From The Journal Record
On track: Streetcars, trains in city's future
April 18, 2006 11:14 AM CDT
BY MARIE PRICE
THE JOURNAL RECORD
OKLAHOMA CITY – Now that Oklahoma City has grown out to some 625 square miles, some say it’s time for the city to grow up and join the ranks of cities that offer modern, dependable urban transit choices to their residents.
A key question for planners: If we build it, will they come? Will people who live in one of the most spread-out cities in the country leave their cars at home to ride modern streetcars on tracks around town, or commuter trains to Edmond or Norman?
These are two ideas being considered by a steering committee formed by the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority to bring public transportation into the 21st century.
A study of the area’s transit needs looked at the light rail that has been successful in other cities, but rising costs and increasing competition for federal transportation dollars may put it out of the running as a viable option.
Rick Cain, COTPA administrator, says Oklahomans who don’t ride the bus here say they use mass transit in cities like Dallas or Portland, Ore.
Central to that dichotomy, he says, are reliability, permanence and the basic attraction of riding a train.
“The reality is, you will get people who are willing to ride a train who aren’t willing to ride a bus,” Cain said.
He said consultants at Carter-Burgess stressed that Oklahoma City should first enhance its existing transportation system to boost the public’s confidence and ridership, which totaled more than 2.7 million last year. People are more likely to ride trains, Cain said, if they are confident they won’t have to wait long for a bus to pick them up and take them the rest of the way to their destination.
The consultants estimated a capital cost of $34.4 million for enhanced bus service, with an annual operating cost of $60 million.
Although the bus system has seen ridership increases since gasoline prices have soared, Cain said it’s difficult to attract permanent new riders with an hour wait between buses.
Streetcars, commuter rail more feasible
Cain said Carter-Burgess recommended consideration of modern streetcars for Oklahoma City and a commuter rail running along the Interstate 35 corridor as two of the more feasible transit alternatives.
The report is part of a plan to develop a vision of where city transportation could be by 2030. Cain said this part of the study is aimed at coming up with generalized cost numbers and preliminary ridership numbers. He said a final report from Carter-Burgess could be ready by the end of the month.
Cain said the consultants estimated modern streetcars could cost between $15 million to $30 million a mile, depending on the transit environment and issues such as location of overhead wires.
“That’s the element we’re looking at downtown,” he said.
Cain said the streetcars would operate in a loop from the medical center around Lincoln Boulevard, down 10th Street to St. Anthony Hospital, then downtown through Bricktown.
The Bricktown boom and the increased demand for residential units downtown are pushing the need for improved transportation, Cain said.
Carter-Burgess estimates an annual ridership on modern streetcars of about 680,000.
The consultants outlined a capital cost of $83.2 million for modern streetcars, with an annual operating cost of $3.2 million.
Edmond-Norman line studied
How about “riding the rails” to Edmond or Norman?
Cain said Carter-Burgess sees long-term merit in the idea of a commuter rail line running along I-35, possibly taking advantage of the Burlington Northern right of way that runs parallel to the highway.
More than 20 trains a day operate on the track now.
“There’s so much freight traffic on that corridor that we would probably have to build an additional track,” Cain said.
At some time in the future, he said, a commuter rail line from Midwest City and Tinker Air Force Base could be connected to the north-south line,
Commuter rail can cost $8 million to $20 million a mile depending on whether a new track has to be built, right of way costs and other factors, he added.
Carter-Burgess told city officials a commuter rail system could cost $234 million, with an annual operating cost of $9.7 million.
Bus rapid transit to airport
Another possibility for Oklahoma City is “bus rapid transit.” Cain said the committee is considering this upgraded bus option in the corridor that runs past Baptist and Deaconess hospitals and along the Northwest Expressway. It’s also a possibility in the southern part of town along SW 59th Street, to Crossroads Mall and ultimately to Will Rogers World Airport.
Although these buses look like light-rail vehicles, Cain said, they run on rubber tires and can operate in mixed traffic or have their own lanes for efficiency’s sake.
Cain said bus rapid transit can cost from $3 million to $20 million a mile, depending on how much a city wants to isolate the vehicles.
Carter-Burgess estimated that a bus rapid-transit system could cost $40.2 million to build, with a $35.7 million annual operating cost.
Officials project an annual ridership on bus rapid transit of about 750,000.
Paying for it all
The Carter-Burgess study outlines a potential financing strategy calling for a 50/50 mix of federal and local funding for modern streetcars and a quarter-cent county sales tax for enhanced bus, bus rapid transit and commuter rail. The study also listed sales taxes, property taxes, fees, tax-increment financing and city parking bonds as alternatives.
Cain said the study looked into the idea of light-rail trains, such as Dallas’ DART and Portland’s TriMet system.
Costs of such systems have consistently risen to around $45 million or $50 million a mile, he said.
Cain said the consultants’ take on light rail is, “Given that we’re a long way from the construction phase, light rail is probably not realistic, because it’s so expensive to do.”
The population makeup of this area is problematic too, he added.
“Probably our biggest issue here in Oklahoma City is one of density,” said Cain, adding that light rail works best in cities with more population per mile.
According to a study chart outlining characteristics of peer cities, Oklahoma City’s population density is 833.8 people per square mile, 931.4 for the county. Population density in Dallas is cited as 3,471 per square mile, 2,946 in the Dallas/Fort Worth region.
Of the areas in the peer-city summary, closest to Oklahoma City is the Minneapolis, Minn., region, at 939.2 per square mile. However, Minneapolis proper has 6,970 per square mile. It has a 12-mile transit project under construction.
Istook opposes light rail
Oklahoma City included a light-rail trolley system in the list of MAPS projects a decade ago, but the idea ran into ultimately fatal opposition from U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook.
Istook said the cost of light rail was prohibitive and unjustifiable for an area like Oklahoma City, and he blocked federal funding for the idea. He helped secure funds for the less-expensive rubber-tired trolleys that now operate in Bricktown and out to the lodging-entertainment corridor along Reno Avenue and Meridian Avenue.
Istook was not immediately available for comment.
Rail brings development
“The argument for rail systems in general is, once you start putting rails in the ground or in the street, they become fixtures, and that brings on economic development, because developers know you’re not going to be moving and they can count on it staying there,” Cain said.
That’s what happened in Dallas and Portland, officials say.
Mary Fetch is communications director for Portland’s TriMet system.
Oklahoma and the city of Portland have similar total populations, about 506,000 and 529,000 respectively, although their degrees of urbanization and other characteristics differ.
Edmond, Midwest City, Norman and Moore have a combined population of about 260,000.
Fetch said TriMet serves a region of about 1.7 million people in an urbanized three-county area of about 575 square miles. She said its light-rail system operates about 100,000 trips per day, which is about a third of its public transit trips each day. Buses carry the remaining two-thirds.
Those 100,000 daily trips came with time and expansion of the original 15-mile light-rail track. Since 1986, Fetch said, ridership on that line has increased from 19,500 to 52,600 daily trips.
Fetch said adding lines is key to boosting ridership in the overall system by “connecting more people to more places.”
“Light rail here is seen as a catalyst to help maintain communities, build communities,” she said. “Light rail is a catalyst for transit-oriented development.”
Portland sees $3.8 billion, Dallas $3.3 billion
Since Portland opened its first light-rail line about two decades ago, she said, more than $3.8 billion in development has occurred within walking distance of the various extensions.
“What we hear from developers is, they like the permanence of rail,” Fetch said.
Several mixed-use developments have popped up, she said.
“You can drop off your dry cleaning on your way to work, grab a cup of coffee and off you go,” Fetch said.
Fetch said each extension has been funded a bit differently, depending upon whether it involves only Portland or other cities. She said an airport extension is being partly funded by Bechtel Enterprises in exchange for development rights. Operating expenses are funded largely by a payroll tax.
Morgan Lyons is manager of media relations for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, which includes light rail, buses, car and van pool ride-sharing assistance and higher-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.
On its light rail, Lyons said, DART has a ridership of 60,000 per day on weekdays, with a third of a million on all transportation modes.
Lyons said DART is funded by a 1-cent sales tax charged by the 13 cities it serves. He said the system serves a population base of 1.8 million to 2 million.
“We’ve seen $3.3 billion in private investment along the rail corridors,” said Lyons.
The light-rail portion of DART has been in operation for a decade and now covers about 45 miles, says Jack Wierzenski, director of economic development and planning.
Initially, he said, developers didn’t take DART into their calculations.
“That has all changed now,” Wierzenski said. “All of the rail stations are seen as development opportunities.”
Now, he said, developments are being planned in anticipation of rail stations opening up.
Wierzenski said Dallas is now considering the potential of downtown streetcars, because its downtown bus circulator system has proven less than successful due to long travel times and other issues.
Told that one recurring criticism of light-rail service in Oklahoma City is the fact that it covers so much area, Wierzenki laughed.
“It can’t be any more spread out than it is here,” he said. “We hear the same thing here. What rail has done is really spurred on a lot of urban in-fill and density around the rail station areas to make it walkable.”
Herbert pushes rail idea
Central Oklahoma could do the same thing, said former state Sen. Dave Herbert, who has long championed rail service, both for this area and a line between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
“We can have eight different directions coming in to Oklahoma City, and the tracks are there,” Herbert said. “It’s a better deal than anybody knows, and it can be done dirt cheap.”
The state owns some rail rights of way, including one between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, purchased for $6.5 million several years ago with Herbert’s support.
As Herbert points out, several rail lines meet downtown, near Bricktown.
While he was in the Senate, Herbert pushed for a high-speed rail line between the state’s largest two cities, which a previous Carter-Burgess study said could cost more than $800 million.
Herbert’s idea was to fund the start’s portion of that with a 1-cent gasoline tax increase.
At 180 miles an hour, he said, the trip could be made in half an hour. The current track would have to be upgraded to support high-speed rail, however.
Herbert said the federal match for rail projects can run as high as 90/10, but Cain said that is no longer the case.
Federal money fight fierce
Cain said the Dallas DART system was funded on an 80/20 match, but the competition for federal dollars has become fierce in recent years.
Federal officials are asking cities and other project applicants to cough up 50 percent, but some are offering more to push their projects up the ladder.
“Locally, they’re putting up 60 percent or 65 percent of the funding,” Cain said.
Herbert acknowledged that obtaining federal funding is more difficult under the Bush administration, but he isn’t put off by arguments that Oklahoma City’s population base wouldn’t make a rail line sensible to pursue.
“Nobody makes a profit moving people,” he said. “What you do is, you create situations that enhance economic development.”
Oklahoma, and the U.S. in general, are missing the boat by not offering its citizens affordable, convenient rail service, Herbert said.
“If you look at countries where decisions are made based on what’s best for the folks, they have high-speed rail,” he said.
Lack of rail service is one thing tourists from other countries criticize when they come here, Herbert said.
OKC a rail hub?
Pointing to the number of interstate rail lines coming into Oklahoma and converging in Oklahoma City, Herbert recalled his idea of making Oklahoma City a rail hub, “which would still work today if we had any vision in the Legislature.”
Herbert said he would like to link up Midwest City to Bricktown and thinks the idea is sellable with the growth downtown and a change in administration in his hometown.
“If you wanted something to draw people to your city, a train ride into Bricktown is as good a draw as there is,” he said.
He said existing lines could also support passenger service to Norman, Chickasha, Weatherford, Choctaw, Shawnee, McAlester and other towns.
Herbert said there are several short-line rail operators that would like to go into passenger service.
With the aging of the population, he added, convenient modes of transit other than cars will become more important and attractive, he said.
Rail service is also important to sports, Herbert said.
“One of the things that all of the sports arenas are doing now is making sure they have rail to the sports arenas,” he said.
This could include special trains for certain events, he added.
Lack of infrastructure is keeping Oklahoma poor, Herbert said.
“When companies or corporations look at coming to a city, they say, OK, what are the transportation issues?” he said. “As long as Oklahoma City doesn’t have some sort of rail service, they get a minus in that column.”
Centennial train to Bricktown
Herbert thinks a good start on rail service, one that people could watch and see how it fares, is a centennial project that would take passengers from Bricktown to the NE 50th Street complex that includes the zoo, Remington Park, Omniplex and the Oklahoma Railway Museum, which is playing a key role in the project.
Harry Currie, museum president, outlined the idea.
Currie said the museum already owns engines and cars that could be used. He said volunteers have spent several years refurbishing the track, although work remains to be done. He said the museum is also renovating a 1941 dining car.
At first, Currie said, the train would only do runs for special events and conventions, and officials will see how successful that is before planning future steps.
“As Oklahoma City grows, it’s best to plan ahead, get some long-range planning in, rather than wait until you’re just desperate and you’re almost stalemated at moving traffic or moving people,” Currie said.
Fetch with Portland’s TriMet would agree with that.
There are certain basic questions officials should ask themselves about their plans for transit, she said.
“I think the question to ask is, does it take people where they want to go or are you going to create a destination along that line that they will go to?” she said. “Are you connecting people to their community?”
Copyright 2006, The Journal Record. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
On track: Streetcars, trains in city's future
April 18, 2006 11:14 AM CDT
BY MARIE PRICE
THE JOURNAL RECORD
OKLAHOMA CITY – Now that Oklahoma City has grown out to some 625 square miles, some say it’s time for the city to grow up and join the ranks of cities that offer modern, dependable urban transit choices to their residents.
A key question for planners: If we build it, will they come? Will people who live in one of the most spread-out cities in the country leave their cars at home to ride modern streetcars on tracks around town, or commuter trains to Edmond or Norman?
These are two ideas being considered by a steering committee formed by the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority to bring public transportation into the 21st century.
A study of the area’s transit needs looked at the light rail that has been successful in other cities, but rising costs and increasing competition for federal transportation dollars may put it out of the running as a viable option.
Rick Cain, COTPA administrator, says Oklahomans who don’t ride the bus here say they use mass transit in cities like Dallas or Portland, Ore.
Central to that dichotomy, he says, are reliability, permanence and the basic attraction of riding a train.
“The reality is, you will get people who are willing to ride a train who aren’t willing to ride a bus,” Cain said.
He said consultants at Carter-Burgess stressed that Oklahoma City should first enhance its existing transportation system to boost the public’s confidence and ridership, which totaled more than 2.7 million last year. People are more likely to ride trains, Cain said, if they are confident they won’t have to wait long for a bus to pick them up and take them the rest of the way to their destination.
The consultants estimated a capital cost of $34.4 million for enhanced bus service, with an annual operating cost of $60 million.
Although the bus system has seen ridership increases since gasoline prices have soared, Cain said it’s difficult to attract permanent new riders with an hour wait between buses.
Streetcars, commuter rail more feasible
Cain said Carter-Burgess recommended consideration of modern streetcars for Oklahoma City and a commuter rail running along the Interstate 35 corridor as two of the more feasible transit alternatives.
The report is part of a plan to develop a vision of where city transportation could be by 2030. Cain said this part of the study is aimed at coming up with generalized cost numbers and preliminary ridership numbers. He said a final report from Carter-Burgess could be ready by the end of the month.
Cain said the consultants estimated modern streetcars could cost between $15 million to $30 million a mile, depending on the transit environment and issues such as location of overhead wires.
“That’s the element we’re looking at downtown,” he said.
Cain said the streetcars would operate in a loop from the medical center around Lincoln Boulevard, down 10th Street to St. Anthony Hospital, then downtown through Bricktown.
The Bricktown boom and the increased demand for residential units downtown are pushing the need for improved transportation, Cain said.
Carter-Burgess estimates an annual ridership on modern streetcars of about 680,000.
The consultants outlined a capital cost of $83.2 million for modern streetcars, with an annual operating cost of $3.2 million.
Edmond-Norman line studied
How about “riding the rails” to Edmond or Norman?
Cain said Carter-Burgess sees long-term merit in the idea of a commuter rail line running along I-35, possibly taking advantage of the Burlington Northern right of way that runs parallel to the highway.
More than 20 trains a day operate on the track now.
“There’s so much freight traffic on that corridor that we would probably have to build an additional track,” Cain said.
At some time in the future, he said, a commuter rail line from Midwest City and Tinker Air Force Base could be connected to the north-south line,
Commuter rail can cost $8 million to $20 million a mile depending on whether a new track has to be built, right of way costs and other factors, he added.
Carter-Burgess told city officials a commuter rail system could cost $234 million, with an annual operating cost of $9.7 million.
Bus rapid transit to airport
Another possibility for Oklahoma City is “bus rapid transit.” Cain said the committee is considering this upgraded bus option in the corridor that runs past Baptist and Deaconess hospitals and along the Northwest Expressway. It’s also a possibility in the southern part of town along SW 59th Street, to Crossroads Mall and ultimately to Will Rogers World Airport.
Although these buses look like light-rail vehicles, Cain said, they run on rubber tires and can operate in mixed traffic or have their own lanes for efficiency’s sake.
Cain said bus rapid transit can cost from $3 million to $20 million a mile, depending on how much a city wants to isolate the vehicles.
Carter-Burgess estimated that a bus rapid-transit system could cost $40.2 million to build, with a $35.7 million annual operating cost.
Officials project an annual ridership on bus rapid transit of about 750,000.
Paying for it all
The Carter-Burgess study outlines a potential financing strategy calling for a 50/50 mix of federal and local funding for modern streetcars and a quarter-cent county sales tax for enhanced bus, bus rapid transit and commuter rail. The study also listed sales taxes, property taxes, fees, tax-increment financing and city parking bonds as alternatives.
Cain said the study looked into the idea of light-rail trains, such as Dallas’ DART and Portland’s TriMet system.
Costs of such systems have consistently risen to around $45 million or $50 million a mile, he said.
Cain said the consultants’ take on light rail is, “Given that we’re a long way from the construction phase, light rail is probably not realistic, because it’s so expensive to do.”
The population makeup of this area is problematic too, he added.
“Probably our biggest issue here in Oklahoma City is one of density,” said Cain, adding that light rail works best in cities with more population per mile.
According to a study chart outlining characteristics of peer cities, Oklahoma City’s population density is 833.8 people per square mile, 931.4 for the county. Population density in Dallas is cited as 3,471 per square mile, 2,946 in the Dallas/Fort Worth region.
Of the areas in the peer-city summary, closest to Oklahoma City is the Minneapolis, Minn., region, at 939.2 per square mile. However, Minneapolis proper has 6,970 per square mile. It has a 12-mile transit project under construction.
Istook opposes light rail
Oklahoma City included a light-rail trolley system in the list of MAPS projects a decade ago, but the idea ran into ultimately fatal opposition from U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook.
Istook said the cost of light rail was prohibitive and unjustifiable for an area like Oklahoma City, and he blocked federal funding for the idea. He helped secure funds for the less-expensive rubber-tired trolleys that now operate in Bricktown and out to the lodging-entertainment corridor along Reno Avenue and Meridian Avenue.
Istook was not immediately available for comment.
Rail brings development
“The argument for rail systems in general is, once you start putting rails in the ground or in the street, they become fixtures, and that brings on economic development, because developers know you’re not going to be moving and they can count on it staying there,” Cain said.
That’s what happened in Dallas and Portland, officials say.
Mary Fetch is communications director for Portland’s TriMet system.
Oklahoma and the city of Portland have similar total populations, about 506,000 and 529,000 respectively, although their degrees of urbanization and other characteristics differ.
Edmond, Midwest City, Norman and Moore have a combined population of about 260,000.
Fetch said TriMet serves a region of about 1.7 million people in an urbanized three-county area of about 575 square miles. She said its light-rail system operates about 100,000 trips per day, which is about a third of its public transit trips each day. Buses carry the remaining two-thirds.
Those 100,000 daily trips came with time and expansion of the original 15-mile light-rail track. Since 1986, Fetch said, ridership on that line has increased from 19,500 to 52,600 daily trips.
Fetch said adding lines is key to boosting ridership in the overall system by “connecting more people to more places.”
“Light rail here is seen as a catalyst to help maintain communities, build communities,” she said. “Light rail is a catalyst for transit-oriented development.”
Portland sees $3.8 billion, Dallas $3.3 billion
Since Portland opened its first light-rail line about two decades ago, she said, more than $3.8 billion in development has occurred within walking distance of the various extensions.
“What we hear from developers is, they like the permanence of rail,” Fetch said.
Several mixed-use developments have popped up, she said.
“You can drop off your dry cleaning on your way to work, grab a cup of coffee and off you go,” Fetch said.
Fetch said each extension has been funded a bit differently, depending upon whether it involves only Portland or other cities. She said an airport extension is being partly funded by Bechtel Enterprises in exchange for development rights. Operating expenses are funded largely by a payroll tax.
Morgan Lyons is manager of media relations for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, which includes light rail, buses, car and van pool ride-sharing assistance and higher-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.
On its light rail, Lyons said, DART has a ridership of 60,000 per day on weekdays, with a third of a million on all transportation modes.
Lyons said DART is funded by a 1-cent sales tax charged by the 13 cities it serves. He said the system serves a population base of 1.8 million to 2 million.
“We’ve seen $3.3 billion in private investment along the rail corridors,” said Lyons.
The light-rail portion of DART has been in operation for a decade and now covers about 45 miles, says Jack Wierzenski, director of economic development and planning.
Initially, he said, developers didn’t take DART into their calculations.
“That has all changed now,” Wierzenski said. “All of the rail stations are seen as development opportunities.”
Now, he said, developments are being planned in anticipation of rail stations opening up.
Wierzenski said Dallas is now considering the potential of downtown streetcars, because its downtown bus circulator system has proven less than successful due to long travel times and other issues.
Told that one recurring criticism of light-rail service in Oklahoma City is the fact that it covers so much area, Wierzenki laughed.
“It can’t be any more spread out than it is here,” he said. “We hear the same thing here. What rail has done is really spurred on a lot of urban in-fill and density around the rail station areas to make it walkable.”
Herbert pushes rail idea
Central Oklahoma could do the same thing, said former state Sen. Dave Herbert, who has long championed rail service, both for this area and a line between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
“We can have eight different directions coming in to Oklahoma City, and the tracks are there,” Herbert said. “It’s a better deal than anybody knows, and it can be done dirt cheap.”
The state owns some rail rights of way, including one between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, purchased for $6.5 million several years ago with Herbert’s support.
As Herbert points out, several rail lines meet downtown, near Bricktown.
While he was in the Senate, Herbert pushed for a high-speed rail line between the state’s largest two cities, which a previous Carter-Burgess study said could cost more than $800 million.
Herbert’s idea was to fund the start’s portion of that with a 1-cent gasoline tax increase.
At 180 miles an hour, he said, the trip could be made in half an hour. The current track would have to be upgraded to support high-speed rail, however.
Herbert said the federal match for rail projects can run as high as 90/10, but Cain said that is no longer the case.
Federal money fight fierce
Cain said the Dallas DART system was funded on an 80/20 match, but the competition for federal dollars has become fierce in recent years.
Federal officials are asking cities and other project applicants to cough up 50 percent, but some are offering more to push their projects up the ladder.
“Locally, they’re putting up 60 percent or 65 percent of the funding,” Cain said.
Herbert acknowledged that obtaining federal funding is more difficult under the Bush administration, but he isn’t put off by arguments that Oklahoma City’s population base wouldn’t make a rail line sensible to pursue.
“Nobody makes a profit moving people,” he said. “What you do is, you create situations that enhance economic development.”
Oklahoma, and the U.S. in general, are missing the boat by not offering its citizens affordable, convenient rail service, Herbert said.
“If you look at countries where decisions are made based on what’s best for the folks, they have high-speed rail,” he said.
Lack of rail service is one thing tourists from other countries criticize when they come here, Herbert said.
OKC a rail hub?
Pointing to the number of interstate rail lines coming into Oklahoma and converging in Oklahoma City, Herbert recalled his idea of making Oklahoma City a rail hub, “which would still work today if we had any vision in the Legislature.”
Herbert said he would like to link up Midwest City to Bricktown and thinks the idea is sellable with the growth downtown and a change in administration in his hometown.
“If you wanted something to draw people to your city, a train ride into Bricktown is as good a draw as there is,” he said.
He said existing lines could also support passenger service to Norman, Chickasha, Weatherford, Choctaw, Shawnee, McAlester and other towns.
Herbert said there are several short-line rail operators that would like to go into passenger service.
With the aging of the population, he added, convenient modes of transit other than cars will become more important and attractive, he said.
Rail service is also important to sports, Herbert said.
“One of the things that all of the sports arenas are doing now is making sure they have rail to the sports arenas,” he said.
This could include special trains for certain events, he added.
Lack of infrastructure is keeping Oklahoma poor, Herbert said.
“When companies or corporations look at coming to a city, they say, OK, what are the transportation issues?” he said. “As long as Oklahoma City doesn’t have some sort of rail service, they get a minus in that column.”
Centennial train to Bricktown
Herbert thinks a good start on rail service, one that people could watch and see how it fares, is a centennial project that would take passengers from Bricktown to the NE 50th Street complex that includes the zoo, Remington Park, Omniplex and the Oklahoma Railway Museum, which is playing a key role in the project.
Harry Currie, museum president, outlined the idea.
Currie said the museum already owns engines and cars that could be used. He said volunteers have spent several years refurbishing the track, although work remains to be done. He said the museum is also renovating a 1941 dining car.
At first, Currie said, the train would only do runs for special events and conventions, and officials will see how successful that is before planning future steps.
“As Oklahoma City grows, it’s best to plan ahead, get some long-range planning in, rather than wait until you’re just desperate and you’re almost stalemated at moving traffic or moving people,” Currie said.
Fetch with Portland’s TriMet would agree with that.
There are certain basic questions officials should ask themselves about their plans for transit, she said.
“I think the question to ask is, does it take people where they want to go or are you going to create a destination along that line that they will go to?” she said. “Are you connecting people to their community?”
Copyright 2006, The Journal Record. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.