Union Station - Transit Discussions

[flintysooner]

The idea of a multi-modal, central transportation hub is good. Crossroads might be a better choice though.

[Kerry]

The central transit station needs to be under the new Boulevard with direct access to the Ford Center, New Convention Center, and the downtown Cooncourse system. A modern multimodal transit hub would have to be 3 or 4 times the size of anything that could ever be built at Union Station. You need places for transit police, sales, administration, operations, airline check-in and on and on and on.

[flintysooner]

Kerry - I don't disagree with you on service to the central city but the metropolitan area is so much larger now than when Union Station was viable.

A Crossroads location for the big hub would be in a good location to server Tinker and east, Will Rogers and southwest, OU and south, as well as going through downtown to UCO and north.

I agree with you on size, too - at least 3 or 4 times and maybe larger. I really don't even see Union Station that well positioned for a neighborhood hub.

[betts]

Still no answers to my questions.

The Heartland flyer is nice, but it's transportation that competes with cars and planes for leisure time travel. No one goes to Dallas every day to work. Personally, I've never taken it, because I don't want to end up in Fort Worth and have to take public transportation or cabs everywhere I want to go in Dallas. I've thought about it, and I might take it to OU-Texas this year to see how it all works, but to try and compare it to public transportation in Oklahoma City is comparing apples to oranges.

1. What percentage of people living in Oklahoma City and it's east-west suburbs (El Reno, Yukon, Del City, Midwest City) actually work downtown or work at Tinker or another business that would be served by an east-west line? How does that compare to the number of people who would use a north-south line?

2. What percentage of those workers live far enough away from their place of business that it would be cost effective to ride a train to work?

3. What percentage of those workers would be willing to take a bus from Union Station to their place of business once they had arrived?

4. What would we charge for transportation, including rail and bus service that would make it financially feasible for people to ride the train and then take the bus instead of driving? Approximately what price does gasoline have to reach before a significant number of people would be willing to stop driving?

5. How many people would rather replace a fuel-inefficient car with a hybrid or fuel-efficient car than take public transportation?

6. What kind of time frame would most people who took public transportation have to anticipate for getting to work? How would that differ from drive time?

7. If we had commercial east-west rail, where would it go? How many people could we anticipate would take rail from their hometown into Oklahoma City? Would where they arrived, and transportation options have any impact on whether they would be likely to use such service?

8. What kind of subsidies would be needed to make commercial east-west rail feasible?

9. What honestly is needed to make the Crosstown safe and large enough to handle current traffic? Can we expect traffic increases in the future that need to be anticipated? Where is the most cost-effective place to locate it that also allows for future development of our downtown and removal of urban blight.

These are all questions I have. This is why I would like to see this issue studied in depth. Unless someone has answers to those questions, simply saying we need light rail or even commercial rail is not enough. Again, we need to make sure we have rail that would be utilized. Otherwise, we'll be throwing billions of dollars out the window for rail that runs empty.

[edcrunk]

i went and checked out union yard thinkoing i would encounter a web of tracks.... i found two sets of tracks. maybe i was looking in the wrong place.

[DelCamino]

Holy crap all ready. It doesn't matter if the rails to Union Station were made out solid gold and mag-lev trains went over them at 1000 mph. THE STATION IS IN THE WRONG PLACE TO BE USEFUL!!!!!!!!!

If you think someone is going to ride in from the burbs to Union Station and then wait around for another train to go the last 8 blocks to Bricktown/downtown then you are stupid. Any modern mass transit hub will dwarf anything that is feasable at Union Station.

You're exactly right, Kerry.

The station is a beautiful structure and will be a great facility in the new C2S park. But in today's Oklahoma City, it is situated in a location that does nothing to bring commuter rail traffic downtown. The central business district is the target of dreams of a viable light rail system and Union Station isn't located there.

Perhaps Tom has something in that the railyard could work for mail or shipping. But that's it. Passenger, long range and commuter isn't going there.

[DelCamino]

Tom, for years now, you've been railing against any and all public officials who dare to disagree with you on this topic. Knowing many of the city officials and even being involved in the process from the inside, I know how off base many, if not most, of your claims are.

My question to you, tho, is: Do you have any kind of document or study, created by an independant source, such as a private consultant not hired or supported by either you or the local public agencies, that supports your numbers and theories? You obviously know your side of the debate. What do you have to back up your claims that everyone would agree is an unbiased source.

[Tom Elmore]

Paul the Apostle -- to the Corinthians -- again comes to mind:" For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."

Some years back the OKC NW Republican Club asked if a colleague and I would debate the issue of the value of Union Station versus ODOT's New Crosstown Plan. The answer was "yes." "Anybody you wouldn't debate?" they asked. "We'll debate any of 'em, any of 'em and their brothers, any of 'em and their brothers and their dogs -- any time, any place" was my answer.

The time and place was set -- but nobody was found at repeated requests who would take the challenge of defending the ODOT plan. Not ODOT, not the OKC Chamber, not any of the "highway lobby partisans." Finally, one of their own members, long time state highway users federation director Paul Matthews and state Traffic Engineering Council chair Leonard West agreed to take up the task.

The audio from the debate is on KGOU's archive. Their chief point? As always, echoing the wise and courageous bureaucrats at ODOT, "We're gonna do it and you can't stop us."

In 1999, I worked several months with the Citizens League of Central Oklahoma to assemble a transit development program for an evening forum at Metro Tech. My organization paid its money to bring real experts to town to represent several aspects of successful transit development from their own experiences - a DART official, the CEO of the Dallas McKinney Avenue trolley system, and the Executive Director of St. Louis Citizens for Modern Transit.

When we got to the forum, we discovered that the program had been turned over to Drew Dugan, apparently a "chamber man," who refused to allow the experts to make their presentations. Instead, he passed the microphone around among the local citizens asking, in effect, "what do you think about transit?."

What the visiting experts from cities with real transit systems saw that night has stayed with them through the years. As one told me as we reminisced several years later about the events of that night -- "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I've always heard how backward and corrupt the situation in OKC is, but until I saw what happened at that forum, I would never have believed the depth of it. I've never seen anything like it. It's made a great conversation piece. I've told the story of what I saw that night every where I've gone."

When nationally respected OKC Planner Garner Stoll offered his very unflattering personal opinion of ODOT's plan in a four-page critique, written at the request of a state rep, his view was rebuffed. His position here in OKC was ultimately "very courageously defunded" by a city councilman who, like the rest, insisted on endless, unsupportable sprawl development. If you can't shut 'em up, "defund 'em."

As I've noted, the "Fixed Guideway Study" and its predecessors were pretty much all completely transparent shams -- produced by people and organizations obviously beholden to Neal McCaleb and the highway lobby.

Having witnessed years of the same games in his own state, New Mexico Governor Richardson put the "Rail Runner Express" commuter trains to work without "a study.' He'd seen far too much public money blown on other sham "studies" designed to fail. He knew the trains would work -- and they are working today.

My colleagues and I have always been completely willing to debate and compare our views with the views of any others. I don't recall ever shutting anybody out of any forum I was handling. We urge and encourage open debate. Our views have been gladly forged in the polemic fire. We have engaged in give and take with world experts on this and other transportation projects -- like the late Malise C. Dick, a native of Scotland and longtime World Bank lead transportation economist, who lived in Norman for a time during the late 1990s.

It was Malise Dick who insisted during his time here that the "New Crosstown" proposal -- sold as a "$236 million project" would cost at least $500 million even then. Of course -- he was directly on-target, and ODOT was exactly wrong. He considered the plan to destroy Union Station's rail yard completely wrong-headed.

I've never talked to a single transportation expert anywhere -- who did not work for ODOT or was in someway beholden to the special interests surrounding this mess -- who thought the whole idea of the destruction of the last grand rail yard in the West to make way for four miles of urban expressway was anything but suicidally absurd.

As former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson said of the plan (and I repeat) -- "it's insane."

Broadcast news today is saying "$5 a gallon gasoline by the Fourth of July."

How about it?

TOM ELMORE

[betts]

How about answering some of the above questions? I'd be happy to debate, or at least see what you think about them. It doesn't matter if gas is $5 a gallon if the mass trans doesn't go where the people want to go.

[Tom Elmore]

I don't claim to have specific operational answers to all questions, Betts. I think I've offered many links to information from cities that are running these services today from which you could draw reasonable conclusions. But operational reality is hard to model.

I'm always suspicious of people who don't seem to want to talk to those who've done it -- or who, as I've all-too-often seen here -- go to great lengths to keep others from hearing from them.

I've consistently found the "new transit cities'" leaders very eager to discuss their own experiences and to make recommendations. I don't know of one "new transit system" that has failed -- or is not experiencing a boom in use today due to the motor fuel price tsunami we're all now facing. But no rational individual would expect financial performance from one mode that is not demanded of the dominant mode, especially in early development stages.

I believe it's entirely self-evident that it would be a shame -- verging on a death wish -- to allow a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats who, manifestly, can't successfully manage the roads on which they claim expertise to destroy the center of our elegant, one-of-a-kind state rail network at a time like this.

My view of the value of OKC Union Station and our existing rail network has been informed by and universally and energetically supported by any and all transit leaders in other cities that I've come to know. Only "certain Oklahomans" scoff at these assets -- and I've come to learn that most of these "have their reasons" for doing so -- reasons that generally serve exclusively themselves in fairly shockingly "near-term" ways.

I'd urge all to recognize that we are fortunate to possess a wealth of existing transportation assets that could help us immensely -- unless we allow civic vandals to mindlessly destroy them.

You have my contact information in these posts. If I can offer other resources or information, I'll always try to do so. But there's a lot of good information out there for all to find if they're willing to seek for it.

TOM ELMORE

[BoulderSooner]

I don't claim to have specific operational answers to all questions, Betts. I think I've offered many links to information from cities that are running these services today from which you could draw reasonable conclusions. But operational reality is hard to model.

I'm always suspicious of people who don't seem to want to talk to those who've done it -- or who, as I've all-too-often seen here -- go to great lengths to keep others from hearing from them.

I've consistently found the "new transit cities'" leaders very eager to discuss their own experiences and to make recommendations. I don't know of one "new transit system" that has failed -- or is not experiencing a boom in use today due to the motor fuel price tsunami we're all now facing. But no rational individual would expect financial performance from one mode that is not demanded of the dominant mode, especially in early development stages.

I believe it's entirely self-evident that it would be a shame -- verging on a death wish -- to allow a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats who, manifestly, can't successfully manage the roads on which they claim expertise to destroy the center of our elegant, one-of-a-kind state rail network at a time like this.

My view of the value of OKC Union Station and our existing rail network has been informed by and universally and energetically supported by any and all transit leaders in other cities that I've come to know. Only "certain Oklahomans" scoff at these assets -- and I've come to learn that most of these "have their reasons" for doing so -- reasons that generally serve exclusively themselves in fairly shockingly "near-term" ways.

I'd urge all to recognize that we are fortunate to possess a wealth of existing transportation assets that could help us immensely -- unless we allow civic vandals to mindlessly destroy them.

You have my contact information in these posts. If I can offer other resources or information, I'll always try to do so. But there's a lot of good information out there for all to find if they're willing to seek for it.

TOM ELMORE

the truth is that you have answers to almost nothing .. you speak in vast generalities and keep talking like a broken recored .. everyone on the inside is "corrupt" and i am the answer. Sure you have no agenda?

the union yard is not in a good place for a transit hub .. .period

[Kerry]

Tom - no one is arguing that OKC doesn't need a rail system. In fact, this site might contain the largest number of rail supporters in the state. Where we disagree with you is the place Union Station plays in a future rail plan. You think it is the centerpiece of a rail plan and if the yard at Union Station is removed them OKC will forever lose the ability to have a rail system. The rest of us think Union Station barely qualifies for a stop on future rail plan let alone being the central hub.

[betts]

Tom - no one is arguing that OKC doesn't need a rail system. In fact, this site might contain the largest number of rail supporters in the state. Where we disagree with you is the place Union Station plays in a future rail plan. You think it is the centerpiece of a rail plan and if the yard at Union Station is removed them OKC will forever lose the ability to have a rail system. The rest of us think Union Station barely qualifies for a stop on future rail plan let alone being the central hub.

Agreed 100%

[mapmgr]

I remain wholly unconvinced and the very thought that this is going to slow down construction of the new crosstown even further is very frustrating.

Tom sounds like an automated recording that just keeps regurgitating the same tired message.

I've read everything he's written and studied the maps and aerial photos and all I see is a hub in the wrong place and tracks going where no one wants to go.

So no one wants to go to Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker AFB, The Adventure District, or Guthrie? No potential commuters from Edmond, Norman, Choctaw, Shawnee, Spencer, Midwest City, Yukon? Tinker is the largest employer of OKC, if not the state, and they have tracks leading right up to it.

I live in NE OKC and work in SW OKC. I have to drive I-35, I-40 and I-44 or at least I-44, so I've been on the crosstown quite a bit. As a hypothetical alternative, I could take what was known as the "Sooner Sub" from where I live directly to where I work via Union Station. I also checked the bus schedules. I'd have to walk about 3 miles to the nearest stop, take 4 buses over 2 hours, and walk at least another 4 miles to my destination. Even if I took the earliest bus to the office and the last bus feasible home, I could only get in about 6 hours of work in.

With regards to the deterioration of the Crosstown, to quote Mr David Streb,

... However over the past 40 plus years, due to exposure of the bridge to weather, wear, age and even de-icing material utilized by the [Oklahoma] Department, the pins and straps have experienced degradation and eventually locked in place...

The bridge contains over 250 beams that are fracture critical members, meaning that if just one of those beams experiences a failure, a catastrophic collapse of that portion of the bridge is likely due to a lack of redundant support devices. The design of every component of the bridge was based upon an assumed traffic loading that anticipated a maximum daily traffic of 76,000 vehicles. Today there are sections of the Crosstown that carry approximately 120,000 vehicles per day. This leads to an increase in in the fatigue experienced by the bridge components and decreases the anticipated life expectancy of the structure.

This was written to me in January of this year, in response to a letter that I wrote a year prior that was apparently misplaced. If the bridge is so dangerous, why haven't through trucks been diverted across I-44 and I-240?

Keeping the math simplified, let's assume a larger auto of 4000 lbs (2 tons). That would exert 1000 lbs per wheel. Looking at the trailer only of a fully loaded semi, 80 tons would be distributed by 16 wheels at 10,000 lbs each.

-- Glenn

[CuatrodeMayo]

Agreed 100%

As do I.

[betts]

So no one wants to go to Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker AFB, The Adventure District, or Guthrie? No potential commuters from Edmond, Norman, Choctaw, Shawnee, Spencer, Midwest City, Yukon? Tinker is the largest employer of OKC, if not the state, and they have tracks leading right up to it.
-- Glenn

I don't believe that is the issue. The question is, how many people that live in a suburb on the east - west line we're discussing work downtown or at Tinker. The Adventure district, Edmond, Norman and the Airport are not on that line, and would require separate tracks. How many riders would a line running east-west at it's current location generate, and would it be cost-effective to run trains there? Could those lines even be used for light rail, if that location were deemed desirable? And is it more cost effective to leave those lines there and find new right of way for the Crosstown, or would it be cheaper in the long run to obtain new right of way for rail in a more effective location? Would the new boulevard be considered for possible right of way for light rail? Using that location, we wouldn't need to obtain land, as the city will already own it, and it's a far better location relative to the downtown. If we used it for right of way, the north-south line could actually come directly into a station, rather than having to jog east or west, as it's not going to be able to run through the CBD into Union Station.

We're also discussing whether Union Station is the appropriate location for a multimodal hub.

We've got east-west commercial rail line south of the river. I must confess I'm ignorant about whether it is more highly used than the Union Station line, and whether the Union Station line is redundant. The answers to that would interest me as well.

[Kerry]

It only makes sense to me that any light rail line that serves the distant reaches of OKC and the suburbs would need to go underground near downtown while precious downtown surface right-of-way is reserved for a circulator trolley system.

East/West could be built under the new boulevard and North/South would go under Schields/EK Gaylord/Boradway. They would connect in a large underground rail station that is directly connected to the Ford Center, Convention Center, and the Metro Conncourse. It would be a short trolley ride to bricktown, the riverfront, downtown office buildings, Myriad Gardens, and the National Memorial.

[Tom Elmore]

That's me, Hans -- the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench -- the pain in the .....

The Oklahoman Editorial Thursday, June 12, 2008

OFF TRACK Crosstown foes revel in slowing progress

You could almost hear the delight in a local rail enthusiast's reaction to a ruling that may delay construction of the Interstate 40 Crosstown in Oklahoma City. "It will mean a massive delay for them, we believe,” Tom Elmore said in a story Tuesday in The Oklahoman.
Isn't that swell? A highway project that's vitally important to Oklahoma City — indeed, to the nation — and has a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars may be delayed over a squabble involving abandoned railway line. Someone pass the champagne!

The stretch of track in question runs along the new Crosstown Expressway route. The hope is that the new expressway will be ready in 2012. The elevated portion of the current I-40 Crosstown is in bad shape and handles far more traffic than it was designed for. Delays in completing the new I-40 Crosstown would only exacerbate that problem, which has safety ramifications for motorists and truckers.

Of course that means little to Elmore and other obstructionists who have fought the new Crosstown because of their love of the rails. The owner of the tracks in question, BNSF Railway Co., wishes to abandon them. Three years ago, the railroad said the tracks hadn't been used for at least two years. Later it was discovered the railroad had moved some local traffic over the line during the time when it said the track hadn't been used. As a result, a federal transportation board has agreed to take another look at the abandonment request.

A delay in constructing the new I-40 Crosstown isn't a certainty. What is a certainty is that regardless of what rail lovers may think, the new highway must be built, and will be.

[CuatrodeMayo]

What a silly thing to celebrate.


Broken record.

[mapmgr]

It only makes sense to me that any light rail line that serves the distant reaches of OKC and the suburbs would need to go underground near downtown while precious downtown surface right-of-way is reserved for a circulator trolley system.

East/West could be built under the new boulevard and North/South would go under Schields/EK Gaylord/Boradway. They would connect in a large underground rail station that is directly connected to the Ford Center, Convention Center, and the Metro Conncourse. It would be a short trolley ride to bricktown, the riverfront, downtown office buildings, Myriad Gardens, and the National Memorial.

By all means, continue the long term underground plan. Eventually that would be needed. But, we have the right-of-ways NOW. They can be used while we are waiting for the tunneling.

-- Glenn

[okiebadger]

Subways for OKC? I've got to think about that for a while.

[betts]

"The owner of the tracks in question, BNSF Railway Co., wishes to abandon them." An railline which the owner, a busy RR company, doesn't want to use, is more importantto preserve for future use than getting people off the aging and dangerous crosstown and removing an eyesore?

[Kerry]

Mapmgr and Okiebadger - The only part I see going underground is in the downtown area. Once the rail lines get otside the downtown core it can run at the surface or even elevated to avoid road crossings. See MARTA in Atlanta as an example. The underground portion can be done using cut and cover so tunneling won't be needed.

[Tom Elmore]

Jammed transit systems running on fumes - Consumer news - MSNBC.com

“The story is the same everywhere: In Seattle, commuter rail ridership recorded the biggest jump in the nation during the first quarter, with 28 percent more riders than during the same time last year. Ridership in Harrisburg, Pa., rose 17 percent. In Oakland, Calif., it rose 15.8 percent.

Nationwide, Americans took 2.6 billion bus, subway, commuter rail and light rail trips in the first three months of the year, 85 million more than in the same period in 2007, the American Public Transportation Association said. But it’s not clear that the nation’s transit systems are able to handle the load.

While many major cities cities have invested heavily in mass transit over the past 15 years, many more have not. Now that people are demanding service, there isn’t the infrastructure to provide it.

“We’re seeing it in a lot of other metropolitan areas where there just [aren’t] viable transit options — places like Indianapolis, Orlando or Raleigh,” said Robert Puentes, a transportation and urban planning scholar with the Brookings Institution, a public policy association in Washington. “They haven’t put the money into it. They haven’t put the resources into it.”

[Tom Elmore]

HOW ARIZONA GOVERNOR JANET NAPOLITANO GOT HER LIGHT RAIL LINE FUNDED

Napolitano's mission: Learn about Mormons

By Paul Davenport
The Associated Press
The Arizona Republic

Gov. Janet Napolitano plans to visit Salt Lake City this week to meet with leaders of the Mormon Church to learn more about the faith shared by hundreds of thousands of Arizonans.

A Napolitano spokeswoman said the Democratic governor will meet Friday with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leaders, including President Gordon B. Hinckley and other members of the three-man First Presidency, a policy-making body that has final authority on all spiritual and worldly matters.

The itinerary for the trip being made at state expense also includes touring church facilities, including Temple Square and the family history library, and being briefed on welfare programs, Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer said Monday.

The governor, who was raised as a Methodist but who L'Ecuyer said now regards herself as a practicing Christian, will be accompanied by three aides, as well as Arizona Chief Justice Charles E. Jones and other state officials who are Mormon.

"It just made sense to have people who are familiar with the church," L'Ecuyer said.

L'Ecuyer said the trip evolved from Napolitano's realization over the summer that she didn't know much about the church and its structure and activities in Arizona.

Subsequent discussions within the Governor's Office "having to do with the fact that we have so many people in Arizona who are members of the faith" led to phone calls between church officials and the governor's office, L'Ecuyer said.

The church has a reported 339,900 members in Arizona, with 685 congregations and with temples in Mesa and Snowflake.

The state will pay approximately $1,500 for air travel, hotel rooms and meals for Napolitano and her aides while the other officials will pay their own way, L'Ecuyer said.

No meetings are planned with Utah state officials, L'Ecuyer said. "This is all church-related."

Mormon Church spokesman Dale Bills said he could not immediately say whether church officials have hosted similar visits by other state governors and what benefit church leaders anticipate from Napolitano's visit.

Jones, a Republican appointed to the Supreme Court in 1996, is going because he has been active in church leadership and can provide introductions, Supreme Court spokesman Tom Augherton said.

L'Ecuyer said the trip has "nothing whatsoever" to do with Colorado City, a polygamist enclave on Arizona's border with Utah.

Colorado City and neighboring Hildale, Utah, are dominated by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church itself disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates those who practice plural marriage.

According to the Mormon church's Web site, some church members arrived in Arizona with a unit of Mormons preparing to fight in the Mexican-American War in the winter of 1846-47, while others arrived in 1873 after being sent from Utah to colonize the area.

azcentral.com
Originally published September 21, 2004

__________________________________________________ ____________________________




Federal Funds Boost Prospects for Phoenix Light Rail System

Buoyed by the Federal Transit Administration's pledge of $587 million for the $1.3 billion, 20-mile light-rail system under initial construction between Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa, and by congressional approval of a $75 million down payment for its final design and engineering, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says this ''now guarantees'' that light rail will be built, but observers call for stronger support among Arizona congressional delegates and state lawmakers.

Noting that Oklahoma Republican Representative Ernest Istook and Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby, who chair their respective congressional subcommittees on transportation, visited the Valley and gave its light-rail project ''a thumbs up,'' The Arizona Republic names only two dedicated light-rail advocates among Arizona's own eight U.S. Representatives, Democrat Ed Pastor and Republican J. D. Hayworth.

At the same time, Business Journal of Phoenix writer Mike Sunnucks points out that the Republican majority in the state legislature gave its transportation committees to ''anti-rail conservatives,'' state Representative Andy Biggs and state Senator Thayer Verschoor. They both wanted to invest more in roads and criticized the $18.8 billion regional transportation plan, crafted by the Maricopa Association of Governments and passed by voters last month, which includes $2.3 billion for future light-rail expansion.

But stressing that ''(r)etail, housing and other development will be spurred near the light-rail stations,'' The Arizona Republic opines, ''Light rail has proved its worth in other major metropolitan areas -- and it will do the same here.'' -- The Arizona Republic, Business Journal of Phoenix 12/6/2004