As someone who has followed this for a while, I’ve been concerned that the overall scope of the project could be derailed or sidetracked by a vocal small minority.

The plan for the I-40 relocation, as coupled with the Boulevard, is really visionary – I hope that the plans as I have seen them are ultimately fully realized.

The Mayor of OKC has shown a real interest in rail and mass transit in many speeches, and hopefully this will come to pass in Maps III initiatives.

Interestingly, all sides of the political spectrum are increasingly agreeing on the need for more sensible transportation policy. See here:
http://thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.04.17.001.pdart

I’ve read Tom Elmore’s posts. He doesn’t help our progress as a city or as a state.

The credibility the AP gives Tom is unfortunate… Too bad they don’t question their own sources.

Tom Elmore often takes a very aggressive tone that can be counter-productive, but that shouldn’t detract from the extremely important cause of protecting the railyard. OnTrac contains many others, particularly Marion Hutchison and Charles Wesner, who have taken a much more moderate and constructive approach and yet are still subjected to misinformation and bullying by Ridley and ODOT who want there to be no debate.

Ridley’s $600 million is a drastic and intentional overestimation of the costs of saving the railyard. The highway could be relocated less than 200 ft south onto a fraction of the area that is already set aside as a parkland buffer, kept at its currently planned grade, and still leave enough room for 10-12 tracks, rather than the single track with one side track that the current design would allow.

This is not just about protecting that one line; it’s about a several hundred million dollar rail transit hub that we are throwing away for reasons that have never been adequately explained by ODOT or anyone else. The vast majority of people who have taken the time to view OnTrac’s presentation and find out what’s really going on have been convinced. Only an intensive effort by ODOT and others to intimidate and keep people in the dark has allowed this plan to go on as long as it has.

Gene, since you’re aligned with Tom, maybe you might answer questions I posed to him that he refused to answer.

Tom likes to repeat his talking points again and again, but doesn’t like to answer tough questions aimed at him.
I think it speaks volumes about him that he’s not answering and it seems to imply a weakness in his arguments. At OKC Central there is little tolerance by me or my readers for “talking points.”

Here are the questions Tom Elmore refused to answer:
No. 1. Do you agree that the Union Station Building will be left standing as part of the Interstate 40 reconstruction? Or do you have proof that the state and city are lying about this building’s fate?

No. 2. ODOT engineers have provided plans showing there will still be room for rail lines if this ever becomes an intermodel station. Can you prove them to be wrong on this claim?

No. 3. City leaders say this station is not the best location for an intermodal station. Why should people believe you instead of city leaders on this debate?

No. 4. How much money have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee offered to support these rail lines they claim they need?

No. 5. Have Norman, Lawton, Chickasha, El Reno and Shawnee done the studies showing how many passengers they’ll have traveling to OKC daily?

No. 6. Since there’s no freight at Union Station now, how is it going to affect to movement of freight between their cities and OKC differently?

No. 7: If one were to build an intermodal station from scratch, would one really want to build it at SW 7 and Hudson when the spot is seven blocks south of the Central Business District and seven blocks west of Bricktown and even further from the bulk of downtown residential (Deep Deuce and Automobile Alley)?

No. 8: Tom, you’ve identified yourself over the years as being with the North American Transportation Institute. What is the North American Transportation Institute and who funds it? What is your formal education? Who are you? (Gene, do you know the answer to this one?)

No. 1 and 2: Yes, the building will be left standing, and under the current plan there will be room for 1 track and a side track. However, this could never be an intermodal hub because that requires several tracks for commuter rail from surrounding cities, light rail connecting to core OKC, and freight bypasses so that passengers don’t have to wait every time a freight train comes through. People will only use mass transit if it comes frequently enough and takes them where they want to go, and that requires far more room than the city engineers are providing. The Dallas Union Station has 5 tracks and they already regret selling part of the railyard to the Hyatt Regency Hotel because they would like to expand even further.

No. 3: ODOT and other city leaders do not have a history of taking rail transit seriously. Gary Ridley has hopped between his position at ODOT and being executive director of the Oklahoma Asphalt Paving Association. They still consider themselves to be the Dept. of Highways. There are a few rail people but they are pretty much ignored.

An ad hominem argument might not convince you, but look at the would-be an alternatives to Union Station. The Santa Fe station has an elevated platform, which would be very expensive to expand and more difficult to connect to other forms of transit like buses and light rail. You could build an entirely new station, yes, but you would have to reroute all of the tracks that already go by Union Station, not to mention buying a huge amount of land in the middle of OKC. It would be enormously expensive, especially when the infrastructure already exists.

The 2006 Fixed Guideway Study identified key site criteria for a transit hub as a minimum two square block area, easy access to the interstate highway system, and adjacency to existing and potential passenger rail lines. We already have this with Union Station!

Or take it from ODOT itself. When the state originally purchased Union Station in 1989, Neil McCaleb wrote, “The Oklahoma Department of Transportation supports the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority’s proposed acquisition of the Union Station terminal in Oklahoma City as a means of providing a central focal point for existing public transportation and potential future passenger rail services for Central Oklahoma…Since Union Station terminal is strategically located along existing railroad right-of-way which may have future potential for passenger rail service, the terminal appears to be a worthwhile acquisition for COTPA.”

Now this is getting really long so I will do the next questions in another comment…

No.4: I don’t know as much about the other cities, but Norman certainly supports rail and is looking for ways to fund new transit infrastructure. In fact, OKC has recognized recently that COTPA is not up to the task of coordinating transporting in the entire Edmond-OKC-Norman metro area, so they are working through ACOG to create a new regional transit committee to oversee these efforts. I’m sure if OKC and the state became serious about rail transit the other cities would do their part.

No. 5: There has not been a study that I know of to estimate the number of passengers who would travel to OKC from surrounding cities. However, we can reasonably compare it to the potential being demonstrated in surrounding states. New Mexico, which has similar population densities to Oklahoma, recently opened its Rail Runner commuter train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and had over 1 million riders in the first year. Dallas has estimated that the development spurred by creation of the DART transit system created enough new tax revenue to pay for the entire project in 5 years. Commuter and/or light rail projects are either already operating or in development in every bordering state except for Arkansas. The fact is that transportation needs are changing all over the U.S. If we don’t adapt to the future of high gas prices we won’t be able to compete. Businesses won’t want to relocate here and young professionals won’t want to live here.

No.6: There was freight at Union Station before ODOT broke the line, and in fact the STB case that has delayed the project is a direct result of ODOT making proved false statements about the lines being abandoned. Now they are trying to claim that the rerouting of trains to another line makes it count as a relocation rather than abandonment, but they are on very shaky legal ground. The Packingtown Lead line that freight has been moved to is not sufficient for the traffic that is now being placed on it. We have talked to and have photos of train conductors stopped for hours at a time while they wait for the track to clear.

No. 7: An intermodal hub doesn’t need to be smack in the center of downtown, because the whole point of a hub is that commuters can board other modes of transit there to take them where they need to go. Light rail would be ideal for bringing people from Union Station to the business district, Bricktown, and other downtown locations. It would also connect easily to the new Crosstown, which could still be build just south of the railyard, just not right on top of it. Not to mention that we aren’t trying to “build an intermodal station from scratch.” The station and railyard is already there! If another location was slightly more convenient, that would not make up for the expense and time required to purchase the land, reroute tracks, and build it all from scratch.

No. 8: I’ve worked more with OnTrac (http://www.ontracok.org/) than I have with the North American Transportation Institute, but both are pretty much volunteer organizations advocating for mass transit in Oklahoma. None of us have a financial stake in rail, and we aren’t funded by anyone besides small donations of money and large donations of time from community members. We’ve achieved as much as we have, getting resolutions of support throughout the state and successfully (so far) challenging ODOT in court, because we’ve done our research and been able to convince people of our cause.

I became involved as a member of the Norman Sustainability Network, which partnered with OnTrac when the resolution was before the Norman council. Since then I’ve continued to work with them to try to reach out more in OKC.

We have a powerpoint presentation that goes into this issue in even greater detail, and I’m sure Marion Hutchison or one of the other OnTrac board members would be happy to meet with you sometime to go over it if you are interested.

(We’ve met before, by the way. I’m John Perry’s son.)