Tulsa has two larger regional cities that they should study very carefully. One is Kansas City which has a recently completed streetcar line. Theirs is 2.2 miles completed at a cost of $102 million.
Let's look at the KC line, since you posted the cost.
KC's route is mostly two-way on a single street (Main), with a one-way loop at the north end: east on 5th from Delaware to Grand, then north on Grand from 5th to 3rd, then west on 3rd from Grand to Delaware, then south on Delaware back to the beginning of the one-way loop at 5th & Delaware.
KC's route is about 2.2 miles until the return leg of the one-way loop, but then it's double-tracked back to Union Station, making the overall trackage about 4 miles.
$102,000,000 total cost / 4 miles = $25.5 million per mile of track (I guesstimated the track length from Google Earth, and my calculated cost per mile is close to the
$25.35 million per mile cost published in the Kansas City Star on July 2, 2015.)
I've pulled some more numbers from the same
Star article:
Four vehicles at $4.39 million = $17.56 million
Vehicle maintenance facility = $11.6 million
16 station stops at $640,000 each = $10.24 million
Sub-total of vehicles, maintenance facility, and station stops = $39.4 million (or 38.6% of the $102 million total system initial cost)
The remaining 61.4% (or $62.6 million of the $102 million total) would work out to approximately $15.65 million per mile of track.
4 miles of track / 16 station stop = one stop per each quarter mile of trackage, on average.
4 miles of track / 4 vehicles = one vehicle for each mile of track.
I think streetcar is the way to go downtown and a mile loop (Cincinnati/Detroit, Archer/Brady, Boulder, 3rd/4th) would be a good start at costs probably in the $50-75 million range depending on how much retrofit the Cincinnati and Detroit bridges would need and any other utility relocations as well as streetscaping.
Do you mean two-way on Boulder, then couplets on the other three legs of the loop? Or do you mean just a single one-way loop?
Assuming you mean a two-way loop with double tracks, then it would require about 2.5 miles of track. For a system in downtown Tulsa comparable to KC's, it would take two (or three) vehicles here, plus 10 station stops.
$15.65 million x 2.5 miles of track = $39.13 million
10 stops x $640,000 = $6.4 million
2 or 3 vehicles x $4.39 million = $8.78 million to $13.17 million
vehicle maintenance facility for 2 or 3 vehicles = 50% to 75% the cost of KC's facility = $5.8 million to $8.7 million
Total cost for 2.5 mile loop in Tulsa = $60.11 million to $67.4 million (or $24.04 to $26.96 million per mile of track)
SXSW: Is this how you were seeing your suggested Cincinnati/Detroit, Archer/Brady, Boulder, 3rd/4th loop? If so, the numbers seem to jibe with KC's.
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According to the
KC Streetcar Tracker, the vehicles there operate 7 days a week, on roughly 10-15 minute headways.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume Tulsa's streetcars would operate as KC's do, and let's assume Tulsa would have 2 vehicles in operation, one going in each direction of your suggested loop. KC's ratio of vehicles to miles of track is 1 to 1 (with all four vehicles in operation) or 1 to 1.33 (with three vehicles in operation, as are now as I'm typing this, on a Wednesday night, with 11 to 12 minute headways). Tulsa's ratio would be 1 to 1.25. Right now (on a Wednesday night), KC's streetcars are making the round trip at an average speed of approximately 6 to 7 miles per hour.
Let's assume that Tulsa's streetcars would operate at approximately the same speed as KC's. If so, then Tulsa's headways (on a Wednesday night), would be about 11 minutes.
Let's assume you're near 4th & Detroit on a Wednesday night, wanting to go to the Brady Theater, Saturn Room, or Bar 46. Let's assume you just missed a streetcar. The next streetcar will arrive at 4th & Detroit in roughly 11 minutes. Let's also assume that you've missed the streetcar on the opposing loop, which has just gone by the PAC at 3rd & Cincinnati. The next streetcar will arrive there in roughly 11 minutes.
Let's assume you can walk about 3 miles per hour toward Bar 46. Starting at 4th & Detroit, you can walk to the front door of Bar 46 in about 14 minutes. It would take you about 15 minutes to get to the Brady Theater or the Saturn Room. In that amount of time, one streetcar might be back by 4th & Detroit ... maybe.
My point is that the loop you've suggested is relatively small. It's possible to walk between the most distant points on the loop in about 15 minutes, which is not much longer than the average headway. You could wait a few minutes for a streetcar if you were going between the most distant stations, but otherwise, it might be just about as fast to walk.
If you really didn't want to walk for some reason, but ride on a streetcar instead, having streetcars running in opposite directions on couplets would be problematic, even if you had a phone app telling you where the two vehicles were. It would be easier with two-way tracks on single streets, rather than tracks on couplets. It would be easier to stay on the same street and catch the first streetcar arriving from either direction, since the entire loop would be relatively short.
In Kansas City, you'd be able to walk from Union Station to the City Market (the most distant points on the streetcar route) in about 40 minutes. But if you walked on Main Street there, you'd walk by 12 stations along the way, 6 stations without crossing the street. Chances are that 2 or 3 northbound streetcars would pass you as you walked on the east side of Main, toward the Market. If you happened to be super-tired and just didn't want to walk at all, you could just wait 11 or 12 minutes at Union Station for a streetcar. Wait time 0 to 12 minutes. Streetcar ride from Union Station to City Market about 18 minutes. Total time via streetcar: 18-30 minutes versus 40 minutes walking.
In Tulsa, 4th & Detroit to Saturn Room via street car: 5-17 minutes versus 15 minutes walking.
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With such a small loop, I'd suggest a single track, with both vehicles traveling in the same direction (and maybe that's what SXSW meant with the Cincinnati/Detroit, Archer/Brady, Boulder, 3rd/4th loop proposal).
Savings in cost:
1.25 miles less trackage = 1.25 x $15.65 million = $19.56 million
5 stops instead of 10 = $640,000 x 5 = $3.2 million
Total savings with a small one-way loop: $22.76 million, which means the overall initial cost of the one-way loop system would be about $37.35 million to $44.64 million (and maybe a little less with a smaller maintenance facility for only two vehicles)
Advantage #1: With both vehicles operating, headways would be about 5 or 6 minutes. Even with only one of the vehicles running, headways would be only about 11 minutes.
Advantage #2: A small one-way loop would be easy for people to understand and use (easier than a two-way loop on couplets).
All that said, I still think the Boulder line from John Hope Franklin to 18th has more potential as a catalyst for development. The Boulder line would have about the same length of trackage as the KC Streetcar route, and it would be mostly linear like the KC line, so a better comparison with the KC Streetcar system, imo.
I don't know enough about the OKC system to discuss it.
Last night, I attended a Peoria Avenue BRT community workshop. My main interest was seeing how the Peoria Avenue and 11th Street BRT routes would interface, the potential for associated TOD, and how the BRT routes would/should/shouldn't get to the Denver Avenue Station. Many ideas were presented and discussed. The consultant intends to have the info online by next week, I think.