Streetcar

[PaddyShack]

So how come when I press the blue button indicating I want to get off on the next stop, sometimes the driver stops and opens the doors for me. Other times I have to not only press the blue button, but also press the door open button??? Is this just operator error? Like a training issue?

It doesn't make sense to have the door open button at all. The blue button is the indicator and if people are waiting at the stop, obviously it is time to open the doors. What am I missing here?

I would say I rather have only the doors people need open to open, to prevent outside elements from coming into the train. Such as on hot or cold days you don't want both doors to open when you only need the one. I believe if the driver opens the doors it is both and not just one. It makes more sense if we had longer trains.

[Laramie]

Im not buying this continual argument that OKC is so spread out and blah blah. Most of the urbanized built-up area of OKC is quite compact actually running N-S. The city limits has a lot of rural and watershed but NOBODY lives there.

So why would there EVER be a conversation about running a train or bus to a rural area? It is for this reason I am a huge advocate for OKC to deannex the entire NE and SE side east of Bryant/Sooner Road keeping Stanley Draper and deannex everything S and W of Mustang. This is 200 square miles of rather 'useless' land that just skews OKC into a sprawl argument when there really isn't one.

OKC should go on a DIET, trim the rural!

Neither am I, because the bulk of OKC's population resides withing the core.

[Urban Pioneer]

We had a streetcar meeting yesterday. Apparently ridership is ratcheting up according to EMBARK post Devon Tower glass falling fiasco. Looking forward to upcoming reports.

[Urban Pioneer]

Other notes from the meeting-

1. Three more automatically prioritized traffic signals have been installed which actually cause six intersections to give difference to the streetcar-

Sheridan/Harvey
Sheridan/Robinson
Hudson/Park- which causes a cascading timed effect up Hudson to the next two signals (3 in effect here)

2. Loop timing has improved to 38 - 39 minutes during average traffic loads and 41 - 42 minutes during heavy traffic periods. We are near our 12 minute consistent frequency at all periods.

3. The next wave of automated traffic signals installed will be-

4th/Hudson
Broadway/5th
Reno/Oklahoma- We have a pedestrian button timing problem here
Hudson/OKC Boulevard
Sheridan/Hudson

4. We had 130 average blockages per month with cars crossing the white line before painted instructions on the pavement. That has been cut down to about 43 per month. The average parking blockage lasts about five minutes before resolved. Blockages lasting longer than that have resulted in an average of two cars per month being towed.

[jn1780]

Other notes from the meeting-

1. Three more automatically prioritized traffic signals have been installed which actually cause six intersections to give difference to the streetcar-

Sheridan/Harvey
Sheridan/Robinson
Hudson/Park- which causes a cascading timed effect up Hudson to the next two signals (3 in effect here)

2. Loop timing has improved to 38 - 39 minutes during average traffic loads and 41 - 42 minutes during heavy traffic periods. We are near our 12 minute consistent frequency at all periods.

3. The next wave of automated traffic signals installed will be-

4th/Hudson
Broadway/5th
Reno/Oklahoma- We have a pedestrian button timing problem here
Hudson/OKC Boulevard
Sheridan/Hudson

4. We had 130 average blockages per month with cars crossing the white line before painted instructions on the pavement. That has been cut down to about 43 per month. The average parking blockage lasts about five minutes before resolved. Blockages lasting longer than that have resulted in an average of two cars per month being towed.

I was one of the people who reported this issue. Doesn't seem like to me its necessarily a pedestrian button timing issue but rather an issue with the signal not differentiating between an approaching streetcar vs streetcar stopped at station. It seems like the "fix" was to just turn off prioritized traffic system which wasn't really my intention when I reported it.

[PhiAlpha]

Other notes from the meeting-

1. Three more automatically prioritized traffic signals have been installed which actually cause six intersections to give difference to the streetcar-

Sheridan/Harvey
Sheridan/Robinson
Hudson/Park- which causes a cascading timed effect up Hudson to the next two signals (3 in effect here)

2. Loop timing has improved to 38 - 39 minutes during average traffic loads and 41 - 42 minutes during heavy traffic periods. We are near our 12 minute consistent frequency at all periods.

3. The next wave of automated traffic signals installed will be-

4th/Hudson
Broadway/5th
Reno/Oklahoma- We have a pedestrian button timing problem here
Hudson/OKC Boulevard
Sheridan/Hudson

4. We had 130 average blockages per month with cars crossing the white line before painted instructions on the pavement. That has been cut down to about 43 per month. The average parking blockage lasts about five minutes before resolved. Blockages lasting longer than that have resulted in an average of two cars per month being towed.

Sounds like slowly, but surely, all the kinks are getting worked out. Great news!

[Plutonic Panda]

There needs to be maximized zero tolerance policy for cars blocking the streetcar tracks.

[David]

https://twitter.com/davidfholt/statu...45985335549956

New @OKCStreetcar ridership numbers: This month, our Streetcar passed a quarter-of-a-million riders since opening! Sitting at 271,082 total riders as of yesterday.

[GoGators]

Why not just get rid of the parallel parking that goes along the streetcar route. This would completely remove the problem of parked cars blocking SC. Use the area for a protected bike lane etc. seems like an easy problem to solve.

[Ross MacLochness]

get rid of the parallel parking

how dare you

[shadfar]

Why not just get rid of the parallel parking that goes along the streetcar route. This would completely remove the problem of parked cars blocking SC. Use the area for a protected bike lane etc. seems like an easy problem to solve.

^
This please!

[Ross MacLochness]

It would be hard to reverse engineer a protected bike lane along most of the route however and would be impossible is some cases without building on private property.

[Plutonic Panda]

Why not just get rid of the parallel parking that goes along the streetcar route. This would completely remove the problem of parked cars blocking SC. Use the area for a protected bike lane etc. seems like an easy problem to solve.

This would be the best solution. Parking is extremely easy to come by in DTOKC and the loss of parallel parking along the street route on one side of the road won't affect it much. Not sure if there is room but it would be nice to see two way protected bike lane.

[OKC Guy]

https://twitter.com/davidfholt/statu...45985335549956

Simple calculation means this is 1,506 per day or 100 per hour average (if open 15 hours per day avg).

[citywokchinesefood]

I have been using the street car to get to and from work every day for the last few weeks. If I time it right when I walk out my door it takes about 15 minutes to get to work. Getting home at night is generally a little quicker because not nearly as many people are on, and I am often on one of the last loops. It’s been a decent experience so far, I do wish we had some sort of gps tracking for the streetcar as well as the busses.

[Pryor Tiger]

I have been using the street car to get to and from work every day for the last few weeks. If I time it right when I walk out my door it takes about 15 minutes to get to work. Getting home at night is generally a little quicker because not nearly as many people are on, and I am often on one of the last loops. It’s been a decent experience so far, I do wish we had some sort of gps tracking for the streetcar as well as the busses.

I use the website on my iphone which shows times until the next arrival (3 times actually) and it has saved me hours probably at this point!

[HOT ROD]

Not to change the subject but something I need to voice here. Holt mentioned recently that streetcar expansion wouldn't be in M4 due to the cost; which he quoted as being $130M just to get from downtown to the Oklahoma Health Center area.

I find this ridiculous How can it cost so much just to expand a working system? That isn't far at all either, only a couple of miles. So it now costs rail $65M per mile in OKC?

I'm not sure if Holt was being accurate or if he was just being political to quiet those of us who favor some sort of expansion to one or more working neighborhoods; maybe Urban Pioneer can give us better facts.

I was under the impression that in OKC rail costs $16M-$20M per mile and that streetcars themselves are around $5M. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if these are true then it wouldn't cost but $40M to extend down to Capital Hill and $10M to buy two more trains.

This would make a SIGNIFICANT impact to the system with another destination that also happens to be near working class neighborhoods in the often neglected South Side!!! Connecting them to downtown should be the first priority for any political figure IMO and would surely assure the success of ridership of the system. I'd also think expansion to OCU/Asia District/via Plaza would cost the same but would impact ridership even more positively and we could probably ask OCU to help with some of the rail/stations on/near their campus to offset.

So why couldn't we have $50M go to streetcar expansion to Capital Hill as a no brainier to keep momentum of the streetcar going?

[BoulderSooner]

Not to change the subject but something I need to voice here. Holt mentioned recently that streetcar expansion wouldn't be in M4 due to the cost; which he quoted as being $130M just to get from downtown to the Oklahoma Health Center area.

I find this ridiculous How can it cost so much just to expand a working system? That isn't far at all either, only a couple of miles. So it now costs rail $65M per mile in OKC?

I'm not sure if Holt was being accurate or if he was just being political to quiet those of us who favor some sort of expansion to one or more working neighborhoods; maybe Urban Pioneer can give us better facts.

I was under the impression that in OKC rail costs $16M-$20M per mile and that streetcars themselves are around $5M. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if these are true then it wouldn't cost but $40M to extend down to Capital Hill and $10M to buy two more trains.

This would make a SIGNIFICANT impact to the system with another destination that also happens to be near working class neighborhoods in the often neglected South Side!!! Connecting them to downtown should be the first priority for any political figure IMO and would surely assure the success of ridership of the system. I'd also think expansion to OCU/Asia District/via Plaza would cost the same but would impact ridership even more positively and we could probably ask OCU to help with some of the rail/stations on/near their campus to offset.

So why couldn't we have $50M go to streetcar expansion to Capital Hill as a no brainier to keep momentum of the streetcar going?

getting to the HSC and back is at least 3 miles and depending where you go more like 4-5 so at 20+ mil a mile and 2 new cars that is over 100 mil easy

capital hill is between 2.3 and 3.5 depending so for sure less money

and really capital hill as an extention should be a no brainer in MAPS 4

up to 22nd and back on western or classen would be 2.5ish track miles (up to 30th in less than 4 track miles)

and for 9 track miles you could double track up classen all the way to 63rd ..

[jedicurt]

getting to the HSC and back is at least 3 miles and depending where you go more like 4-5 so at 20+ mil a mile and 2 new cars that is over 100 mil easy

capital hill is between 2.3 and 3.5 depending so for sure less money

and really capital hill as an extention should be a no brainer in MAPS 4

up to 22nd and back on western or classen would be 2.5ish track miles (up to 30th in less than 4 track miles)

and for 9 track miles you could double track up classen all the way to 63rd ..

i would support a maps that was pretty much just this as the major project, and then a bunch of smaller ones!!!!

[hoya]

I wonder if they aren’t including the streetcar because of a future vote on an RTA tax.

[Ross MacLochness]

I wonder if they aren’t including the streetcar because of a future vote on an RTA tax.

That's what I was wondering. They might not want to exhaust people on public transit/trains

[OKCRT]

Simple calculation means this is 1,506 per day or 100 per hour average (if open 15 hours per day avg).

More miles of track would = more ridership. This is a good start but it needs many more miles of tracks to be a real people mover. I would hope that they can get this on the MAPS.

[Urban Pioneer]

I am going to post this here as well. It seems that there is a dual discussion on this thread along with the ideas for MAPS 4.-

I have an internal meeting about possible streetcar extensions tomorrow. If this something that you feel passionate about, I would encourage you to attend the upcoming MAPS 4 public meeting regarding public transit-

City Hall (Municipal Building) Council Chambers
9:00 AM
July 31st

I did write a pretty extensive report about the improvements that needed to be completed to the bus system. Pete has a copy of that and it looks like most of those proposed bus system improvements from the report are going to stick.

[Urban Pioneer]

Not to change the subject but something I need to voice here. Holt mentioned recently that streetcar expansion wouldn't be in M4 due to the cost; which he quoted as being $130M just to get from downtown to the Oklahoma Health Center area.

I find this ridiculous How can it cost so much just to expand a working system? That isn't far at all either, only a couple of miles. So it now costs rail $65M per mile in OKC?

I'm not sure if Holt was being accurate or if he was just being political to quiet those of us who favor some sort of expansion to one or more working neighborhoods; maybe Urban Pioneer can give us better facts.

I was under the impression that in OKC rail costs $16M-$20M per mile and that streetcars themselves are around $5M. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if these are true then it wouldn't cost but $40M to extend down to Capital Hill and $10M to buy two more trains.

This would make a SIGNIFICANT impact to the system with another destination that also happens to be near working class neighborhoods in the often neglected South Side!!! Connecting them to downtown should be the first priority for any political figure IMO and would surely assure the success of ridership of the system. I'd also think expansion to OCU/Asia District/via Plaza would cost the same but would impact ridership even more positively and we could probably ask OCU to help with some of the rail/stations on/near their campus to offset.

So why couldn't we have $50M go to streetcar expansion to Capital Hill as a no brainier to keep momentum of the streetcar going?

1. Significant extensions to Capitol Hill will involve going under the "Packingtown Lead" which is the freight railroad tracks that Stillwater Central Railroad operates on. This would involve going under or over these tracks. The most logical place is to do it on Harvey due to the city-owned parkland. This underpass, however, would cause a Capitol Hill extension to be an approximate $80 million+ cost. The system would need to operate on Robinson or Walker in much the same manner as the Dallas Oak Cliff line with an isolated, dedicated lane and Positive Train Control. It is all doable and this particular streetcar line could operate higher speeds if properly separated from auto traffic with bollards or Jersey barriers.

2. Health Sciences is also an $80+ million dollar project as it involves significant track length to properly serve the Health Sciences Center neighborhood due to the area's sprawling, suburban design. It is also doable but would best be done if supplemented by Federal Dollars, imhop. It would be cool to go further into Ward 7 and serve beyond Health Sciences. That cost would be about $120 million - $180 million and involve significant corridor redevelopment with bike lanes, beautification, and such.

The councilors have made it clear that they would like to see significant improvements made to the bus system and the broad use of BRT out of the proposed transit budget in MAPS 4.

Personally, probably one of the best short extensions that we could make would involve better connecting Film Row and the Farmer's Market areas into the existing system. This could be done without too much impact on the overall proposed MAPS 4 budget and help stimulate and reinforce activity in those nearby areas that are out of reasonable walking range. This would be accomplished by extending the "B" Line of the existing system.

[HangryHippo]

Personally, probably one of the best short extensions that we could make would involve better connecting Film Row and the Farmer's Market areas into the existing system. This could be done without too much impact on the overall proposed MAPS 4 budget and help stimulate and reinforce activity in those nearby areas that are out of reasonable walking range. This would be accomplished by extending the "B" Line of the existing system.

How easy (or not) would a short extension to 23rd St. be? That seems like a no-brainer.