him again that day.

This is the same Gary Ridley who once answered my question as to why, in the history of the buildup to the Crosstown EIS (Environmental Impact Statement -- the general plan presented for Federal Highway Administration Approval) the experts at ODOT had never once seriously responded to any of the many and well-documented concerns we had expressed.

"Well, Tom," he said, "there was a time when we didn't even have to ask you what you thought."

Why doesn't ODOT take the through trucks off the Crosstown? Could it be that it would then be plain that the Crosstown is unneeded as an element of I-40?

Why hasn't ODOT done as a bridge division official told me they planned to do "as soon as they get you all to shut up...," which is to put a thin asphalt coat on the road deck of the old Crosstown to smooth the ride and stabilize the pavement until it can be replaced?

Is it possible ODOT "likes" the uncertainty the rough, crumbling road deck creates? Local TV news is certainly helpful to their cause -- there with its cameras focused on the holes, assuring all that, as ever-trustworthy Ernest Istook once indicated, it might all fall down at any minute... Of course, it's harder and harder for OKC commercial TV news to get much time for extensive reporting, sprinkled, as it is, among all those automobile ads.

Union Station is "a horrible place for a transit center" -- but a "perfect place" for a 10-lane expressway linking all the region's highways?

A massive rail center -- linked by existing lines to Will Rogers Airport at one end, and the state's largest, single-location employer at the other?

Think about that for a minute.

That's not what COTPA and Neal McCaleb told the old Urban Mass Transit Administration when they were angling for that grant money back in 1989.

And the 19th Century rail boom was about "goods?" Really? Where did they find those "goods" in the forests, the prairies and the deserts? Maybe now-vanished druids or gnomes were doing the manufacturing? Heck, the Indians weren't even in the "Casino business" then!

Not many 18 wheelers back then? That's right. Most of the teamsters' wagons just had four wheels.

Do you realize that, even today, over 40% of the nation's freight ton-mileage (one ton of freight moved one mile) moves by rail? This -- on privately owned lines, maintained out of profits, which also pay quarterly dividends to shareholders. This is a strong indication of the basic superiority of rail to road for substantial distance movement of heavy freight, or anything else.

Trucking moves only about 28%, and a fair portion of that travels piggyback -- by rail.

For many years, the nation's most profitable long-distance truck lines, whether common carrier or express haulers, have, not by coincidence, been those that most aggressively piggyback.

In Washington today, the trucking and highway lobbies are aggressively pushing congress to give a per-mile-of-existing-line-tax-credit to the railroads, enabling them to build more capacity -- so they can carry more trucks.

However, in ever-backward, tail-wagging-the-dog Oklahoma, the Transportation is trying to destroy longstanding, direct route rail lines, determined to set long arterial-street-underpassed mainline tracks linking the state's key military bases and most populous cities -- on the ground at exclusively at-grade crossings on those very arterial streets. ...in today's liability and security environment, with rail traffic volume skyrocketing.

Yes -- here where "the nation's best economy" has somehow left us stuck at "45th in per capita income and fading." You'll excuse me if I don't drink the OKC Chamber's bathwater.

You can't consistently do stupid stuff that robs the many to enrich the few and come out with a strong economy.

And "light rail doesn't support itself?"

Where has it produced "$40 billion in unfunded maintenance need," like we face on "ODOT's highways in Oklahoma?"

Let me remind you that the Oklahoma Railway was a private company operating under a public franchise -- just what the Coburns, Istooks and Inhofes say "they'd like to see" -- but their grandads didn't really like that, so they destroyed it in favor of endless, debt-financed "public highways."

After all, "what's good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A." -- right?

...and the state legislature is now talking about "up to $1.7 billion in bond financing" in part to give McCaleb, Poe and Love and their road-builder buddies "a little jinglin' change" in their pockets this year?

One of the last big "bond deals" -- from the 1997 "Billion Dollar Highway Package" -- was just paid off a year or so back in a final debt-service payment of $69 million.

That's $69 million that will never tar a seam or fill a pothole -- while ODOT whines about "being out of money...."

So it goes.

TOM ELMORE

[BoulderSooner]

The Crosstown, Ridley said, "is not unsafe. But it's increasingly unsafe."

so you think the concrete falling out of the sky is ok?? the cross town will last forever?

Union Station is "a horrible place for a transit center" -- but a "perfect place" for a 10-lane expressway linking all the region's highways?

A massive rail center -- linked by existing lines to Will Rogers Airport at one end, and the state's largest, single-location employer at the other?

the expressway .. passes threw .. and will spur massive new development ..

the station links to places in the middle of a slum ..

And the 19th Century rail boom was about "goods?" Really? Where did they find those "goods" in the forests, the prairies and the deserts? Maybe now-vanished druids or gnomes were doing the manufacturing? Heck, the Indians weren't even in the "Casino business" then!

i would respond but you prove my point below

Not many 18 wheelers back then? That's right. Most of the teamsters' wagons just had four wheels.

Do you realize that, even today, over 40% of the nation's freight ton-mileage (one ton of freight moved one mile) moves by rail? This -- on privately owned lines, maintained out of profits, which also pay quarterly dividends to shareholders. This is a strong indication of the basic superiority of rail to road for substantial distance movement of heavy freight, or anything else.

Trucking moves only about 28%, and a fair portion of that travels piggyback -- by rail.

For many years, the nation's most profitable long-distance truck lines, whether common carrier or express haulers, have, not by coincidence, been those that most aggressively piggyback.

In Washington today, the trucking and highway lobbies are aggressively pushing congress to give a per-mile-of-existing-line-tax-credit to the railroads, enabling them to build more capacity -- so they can carry more trucks.

yes rail is good for long haul transport ..

However, in ever-backward, tail-wagging-the-dog Oklahoma, the Transportation is trying to destroy longstanding, direct route rail lines, determined to set long arterial-street-underpassed mainline tracks linking the state's key military bases and most populous cities -- on the ground at exclusively at-grade crossings on those very arterial streets. ...in today's liability and security environment, with rail traffic volume skyrocketing.

not all at grade .. and again rail lines from a slum to non pop centers

Yes -- here where "the nation's best economy" has somehow left us stuck at "45th in per capita income and fading." You'll excuse me if I don't drink the OKC Chamber's bathwater.

You can't consistently do stupid stuff that robs the many to enrich the few and come out with a strong economy.

stupid stuff that robs the many?? such as?? ..

and don't let our cost of living factor into your ideas ... and i guess according to you the chamber has "gotten" to the wall street journal and Forbes .. and just creates the okc housing data ..

And "light rail doesn't support itself?"

Where has it produced "$40 billion in unfunded maintenance need," like we face on "ODOT's highways in Oklahoma?"

again good job not addressing the issue ... i guess you have a plan to have no roads whatsoever?? guess what even if we add light rail .. the roads are not going away ..

...and the state legislature is now talking about "up to $1.7 billion in bond financing" in part to give McCaleb, Poe and Love and their road-builder buddies "a little jinglin' change" in their pockets this year?

i guess you think .. the state should just save money in the bag yard in jars and then spend once they get 1.7 bill .. you clearly lack understanding of how citys, states and priviate business operate. Or do you just think we should stop fixing the roads??


AJ Winters

[edcrunk]

i'm actually for light rail in okc. i just hate that elmore's using dallas as an example in order to save the union railyard. the dart originates at union station, but i watched the lines be built and they follow highways 75 and 35. yes, development around the stations is pretty rad... like mockingbird station. but i don't see how that supports saving union rail yard.

[Tom Elmore]

We've been working for responsible highway management by state officials since 1991. The answer is simple -- but not considered by legislators, nor even suggested by current ODOT leadership:

When each vehicle using state roads repays -- accurately -- for the costs it imposes on those roads, road quality will improve.

Roads will not improve until that happens.

So why have neither the state legislature nor ODOT ever completed a reliable Highway Cost Allocation Study to scientifically, verifiably establish what each class of vehicles should be paying? (Not once -- in state history?)

Maybe because all those bad roads keep their highway contractor buddies fed?

Trouble with the Crosstown, you say?

Fix it -- and have done with it -- if you can afford to do so. As a longtime Bridge Divison Director at ODOT once told me, however, "Tom, we don't maintain -- anything!"

Rail is good for "long distance?" Boxcar freight delivered and picked up by local terminal switching operations -- including the electric Oklahoma Railway until 1946 -- served many downtown OKC stores and businesses into the early 1980s -- and that freight wasn't stomping trenches in public road pavement.

Local-delivery rail freight built the nation. We may well be in for a resurgence of just that, as recently noted by a Harvard professor John R. Stilgoe recently predicted.

Trucking is a "dray" mode.

The "big fuel burnin' party on all them free roads" didn't last too long in the overall scheme of things, did it?

New, redundant, parallel expressways will somehow create "massive new development" not heretofore seen? But who will pay to maintain them?

The ODOT "New Crosstown plan" would set the entire BNSF, former Frisco rail line exlusively on at-grade crossings east of May Avenue - a situation unseen since 1930 - which will likely soon mirror the trouble crossing the GM spur in the middle of the work Day at S. Bryant, Sunnylane and Sooner, or the old trouble of the 1920s in downtown that spurred creation of Union Station's yard in the first place!

It would not be considered elsewhere. But that's "ODOT" for you.

As a smart man once observed -- "before you destroy a fence, you'd better make certain you know why it was put there...."

I not only understand how cities, states and private business "operate" -- I also know how they fail. I guess I'd prescribe "two doses of Dave Ramsey and call me in the morning..."

Cash is king. Debt is stupid -- partly because it makes crooks rich.

Commercial rail lines support themselves. Commercial rail passenger services supported themselves -- with specialized freight services they, themselves, created -- until those services were given to others. Many of the nation's original municipal trolley lines were private business operating under public franchises. Their business was serving the public, not forcing the public to serve them.

Rail built modern America. Advanced rail is serving magnificently in other developed countries. The mode has absolutely nothing to prove.

DART says the first 23.5 miles of the Dallas rail system was completed at a cost representing about one-fifth that of creating the same amount of new capacity with new highways. Built of 115 lb welded rail on concrete ties, DART Rail specifications call for no major line maintenance for at least 40 years. Projected service life is 100 years -- five "Interstate-class pavement" service lives. Rail vehicles are expected to operate 50 years, take major overhaul, and go another 50.

Just as nuclear power is produced when the atom is split, political power is produced when the public is separated from its money. The more money, the more power. That's why politicians "like highways so much." They are, far and away, the most expensive transport mode ever devised.

Public roads are, indeed precious -- and expensive -- so much so that they should be scrupulously protected from misuse -- unless "bad roads are your business," and putting the public in unncessary danger keeps the money rolling in to your "road work pals."

The sad thing is to recognize what would be possible simply through intelligent use of assets we already have. Apparently, however, that "doesn't waste enough money."

It's enough, perhaps, to know, that both OKC leadership and ODOT would gladly hurt the entire state for "four miles of unnecessary urban expressway."

We can -- and must -- do better than that.

TOM ELMORE

[okiebadger]

We've been working for responsible highway management by state officials since 1991. The answer is simple -- but not considered by legislators, nor even suggested by current ODOT leadership:

When each vehicle using state roads repays -- accurately -- for the costs it imposes on those roads, road quality will improve.

Roads will not improve until that happens.

So why have neither the state legislature nor ODOT ever completed a reliable Highway Cost Allocation Study to scientifically, verifiably establish what each class of vehicles should be paying? (Not once -- in state history?)

Maybe because all those bad roads keep their highway contractor buddies fed?

Trouble with the Crosstown, you say?

Fix it -- and have done with it -- if you can afford to do so. As a longtime Bridge Divison Director at ODOT once told me, however, "Tom, we don't maintain -- anything!"

Rail is good for "long distance?" Boxcar freight delivered and picked up by local terminal switching operations -- including the electric Oklahoma Railway until 1946 -- served many downtown OKC stores and businesses into the early 1980s -- and that freight wasn't stomping trenches in public road pavement.

Local-delivery rail freight built the nation. We may well be in for a resurgence of just that, as recently noted by a Harvard professor John R. Stilgoe recently predicted.

Trucking is a "dray" mode.

The "big fuel burnin' party on all them free roads" didn't last too long in the overall scheme of things, did it?

New, redundant, parallel expressways will somehow create "massive new development" not heretofore seen? But who will pay to maintain them?

The ODOT "New Crosstown plan" would set the entire BNSF, former Frisco rail line exlusively on at-grade crossings east of May Avenue - a situation unseen since 1930 - which will likely soon mirror the trouble crossing the GM spur in the middle of the work Day at S. Bryant, Sunnylane and Sooner, or the old trouble of the 1920s in downtown that spurred creation of Union Station's yard in the first place!

It would not be considered elsewhere. But that's "ODOT" for you.

As a smart man once observed -- "before you destroy a fence, you'd better make certain you know why it was put there...."

I not only understand how cities, states and private business "operate" -- I also know how they fail. I guess I'd prescribe "two doses of Dave Ramsey and call me in the morning..."

Cash is king. Debt is stupid -- partly because it makes crooks rich.

Commercial rail lines support themselves. Commercial rail passenger services supported themselves -- with specialized freight services they, themselves, created -- until those services were given to others. Many of the nation's original municipal trolley lines were private business operating under public franchises. Their business was serving the public, not forcing the public to serve them.

Rail built modern America. Advanced rail is serving magnificently in other developed countries. The mode has absolutely nothing to prove.

DART says the first 23.5 miles of the Dallas rail system was completed at a cost representing about one-fifth that of creating the same amount of new capacity with new highways. Built of 115 lb welded rail on concrete ties, DART Rail specifications call for no major line maintenance for at least 40 years. Projected service life is 100 years -- five "Interstate-class pavement" service lives. Rail vehicles are expected to operate 50 years, take major overhaul, and go another 50.

Just as nuclear power is produced when the atom is split, political power is produced when the public is separated from its money. The more money, the more power. That's why politicians "like highways so much." They are, far and away, the most expensive transport mode ever devised.

Public roads are, indeed precious -- and expensive -- so much so that they should be scrupulously protected from misuse -- unless "bad roads are your business," and putting the public in unncessary danger keeps the money rolling in to your "road work pals."

The sad thing is to recognize what would be possible simply through intelligent use of assets we already have. Apparently, however, that "doesn't waste enough money."

It's enough, perhaps, to know, that both OKC leadership and ODOT would gladly hurt the entire state for "four miles of unnecessary urban expressway."

We can -- and must -- do better than that.

TOM ELMORE

HUH????????????????

[BoulderSooner]

rail .. while being used in other country's .. is hardly wonderful .. in dollars and cents terms ..

[The Old Downtown Guy]

HUH????????????????

Don't do that man . . . Tom will think you want him to repeat it in a way that he thinks you might better understand, and that could threaten the capacity and stability of this forum. Please man . . . just trust me on this. OK?

[okiebadger]

Don't do that man . . . Tom will think you want him to repeat it in a way that he thinks you might better understand, and that could threaten the capacity and stability of this forum. Please man . . . just trust me on this. OK?

Thanks for the warning. I understand exactly what you mean.

[bretthexum]

Tom does have a good point. If the crosstown is so "unsafe"... why isn't it closed? Yeah concrete is falling, but that doesn't make it unsafe unless you're standing under it or drive into a hole. It's not going to collapse tomorrow. If it were truely unsafe they would re-route 18 wheelers or close the damn thing. I can't imagine they'd be dumb enough to allow traffic if they thought a repeat of 35W in Minneapolis was imminent.

[edcrunk]

so what you're saying is that since the bridge is only crumbling and deteriorating... but has not yet been deemed unsafe to drive on, it doesn't need to be replaced... even though the replacement won't be finished until 2012.

[The Old Downtown Guy]

Thanks for the warning. I understand exactly what you mean.

Not likely, but that's ok too.

BTW . . . I think that Mr. Elmore has left the building. But he will return to enlighten and amuse us the very instant that these important issues srpout here again. Thanks Tom . . . always a pleasure.

[bombermwc]

Tom has a somewhat skewed and inaccurate view on the matter. We're all open to personal opinion...it is a forum afterall. But seriously, routing traffic to 240 is absolutely obsurd. And if you've ever listened to Metro Traffic, per your acid spill incident, then you know that they are more often wrong than right. If you hear about a wreck, you can usually gurantee it's not there. Moving I-40 traffic from the middle of the city to a BYPASS ROAD is the dumbest thing I've heard. That would be like saying Dallas doesnt need downtown access, you can take a city street from the NE loop.

I understand how some folks thing that the crosstown should be resurfaced to make it last longer. But you know what, why should we continue to just delay the inevitable by a mear 10 years? It's not capable of handling the traffic flow it now has. And since the project has already started, why are we wasting time even talking about this? The highway is moving, it's going to be finished, so move on and get used to it.

[metro]

bomber, i think they were saying to re-route semi traffic to I-240 (to prevent further decay and wear and tear), not all traffic.

[BoulderSooner]

bomber, i think they were saying to re-route semi traffic to I-240 (to prevent further decay and wear and tear), not all traffic.

actually metro tom .. talked in a couple of posts about not having a crosstown at all ..

getting rid of in and just using 240 or 44 as the I40 in OKC

[The Old Downtown Guy]

actually metro tom .. talked in a couple of posts about not having a crosstown at all ..

getting rid of in and just using 240 or 44 as the I40 in OKC

Actually, one of the options that Tom suggests exploring is dong away with any "crosstown highway" through the downtown core and letting the traffic flow to the alternate routes of 240 and 44. I don't know if that is a realistic option or not, but it is worth looking into IMO. The father of the interstate highway system, whose name escapes me at the moment, emphatically stated that these massive highways should not go through the center of cities. But, when did any "DOT" ever subscribe to actual expert opinions?

Boston has now completed the burial of their multiple crosstown highways and the benefit to their city is without measure. They also have one of the best mass transit systems I have ever ridden. It's worth a trip to Boston just to visit Fenway Park and get there on the subway.