http://http://tulsatransit.org/news-info/commuter-rail-study/
A second (and final) round of public hearings will be held on Thursday, February 22, 2007.
12:00 Noon
Centennial Park Central Community Center, east of downtown Tulsa
1028 E. 6th Street (6th & S. Peoria)
http://www.cityoftulsa.org/recreation/parks/CommCenter.asp
(Pizza and Sodas at the meeting)
4:30 PM
Nienhuis Park Community Center, Broken Arrow
3201 N. 9th Street
Building is located at Lynn Lane just north of 61st
http://www.brokenarrowok.gov/our-citizens/quality_life/city_parks/youth_center.htm
(Pizza and Sodas at the meeting)
The public is invited to hear the early results of the rapid transit system study between Tulsa and Broken Arrow. The meetings are open to the public. For more information, contact information: Owen, 258-3536 x 13.
The rail part of a transit system doesn't really seem all that feasible. Sure Tulsa is spread out, and it is a big city. It's just that part of me doesn't see how a city of this particular size can support such a system. I know of cities around the same size as Tulsa that can't afford to maintain rails.
Maybe if people use the rails we wouldn't have to spend so much on upkeep of roads out to surrounding cities and that money could be funneled back into the rail system?
Lets have a party and plan for a rail system that goes no where. Tulsa in the land grabs by annexing did no planning for a mass transportation system as it extended its fence line boundaries. By the building of expressways along with the love affair of the people with the big comfortable cars who are you going to get to wait 30 minutes to catch an express rail when you can be in Tulsa via the B.A. expressway in less time. Of course in this money mad economy it could make 4 or 5 trips a day costing $20 per trip and when one got there rent a car to get around town in.
In the 40's when the main shopping area was between 1st and 6th street and the shoppers were shoulder to shoulder on Saturday night you could take the trolley to town and window shop. Today the 71st strip needs its own rail system across their free parking lots to access their stores.
The two things that make light rail in Tulsa not feasible is that the size of Tulsa in today's urban world is very small and the cost of operation with the lack of riders would prohibit its success.
Persons in $500,000.00 homes driving $100,000,00 cars riding on a light rail 17 miles? [What the hell did I do with that medication]
The light rail from B.A. to Tulsa could be an improvement to the mass transportation between the cities. If we were to take the B.A. express speedway and lay tracks in the middle of both lanes, close it to auto traffic where one must now drive 85 miles per hour to get out of the way of the speeders, build an 80 acre parking lot in B,A, for the commuters to Tulsa jobs to leave their cars, finish converting downtown Tulsa into parking lots and charge parking fee in lieu of the sales taxes on the fair grounds, Replace this with signs inside the commuting light rail cars where the captive riders would have to read the advertisements in the space sold to advertisers. This would bring in millions more for the bureaucracies to spend, Second it would slow down the speeding on the B.A. expressway and give the riders time to read the signs along the tracks, increasing the value of such advertisements.
[ Have to go and find where I left me medication=] .
^ You need some medications of some sort. lol
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Lets have a party and plan for a rail system that goes no where. Tulsa in the land grabs by annexing did no planning for a mass transportation system as it extended its fence line boundaries. By the building of expressways along with the love affair of the people with the big comfortable cars who are you going to get to wait 30 minutes to catch an express rail when you can be in Tulsa via the B.A. expressway in less time. Of course in this money mad economy it could make 4 or 5 trips a day costing $20 per trip and when one got there rent a car to get around town in.
In the 40's when the main shopping area was between 1st and 6th street and the shoppers were shoulder to shoulder on Saturday night you could take the trolley to town and window shop. Today the 71st strip needs its own rail system across their free parking lots to access their stores.
The two things that make light rail in Tulsa not feasible is that the size of Tulsa in today's urban world is very small and the cost of operation with the lack of riders would prohibit its success.
Persons in $500,000.00 homes driving $100,000,00 cars riding on a light rail 17 miles? [What the hell did I do with that medication]
Believe or not, there are actually people in Tulsa that don't live in $500,00 homes. WOW.
Mass transit, is a great idea, that can help spur growth in many areas of the metro. It also bring more people to downtown for events and functions, without the hassle of finding a parking space.
If you think small, you are small. Tulsa has a real opportunity and some would rather piss and moan.
BTW, Wichita is SMALLER than Tulsa and look what some of the locals there are saying about mass transit...
Group Aims To Expand Amtrak Route From Oklahoma to KC
AP - 2/17/2007 3:10 PM - Updated 2/17/2007 5:57 PM
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) _ A group wants to bring Amtrak back to the state's largest city, which hasn't had passenger service since 1979.
The Northern Flyer Alliance wants to speed up expansion of the Heartland Flyer route north from Oklahoma City to Wichita, Newton and Kansas City, Mo.
``I haven't found one person yet who says that's a crazy idea,'' said Autumn Heithaus, the alliance's executive director.
Anyone wanting to catch an Amtrak train from the Wichita area must drive 20 miles north to Newton, and there is no service running south.
That doesn't sit well with 81-year-old Rosemary Terry, a member of the newly formed Northern Flyer Alliance. She would like to visit her daughter in Fort Worth, Texas, which is served by the Heartland Flyer route.
``I know a lot of people, if they could get on a train and not worry about getting hit by a truck on a highway, they could go somewhere,'' she said.
The alliance has started a letter-writing campaign to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, hoping to enlist her in the push for returning rail service to Wichita.
``A city of this size that doesn't have any rail, any other way to get out but an airplane, is absolutely ridiculous,'' Terry said.
Lloyd Stagner, an alliance member from Newton, is a former railroad employee and the author of several books about trains. Rail travel, he said, is a logical response to fluctuating gasoline costs and airline security issues.
``I think passenger rail has a big future. With the city of Wichita giving subsidies to airlines, I think Amtrak would be in line, too,'' Stagner said.
Wichita's Union Station has been converted into an office building where Cox Communications maintains its state headquarters. But Cox is moving to another location, with the move to be completed in 2008.
After that, Cox's real estate firm will put the station on the market, said Jay Allbaugh, the company's vice president for government and public affairs.
The expansion move is also getting support from Evan Stair of Norman, Okla., director of the Amtrak Extension Coalition.
``This train should've operated through Wichita from day one,'' he said.
Oklahoma transportation officials, too, would like to see the route extended into Kansas.
``It only stands to reason if it were connected to the north, the ridership would obviously be enhanced,'' said Joe Kyle, manager of the rail programs division for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
Texas and Oklahoma split the annual cost _ approximately $4 million _ of running the Heartland Flyer. Kansas would have to provide state funds for any expansion to occur, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said, and the initiative would have to come from the transportation departments of Kansas and Oklahoma.
But John Maddox, rail affairs program manager for the Kansas Department of Transportation, said the department has no state money available for capital improvements to rail service.
Kansas law also prohibits the use of state money to pay for passenger rail operations, Maddox said.
A KDOT study in 2000 found that capital costs for development of the corridor from Kansas City to Wichita would be $194 million, Maddox said, with another $149 million to improve the corridor from Wichita to Oklahoma City.
That doesn't take in the cost of station improvements, cars and locomotives, Maddox said.
However, Stair said those numbers were exaggerated. He estimated that Kansas would pay $5.39 million in annual operating costs, with another $2.79 million in startup costs.
Despite the hurdles, Heithaus said she is optimistic that passenger service will be back in Wichita.
``It's going to be a lot of hard work,'' she said. ``But I still have a lot of heart and a lot of passion this is going to work out.''
http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=120606
Quit thinking small potatoes and make Tulsa a better place to live.
Quote:
Quit thinking small potatoes and make Tulsa a better place to live.
Take a trip around the town and look at the shopping centers North of 21st St that are closed as well as the commercial buildings. Bringing back the stage coach area long gone along with small town mass transportation systems. The cost of massless transportation between Tulsa and B.A. has already been tried by buses and has not been cost effective. The domineering oil industries will stand in the way like a brick wall in determining a solution that they already have under control. Daily we are constructing expressways for the use of the people with the love affair with the auto. The toll roads extended into the dying arena of the railroads as for whom the bell tolled.
The rail system replaced the stage coach and the auto and trucks replaced the rail system and thousands of miles of tracks were replaced by expressways. Next the mail service between Tulsa and B.A. will possibly be studied for replacing by the short lived pony express.
On Sunday mornings the realtors show homes on TV in the Tulsa area for sale from $400,000 dollars to a dollar under a million dollars. The average nation wide home value is in excess of $200,000 dollars. Boy we sure are living in substandard homes dreaming of mass transportation with many workers making the $5.15.
I wonder what the possible daily traffic numbers would be for the Heartland Flyer from OKC to Wichita and KC, compared to BA to downtown Tulsa? Then how would those two routes compare cost wise to build and run?
My guess is that there would be more daily riders from downtown BA to downtown Tulsa than from OKC to Wichita or KC.
When I hear about light rail or some other rail transportation in Tulsa, well I can't help but wonder why people come up with the notion. I wonder about the "intent and motivation" for it. My guess is that a lot of it stems from the desire to be "Like those other cities that have such rail transportation." There is also a cache a bragging rights quality to be able to say you have light rail and such. It automatically implies that the city is large enough and has the hustle and bustle quality to it. You will of course hear a denial that those are the real reasons and its more about economy, helping the environment and other noble ideals....
BUT, when I listen to people, what I really find underneath it all is a desire for that imagined and wonderful "Metropolis Tulsa", the dream city we want to become.
Which begs the questions. Are we really there yet? Are we putting the cart before the horse? Is this the best use of our money at the moment? Will it really work or do we just really want it? Want that dream? It may be that our city just isnt ready for it yet, that we are too spread out without enough density to make this work. That fact is of course not going to kill that Metropolis Tulsa dream which will inevitably pop up no matter how many times you try to stamp it down with "the facts".
OR lol, Is placing this rail line a start to making the Metropolis Tulsa come to pass? Perhaps its not the cart before the horse analogy (aka. Shadows) but the build it and they will come analogy, that we should be looking at? Will building this help encourage the type of growth and density we are trying to develop? Will building the line give developers incentive to build, say, high rise living, near it because of the access to the rail benefit they can then promote? etc. etc. Plus remember even the planning and development stage would mean it is going to take 6-10 years before any of this could really start. So even here its not a now situation but what do we want to begin having 15 to 20 years from now.
Another note is to watch how BA is really wanting to start promoting and revitalizing its downtown. Having a rail line that started there would enable and incentivise more density and living there. Plus is it possible that they could use a good sized parking garage for their new events center which could also be used for commuters? Just some thoughts.
Take a modernistic designed bus. Add hydraulically operated axles with railway wheels. The axles can be lifted when moving down main street in Broken Arrow. Once the bus reaches the railroad, the bus is positioned over the rails, lowers the axles and becomes light rail. The rubber wheels actually propell the bus as they are in contact with the rails.
Co-ordinate scheduling with the railroad operators. After reaching downtown Tulsa, or wherever, raise the axles and drop off riders at their destinations.
[:)]
I've given this lots of thought.
I like public transportation systems for several reasons. It encourages density in a metro area. It helps connect neighborhoods, suburbs, and districts. It is environmentally, road friendly (less wear and tear), and traffic friendly. If done right it can actually SAVE money - the city should aim to break even or lose a little while people can save money and spend that money elsewhere in the city (money to FORD Credit is gone, money spent on Cherry streets stays in Tulsa while longer). Not to mention a good pubilc transit system is extremely convenient - no need to keep up a car, or worry about how to get there, or worry about traffic, or if you have too much to drink. And on top of it all, a good transit system provides image of the city. The Subway in NY, the trolley's in New Orleans, the "L" in Chicago, or the cable cars of San Francisco in contrast to the mega sprawl freeways of LA or Houston (who's rail system is designed first and foremost for the super bowl).
HOWEVER: people are lazy and reluctant to change. Myself included. I already have a car, Tulsa already has freeways... the city was built for cars and everyone already has them. Why would I want to pay for a car and a garage and then pay to use public transportation? Even with a fabulous public transit system most people in Tulsa would (or would have to) own cars. Not too mention I cant get on the bus (or especially the train) and go where I want to when I want to. Want to do lunch - better stay within walking distance of work. Want to leave early? Want to stay late? You have to do so on scheduled intervals.
So there are many good things associated with public transit. But once a city grows WITH its freeways and everyone is used to that style of living, it usually doesn't change. I for one, in all honesty, will probably be too lazy and reluctant to change to give up the freedom of my car to adhere to the schedule the man sets forth. If I have to pay for a car anyway, I may as well go where I want, when I want.
Meeting goes well:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=070223_Ne_a9_rail
Fifteen mile long light rail express between Tulsa and Broken Arrow with two stops along the route?
How long does it take to start and stop a light rail vehicle? WOW!
I went to the meeting and found several things interesting.
First off this wouldn't be a "ride it whenever you want rail system". There would be two trips before work in the morning and two trips after work in the evening. Thats it. One reason is of course ridership numbers would be best at those times and the other is that the more trips you make and at different times the more difficult it is to find "windows" in which UP could use the rail as it needed. It is their rail after all and usage and times have to be negotiated with them.
The other interesting thing was where the stops could be. There were pros and cons to consider. The plus for the 13th and Lewis stop was its proximity to Hillcrest/St Johns area and TU and to fairly dense living already. This stop is the only "destination" stop without parking. The other three stops would need parking lots. When you looked at a map of where the potential parking lots could be in BA and the Sheridan or Memorial areas, you could already see that there were limitations. I believe the 40mill cost presented did not include the cost of purchasing any properties for parking. It was noteworthy that the available areas needed were also areas that will most likely have things built on them soon for they are some of the only patches of available land around. In other words it will be far cheaper to get that land now than 20 years from now after they are developed, especially downtown BA and the Sheridan option.
This rail service was a basic, bare bones, no frills first step. I think they were definitely trying to keep costs to a minimum, yet I can still imagine there will be plenty of people who will not like the approx 40mill price tag. The only thing is that if you are ever going to want light rail in Tulsa, this is the best route to start with and now would be the cheapest time to start it.
I think this would be great but the rail needs to run from Jenks to BA and then on to Owasso, bypassing Tulsa all together.
This would be a huge boast for these quality community's in supporting their shopping and entertainment districts.
quote:
Originally posted by Porky
I think this would be great but the rail needs to run from Jenks to BA and then on to Owasso, bypassing Tulsa all together.
This would be a huge boast for these quality community's in supporting their shopping and entertainment districts.
If they think its economicaly viable and that enough people would ride it, nobody in Tulsa is gonna stop them from doing that lol. But of course, nobody in Tulsa is going to pay for it either. [:)]
quote:
Originally posted by TheArtist
quote:
Originally posted by Porky
I think this would be great but the rail needs to run from Jenks to BA and then on to Owasso, bypassing Tulsa all together.
This would be a huge boast for these quality community's in supporting their shopping and entertainment districts.
If they think its economicaly viable and that enough people would ride it, nobody in Tulsa is gonna stop them from doing that lol. But of course, nobody in Tulsa is going to pay for it either. [:)]
I know, nor is anyone going to be paying for such a thing here in the burbs.
What gets me is there are so many positive things that could get people downtown again and they aren't addressing them. Instead they feed us this 3 island project and this rail nonsense. Now there talking about a $9,000,000 sidewalk downtown. When does this madness end before we lose our downtown all together?
Put this study into the category of "What if...". Someone justifies his job, pays a little study money to test the water. The water is cold.
Saw this stuff back in the 70's when there really was a vibrant downtown and it wouldn't wash then either. There are vested interests who do not want passenger rail in OK, specifically Tulsa. All they have to do is refer to the cost of start-up, which is tremendous, estimate ridership, which is puny and a guess at that, and that usually blunts the talk. We want stuff here. We just don't want to pay for it.
Your are getting close to the reason for all the islands and the mass to transportation. The word is "Pork Barrel". The taxpayers through their taxes are promised every hair brained idea of fancies where the working poor can transferred into the pockets of the rich this money in disguise of improvements that are needed and they cannot expand without.. The horse stinks more each day.
Time to bury it.