OKC Regional Transit System

[baralheia]

Do that many fairgrounds visitors fly in? As has been said, it's mostly horse shows and those folks don't fly in, which I suspect is true, but have no way of knowing for certain.

I don't necessarily mean fairgrounds visitors flying in. What I mean is this would enable people to drive in, stay at the hotels in the Hospitality Corridor, then take the LRT to the Fairgrounds (and beyond). If I'm not mistaken, those hotels are used frequently by out-of-towners visiting the fairgrounds. This plays double-duty by also giving visitors who flew in easy access to the hotels within the Hospitality Corridor - and of course to the city beyond that as well. Additionally, if the stop is near SW 15th and Meridian, this also allows the transit system to easily tie in with the river trails, too.

We have to be extremely careful to avoid adding too many intermediate stops to ensure that travel times stay as quick as possible - but one hospitality corridor stop and one fairgrounds stop both make a lot of sense to help drive ridership for that portion of the line without significantly affecting travel times to the airport. But I think that's pretty much the maximum number of stops that make sense.

[Richard at Remax]

^this. Not only does the stop at the hotels on meridian connect as an easy ride to the airport, it also connects them to downtown and fairgrounds, if needed.

[Teo9969]

Personally, I don't want to promote usage of Meridian hotels and would rather people stay at downtown hotels which is another reason I'd not stop at Meridian. My guess is most Meridian hotel guests rent cars.

[jedicurt]

For me it's connecting downtown to the fairgrounds that creates tremendous value, not connecting the fairgrounds to WRWA.

this is where i am at as well. it's about getting the people who already live here to the places they go that would be more convenient. and that is after they are able to get to downtown on one mode, then getting to either the fairgrounds or the airport

[Richard at Remax]

Personally, I don't want to promote usage of Meridian hotels and would rather people stay at downtown hotels which is another reason I'd not stop at Meridian. My guess is most Meridian hotel guests rent cars.

Maybe not everyone can afford a hotel room downtown

[Jersey Boss]

Maybe not everyone can afford a hotel room downtown

By and large those hotels on Meredian have airport shuttles

[citywokchinesefood]

Personally, I don't want to promote usage of Meridian hotels and would rather people stay at downtown hotels which is another reason I'd not stop at Meridian. My guess is most Meridian hotel guests rent cars.

This sounds like a personal problem to me. You would not want to use them, however many people that would utilize public transit are more than likely to utilize them. Just because a hotel is not the Ritz Carlton doesn't mean that it cannot contribute positively to tourism in Oklahoma. Personally, I refuse to stay in budget hotels ever at THIS point in my life, I would much rather go to an autograph or curio collection hotel than a typical Hilton or Marriott. I am going to Uber from the airport 10/10 times, that's me because it doesn't matter if it is $10 or $100 to me. Years ago, I would be on the train every time because the $2-5 to get to downtown versus what the cab would be was not sustainable for me financially at that time. Every traveler is not the same, and we need to have different options that accommodate different travelers at different price points. I think that one of the more important questions for this line is how it will help locals connect into the RTA going forward. Quick transit to and from the airport is important, consistent use by locals will make it sustainable. We do not have a very busy airport; we cannot expect this route to be maintained by the airport alone.

[HOT ROD]

I have a hard time buying this as accurate. Below is my uninformed opinion and I welcome discussion on my accuracy/inaccuracy:

Those who are renting vehicles for their visit to OKC shouldn't have to wait on a light rail to go get their vehicle. The rental companies already supply a shuttle from the terminals which are quite fast and frequent. It would be an unnecessary stop, it would be duplicative, and it's barely a mile from the terminal. Further, no one returning a rental would want to time a trip back to catch a flight from ~less than a mile away. If I was riding to downtown okc and the rail I just boarded stopped ~than a mile away I'd be annoyed and the rail likely hasn't reached a decent speed before slowing again.

The Meridian hotels are the only stop along this route that makes some sense, imo. I would still rather our track run more directly to downtown than to service those (generally) cut-rate hotels and sketchy motels. My personal and uninformed belief is that this route, and stop, would no outweigh the speedy benefits of a point-to-point direct access from airport to Santa Fe Station. I'd love for someone with more actual knowledge to inform me of how many people frequent that hotel grouping from air travel. I'm sure it's decent. It's only 3.4 miles away and I understand some do offer shuttle service already. I also believe the hotels onI-40 and meridian host some air travel but also have lots of vehicle travelers, too. If we had to make a Meridian stop is there going to be advocates saying we should stop at the river (SW 15th) and Meridian and then again at I40 and Meridian? That seems awfully bad.

While I understand that the fairgrounds (allegedly) makes gobs money for our City from tourism, I do not believe there to be significant overlap between those visiting the fairgrounds and those using air travel to get here. If the Fairgrounds biggest draw is the Equine industry it is my belief that travel is largely local and with by roadway. If, outside of horse shows, the fairgrounds have some other massive events which loads of people fly in for, we can surely agree those events are infrequent at best. Further, anyone who is flying in to see horses or other expositions at the fairgrounds are staying in OKC overnight, they still need to get to the central core. No one stays at/near the fairgrounds. There are no hotels. Unless they're in an RV and therefore wouldn't benefit from access to the airport.

I love the optimistic idea that the Farmers Market area grows into a highly relevant corridor someday. As of now, no. No one is flying into OKC to go to our Farmer's market.

The linear distance b/w Denver Intl and downtown is more than 20 miles. They have six stops. Those stops are generally to serve people who live in between the airport versus those travelling to downtown. No stops for rental cars or farmers markets. The linear distance b/w Will Rogers Intl and downtown OKC is ~6 miles. So, if the purpose of this rail is not to drop residents near their homes in the direct path between airport and downtown then make the rail FAST and direct, thereby making it more frequent.

(please excuse poor grammar or syntax I typed up more than I intend and need to get back to work)

Perfection. THIS should be sent to the city council and transit authorities. I also can't understand why they want to make rail transit like a bus route.

[Teo9969]

This sounds like a personal problem to me. You would not want to use them, however many people that would utilize public transit are more than likely to utilize them. Just because a hotel is not the Ritz Carlton doesn't mean that it cannot contribute positively to tourism in Oklahoma. Personally, I refuse to stay in budget hotels ever at THIS point in my life, I would much rather go to an autograph or curio collection hotel than a typical Hilton or Marriott. I am going to Uber from the airport 10/10 times, that's me because it doesn't matter if it is $10 or $100 to me. Years ago, I would be on the train every time because the $2-5 to get to downtown versus what the cab would be was not sustainable for me financially at that time. Every traveler is not the same, and we need to have different options that accommodate different travelers at different price points. I think that one of the more important questions for this line is how it will help locals connect into the RTA going forward. Quick transit to and from the airport is important, consistent use by locals will make it sustainable. We do not have a very busy airport; we cannot expect this route to be maintained by the airport alone.

It's not a personal problem nor disdain for the economically disadvantaged. It's looking at the reality of those hotels. They are in an area with horrendous walkability and no path forward to becoming substantially more walkable.

The frequency of people without cars staying in these hotels would need to be proven put before losing the time making a stop here, especially when it could be serviced by a variety of alternative methods cheaply.

[Teo9969]

my statement would be at most one stop, and that is only if it goes by the fairgrounds... if that A1 option is selected, that should be the only in-between stop. because then I think you make it (in the overall RTA view) a destination point other than the airport on that route. for example, i live in Norman, and so if i take the rail to downtown and then could get to the fairgrounds, i would consider that for all of my trips to events at the fair grounds (probably 4-5 a year)... but that isn't a reason to build that route, just saying that if the line is going by there, it would be dumb to not put a stop there. But the most direct line should be looked at, and that isn't one that goes anywhere near the fair grounds.

I think this is the money shot. Anyone who has ever parked at the fair knows how big of a deal it would be to be able to not have to do that.

It's also an area that is guaranteed to get huge amounts of funding in the next 2 decades - I'm guessing more funding than anywhere outside of downtown/the river. To that end, bringing a rail stop there helps create a synergy between Fairgrounds and Downtown that is missing.

It's also an area where the city owns a lot of land and can control the development.

[Teo9969]

OKC needs transit hubs if we ever want to have a dynamic public transit system. You can't be this spread out and then try to run every line to/through downtown. Our goal should be for people to be able to get to downtown with one transfer and anywhere in the city with two transfers or less.

At a minimum having hubs at Fairgrounds + old Crossroads mall, allows all hubs to be connected via rail. It probably makes sense to put a hub somewhere at one of Integris, Penn Square, or Belle Isle and you could connect that to rail by running the street car up Classen.

Each Hub then services the further out portions of the city. From there every hub connects to downtown and each other.

Before planting rail to the airport, we certainly need to know more about the greater overall strategy.

[Sonicthunder]

OKC needs transit hubs if we ever want to have a dynamic public transit system. You can't be this spread out and then try to run every line to/through downtown. Our goal should be for people to be able to get to downtown with one transfer and anywhere in the city with two transfers or less.

At a minimum having hubs at Fairgrounds + old Crossroads mall, allows all hubs to be connected via rail. It probably makes sense to put a hub somewhere at one of Integris, Penn Square, or Belle Isle and you could connect that to rail by running the street car up Classen.

Each Hub then services the further out portions of the city. From there every hub connects to downtown and each other.

Before planting rail to the airport, we certainly need to know more about the greater overall strategy.

For the most part I agree I think if the vote passes each brt/light rail line should have its own hub with a route connecting all hubs not already connected directly(airport to nw expressway or south OKC maps 4 brt line to tinker) each hub should be should be the end of the line for the local routes in the area with another transfer point approximately half way through the line..eliminate the current downtown bus station add a few downtown loop routes

[HOT ROD]

OKC needs transit hubs if we ever want to have a dynamic public transit system. You can't be this spread out and then try to run every line to/through downtown. Our goal should be for people to be able to get to downtown with one transfer and anywhere in the city with two transfers or less.

At a minimum having hubs at Fairgrounds + old Crossroads mall, allows all hubs to be connected via rail. It probably makes sense to put a hub somewhere at one of Integris, Penn Square, or Belle Isle and you could connect that to rail by running the street car up Classen.

Each Hub then services the further out portions of the city. From there every hub connects to downtown and each other.

Before planting rail to the airport, we certainly need to know more about the greater overall strategy.

I've advised this many times, including to the Transit Administration. Hopefully they'll listen because cities WAY more dense than OKC have numerous transit centers throughout their service area; totally agree with you on how OKC can vision everything going through downtown without transfers/connections/transit center(s) along the way.

[aDark]

This isn’t in direct response to the topic (regional transit and/or rail to airport), but instead a response to a comment upthread that I couldn’t let pass. There is no “alleged” to the revenue the fairgrounds brings the City. Believe it or don’t believe it. Whatever. But revenue generated due to fairgrounds events is bigger than the economic impact from OKC’s convention business AND sports business. Combined.

Urbanized you are admittedly 10x more informed than I am. And I take you at your word when you say the State Fairgrounds brings big revenue to the City. My reason for the use of the term "allegedly" is due to the historic and seemingly unreasonable lack of transparency from the State Fair Trust. This was discussed in great detail in 2017-2018 on the State Fairgrounds thread. I actually recall you and Pete having discussions about this very issue and, to my knowledge, the State Fair Trust continues to operate without public access to it's budget. It's a 501(c) which is owned by the City and yet as taxpaying members of the City we don't get to know what's happening.

If this has changed in the past 6 years and the State Fair trust has opened their books on budget and profits I'd love to be educated. If not, I'm going to keep using "allegedly" when I reflect on the success or lack thereof as to what they add to the City. If the data supporting the financial benefit the State Fair brings to the City comes from somewhere outside of the Chamber or the State Fair then I'd love to see it.

Again, my knowledge only comes from reading this website so I could be totally off-base here.

Thanks in advance for the knowledge you're about to drop on me

[Teo9969]

Urbanized you are admittedly 10x more informed than I am. And I take you at your word when you say the State Fairgrounds brings big revenue to the City. My reason for the use of the term "allegedly" is due to the historic and seemingly unreasonable lack of transparency from the State Fair Trust. This was discussed in great detail in 2017-2018 on the State Fairgrounds thread. I actually recall you and Pete having discussions about this very issue and, to my knowledge, the State Fair Trust continues to operate without public access to it's budget. It's a 501(c) which is owned by the City and yet as taxpaying members of the City we don't get to know what's happening.

If this has changed in the past 6 years and the State Fair trust has opened their books on budget and profits I'd love to be educated. If not, I'm going to keep using "allegedly" when I reflect on the success or lack thereof as to what they add to the City. If the data supporting the financial benefit the State Fair brings to the City comes from somewhere outside of the Chamber or the State Fair then I'd love to see it.

Again, my knowledge only comes from reading this website so I could be totally off-base here.

Thanks in advance for the knowledge you're about to drop on me

The Trust could be operating in the red and the Fairgrounds can still bring dollars into the city.

Not many people on this forum pushed back against the arena as much as I did, but even acknowledged that operationally, having the Thunder most likely generates more dollars than it costs on an annual basis (whether that justifies a capital cost, is another question, whether for fairgrounds, arena, park, or anytbing else).

The amount of hotel stays and sales tax as well as incoming economic dollars from outside sources is tremendous.

Substantially more than the Thunder, the fairgrounds brings dollars from all over the world to be spent in Oklahoma City.

[Thunderbolt]

"The light rail connection to the airport would follow a relatively simple path along Reno Avenue from downtown and then along Meridian Avenue to the airport. The exact termination spot at the airport will be determined later but will be targeted to go as close as possible to the terminal. "

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news...zUc7t-oYPvOWJA

[Pete]

I posted this a couple of weeks ago and it shows the overall plan for both light rail and BRT:

[bison34]

I just hope they can get some federal funding to help with this. It will be an expensive project, albeit a needed one.

[Thunderbolt]

I'm curious how the light rail will interact with Reno and Meridian. Are the tracks on the street? Are lanes reduced to allow space for light rail specific track? Is it similar speeds to the streetcar?

The article estimates $125 million/mile for light rail. With a 9 mile route, that's over a billion $$$ for just the airport line.

Personally, I see the value. But "pay $1 billion for a traing that takes an hour* to get from downtown to the airport" seems like a tough sell to taxpayers in Edmond/Norman.

(*I don't know the exact time estimates for this approach)

[Grant]

The city's about to make the exact same huge routing mistake they made with the (basically useless) streetcar. This route is more expensive and less functional than taking the railroad tracks up Newcastle Rd. and straight into downtown. If this gets built, the bad route will result in low ridership that will hamper future prospective mass rail transit just like the streetcar boondoggle has.

I wonder what their rationale is for this route. Perhaps there's some huge detail here that I'm missing (or maybe I'm just a curmudgeon).

[Thunderbolt]

The city's about to make the exact same huge routing mistake they made with the (basically useless) streetcar. This route is more expensive and less functional than taking the railroad tracks up Newcastle Rd. and straight into downtown. If this gets built, the bad route will result in low ridership that will hamper future prospective mass rail transit just like the streetcar boondoggle has.

I wonder what their rationale is for this route. Perhaps there's some huge detail here that I'm missing (or maybe I'm just a curmudgeon).

Likely trying to connect the stretch of hotels on Meridian to the airport. To me though, if you're staying in hotels in that block of the city you're likely going to need a car to do anything else.

[The]

The city's about to make the exact same huge routing mistake they made with the (basically useless) streetcar. This route is more expensive and less functional than taking the railroad tracks up Newcastle Rd. and straight into downtown. If this gets built, the bad route will result in low ridership that will hamper future prospective mass rail transit just like the streetcar boondoggle has.

I wonder what their rationale is for this route. Perhaps there's some huge detail here that I'm missing (or maybe I'm just a curmudgeon).

This!!

[baralheia]

The city's about to make the exact same huge routing mistake they made with the (basically useless) streetcar. This route is more expensive and less functional than taking the railroad tracks up Newcastle Rd. and straight into downtown. If this gets built, the bad route will result in low ridership that will hamper future prospective mass rail transit just like the streetcar boondoggle has.

I wonder what their rationale is for this route. Perhaps there's some huge detail here that I'm missing (or maybe I'm just a curmudgeon).

It makes sense when you think about it. I have no inside scoop or anything, but here's my thoughts: Routing the Airport line this way takes advantage of two other activity centers that can help drive ridership on this line, as I imagine airport traffic alone will not be enough to justify the expense. Those two activity centers are the Meridian Ave Hospitality Corridor and the Fairgrounds. As long as the RTA is careful about keeping the number of intermediate stops low so that trip times to the airport are reasonable, this should help ensure there is sufficient ridership to maintain the line - and it gives both airport arrivals and visitors staying in the hotels on Meridian easy access to downtown and the rest of the transit network. It'd also help funnel traffic to and from the airport during big events like the State Fair, etc.

[BoulderSooner]

It makes sense when you think about it. I have no inside scoop or anything, but here's my thoughts: Routing the Airport line this way takes advantage of two other activity centers that can help drive ridership on this line, as I imagine airport traffic alone will not be enough to justify the expense. Those two activity centers are the Meridian Ave Hospitality Corridor and the Fairgrounds. As long as the RTA is careful about keeping the number of intermediate stops low so that trip times to the airport are reasonable, this should help ensure there is sufficient ridership to maintain the line - and it gives both airport arrivals and visitors staying in the hotels on Meridian easy access to downtown and the rest of the transit network. It'd also help funnel traffic to and from the airport during big events like the State Fair, etc.

routing it that way makes it not a reasonable time to go to the airport .. so very very few will use it to go there at all ..

[TheTravellers]

... It'd also help funnel traffic to and from the airport during big events like the State Fair, etc.

People fly in for the State Fair? Really? We live at 36th/May and we won't even drive to it, we have so little interest in it.