Steve, you nailed it. I can’t believe how accurately you nailed the real issue. This isn’t about a traffic circle, or a boulevard, or a convention center, or a park, or a Bricktown exit, or any one project. This is a much larger issue at this point, something is overriding ALL of these bad decisions.

What is the status of the downtown boulevard design? With a crossing of the BNSF RR of some type, there will be coordination required, usually taking many months. It looks like that the corridor could sit vacant for a year after the old I-40 removal, unless there is work being done that is not reported.

Cooperation is the way to go in future projects. Neither faction has any ownership of the truth. Each must work in concert with the others. That being said that once a decision is made the naysayers should shut up, go away, and lick their wounds and be ready for the next situation. Unfortunately here in OKC way too much time is spent listening to naysayers instead of getting them onboard in the first place. Not only that but some of the biggest voices yelling about downtown are voices we really should ignore. The Coynes come to mind as one, the Brewers as another.

Dolts and curmedgeons will always exist. At some point an adult has to put them in their place so progress can be achieved.

It was knowledgeble and determined citizens who saved the Walnut Bridge and the former OCA&A rail line through Midwest City to Tinker AFB — while city governments stalled, derided and and attempted to stonewall these efforts. Nobody “paid” the heroes of these efforts. THEY paid — out of their own pockets and out of their precious time — to carry these battles.

They had no “profit motive.”

Those who DID stand to profit — or at least thought that they might profit — from the outcomes that they pursued were nearly universally in the wrong.

Many of the same citizens fought for over a decade to save the fabulous OKC Union Station rail hub and its state-and-region-wide connections, including the magnficent S. Walker and S. Robinson underpasses.

Meanwhile, at the Friday, June 5th, 2012 meeting of the “Eastern Flyer Rail Passenger Task Force” (considering daily, OKC-to-Tulsa rail passenger service), Vice Chair Evan Stair made a motion to allow non-task-force-members of the public in attendance 5 minutes each at the end of each meeting henceforth to make comments or ask questions.

The Task Force — allegedly a “legislative panel” — has quite predictbly been allowed by Chairman Dean Schirf together with former Henry-administration something-or-other (now ODOT staffer) Brian Bigbie to be engulfed, overwhelmed, squelched, diverted, stalled and bogged-down by ODOT and its minions and facilitators from the very beginning.

Legislators named to the panel — like State Senator David Holt — don’t often show up, leaving the voting to a small corps of committed and knowledgeable citizens thrown together with an inexplicable assortment of yawning, “constantly-texting” bureaucrats and either rail-ignorant or rail-averse business people who plainly hold the panel’s mission in utter derision.

So how do you figure the “vote” (to let members of the public speak) went?

It was DEFEATED — as the majority of those present, led by Gary-Ridley-stand-in David Streb (ODOT assistant director who led the rape of OKC Union Station), and enthusiastically followed by such luminaries as former-Henry-Administration-something-or-other Jeanette Nance (now comfortably employed at ODEQ), had their say — and their way.

The words of Gary Ridley rang in my ears. I had asked him — catching him alone in his office early one morning during the battle for OKC Union Station — how it was that ODOT had clearly never considered or seriously addressed any of the many well-documented concerns citizens had brought against his agency’s determination to destroy that elegant patrimony.

“Well, Tom — there WAS a time when we didn’t even have to ASK you what you thought,” he responded, with a smirk.

Today, every single warning Union Station defenders brought against its needless destruction is playing out exactly as we warned that they would. The station and its great promise is now lost for all time to the people of Oklahoma, replaced with another ugly, hyper-expensive and unmaintainable ODOT tarbaby — even as former enemies rejoice that we won other, smaller battles.

Each of these assets — those saved and those destroyed — stand, if only in memory, as clear evidence against the heedless, arrogant and high-handed bureaucrats and elected officials who fought against the right outcome. They and their memories should be used as inescapable evidence to visit appropriate accountability on each of those who betrayed the public trust and the public good in these matters.

A further word for Mike N: Justice Robert H. Jackson said of the task of the American citizenship: “It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

Homer observed – “After harm is done, even a fool understands it.”

The first job of the American citizen at all times, sir, is to hold government and its “special friends” accountable. If this Republic is to continue, that work must be carried out without fear or favor before, during and after the expense of public money.

The mindless destruction of OKC Union Station by the knuckle-draggers at ODOT and their pals will either stand as an eternal deficit for Oklahomans — or can be put on the “plus-side” of the column — IF and only if it is used to bring those who did this thing over the protests of wiser people to account.

I stongly suspect that on the day that such justice “flows down like mighty waters” at the hands of the public through their institutions, co-dedependent/sycophantic vandals like those at Carter-Burgess/Jacobs and Parsons Brinkerhoff will be just as unlikely to come away “dry” as the Neal McCalebs, Gary Ridleys, David Strebs and John Bowmans.

Engineers (contractors) are not in control. They are bound by contracts and professional ethics to provide what the client asks for. It would behoove the unhappy to pay closer attention to who they elect.

I was momentarily hopeful reading your essay, above, yesterday.

Imagine my “surprise” in finding that my posts from yesterday have been deleted. So much for “the revolution,” I guess.

Let’s get down to cases: Your assertion that the Walnut Bridge was “saved by Preservationists and Planners” avoids the reality that citizen activists — working at their own expense and at significant hazard to their own livings — saved that structure. We had to fight pretty well everybody in town to do it — while THE OKLAHOMAN regularly beat us up in its editorials.

Of course, after the Oklahoma Corporation Commission — sole,constitutional authority in this state on all railroad grade crossing safety matters — took matters in hand, forcing city government and business associations to refurbish and rebuild the bridge, those citizens
who took the rough ride to see the right thing done were emphatically “not invited” to the ribbon cutting.

As founding president of the nonprofit Oklahoma Railway Museum, I had urged our board to apply for funds to support the legal effort before the Corporation Commission — which played a significant role in its success.

Don’t forget, also, that through the engineers’ (1) bungling, or (2)sabotage of the rebuild plan, the elevation of the new structure did not meet Union Pacific’s overhead clearance standards. This brought protest from the railroad company — which then lost a legal battle and was reportedly forced to pay a share of the cost of the rebuild anyway.

This guaranteed ongoing static with U.P. — which is known for its long memory — and is reportedly why the planned Centennial Trains from Bricktown to the Adventure District were prevented — by U.P. — from operating. Presumably, this was “the engineers’ revenge.”

Tom, your comments were caught up in the moderation cue/spam filter. There is no conspiracy, at least on my behalf, against you.

To Roger, if engineers are allowed to design they will provide a functional, wide thoroughfare that meets all federal/ state/ national codes. What they tend to overlook are aesthetics and the fact that this is supposed to be a grand boulevard. I love engineers, but they should never be allowed to dictate design.

My apologies to you, Steve.

Thanks for the explanation. I did not realize that I was being “a little too quick on the trigger” in my criticism over what I took to be deletion of my comments.

Your article, above, is right on target as to the frank discussion that needs to be pressed — not just in OKC, but all over the state.