Mass Transit Options for Tulsa

[perspicuity85]

quote:Originally posted by perspicuity85
[  Currently, downtown Tulsa's office occupancy is actually increasing.  

I'm retracting this statement.  While my personal observation of downtown office building occupancy does seem to be increasing, office occupancy does not.  As downtown starts to become more mixed-use oriented, the office-occupancy figures may still remain low as former office buildings become loft projects or street-level retail.  With regards to mass transit, I think streetcar lines would serve a mixed-use downtown well, and provide a tourist destination.

[cannon_fodder]

Monorails make sense in Las Vegas because there are hundreds of thousands of potential passengers at each stop on any day... name one stop in Tulsa with that volume?  Likewise, monorails are the most expensive form of mass travel you can build.  Vegas can pay for that because hotels pay millions and millions for a monorail stop and pay subsidy taxes to keep them running.  The cost of the system is made up for in Vegas because of the need to avoid foot traffic, the need to keep an image of cool, and the volume of traffic they can handle.  

Tulsa just doesnt fit the bill.  Though a clever jingle could always change my mind (that horse dead yet?).

[shadows]

Vegas's decentralization is a simple illustration of advanced planning.   The closing of the distance between the strip and the downtown in Vegas has been well accomplished as it is a short fast communication for the guest they have in their city.   The strip is not unlike our own 71st strip and our distant downtown.  The only difference they have a very live downtown and we have a very dead one.   We have no rapid transportation to gap the distance between the two.   Instead we are building an arena in our congested downtown area in our "Field of Dreams" concept.  The down town is not a focal point for a rapid transport system to our strip and back. Next we are going to develop the river without any regard to the lack of a system of transportation.
We should put a system of transportation at the top of our list of what the city needs.   Let our great grand children develop the river.

[si_uk_lon_ok]

I think one alternative that hasn't been considered is personal rapid transit. It has the same price as LRT, but while LRT on average has 10% of its users who previously drove PRT has 30%. A small town in the UK called Daventry is on the first steps of introducing the system, it would really place Tulsa on the map to have such an innovative and potentially successful transport system.

[Matthew.Dowty]

As a reminder, what is being studied right now is commuter rail and bus rapid transit from Broken Arrow to downtown Tulsa.

It is a simple study that is examining whether it makes sense.

Other potential commuter rail corridors where ROWs currently exist are:

Bartlesville-Collinsville-Owasso-Tulsa Int'l North-Downtown

Claremore-Catoosa-Tulsa Int'l South-Downtown
(A study request for intercity service on this route is pending with Amtrak)

Bixby-Aquarium/Riverwalk-Jenks-Union/Skelly-Downtown

Oklahoma City-Chandler-Stroud-Bristow-Sapulpa-Red Fork-Downtown (studied in 2000, $300-900 million, depending how fast you want to go).

Sand Springs-Downtown (Charles Page Line)

In my opinion, the existing Broken Arrow study should also include Muskogee and Coweta.  Fifteen miles is a short distance for heavy rail commuter.

Maybe a vote could be scheduled whether to earmark excess revenues from VISION 2025 for establishing the Broken Arrow corridor, buying up the ROW or trackage rights on these others, and establishing a downtown street car circulator linking the commuter rail station with TCC, OSU-TULSA, OSU Medical Center, BOK/CIVIC Center, residential, and employment centers.

Sustained gasoline prices over $4 gallon, would change some minds.  Combine these with visionaries among us and you could get it done.

[si_uk_lon_ok]

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

As a reminder, what is being studied right now is commuter rail and bus rapid transit from Broken Arrow to downtown Tulsa.

It is a simple study that is examining whether it makes sense.

Other potential commuter rail corridors where ROWs currently exist are:

Bartlesville-Collinsville-Owasso-Tulsa Int'l North-Downtown

Claremore-Catoosa-Tulsa Int'l South-Downtown
(A study request for intercity service on this route is pending with Amtrak)

Bixby-Aquarium/Riverwalk-Jenks-Union/Skelly-Downtown

Oklahoma City-Chandler-Stroud-Bristow-Sapulpa-Red Fork-Downtown (studied in 2000, $300-900 million, depending how fast you want to go).

Sand Springs-Downtown (Charles Page Line)

In my opinion, the existing Broken Arrow study should also include Muskogee and Coweta.  Fifteen miles is a short distance for heavy rail commuter.

Maybe a vote could be scheduled whether to earmark excess revenues from VISION 2025 for establishing the Broken Arrow corridor, buying up the ROW or trackage rights on these others, and establishing a downtown street car circulator linking the commuter rail station with TCC, OSU-TULSA, OSU Medical Center, BOK/CIVIC Center, residential, and employment centers.

Sustained gasoline prices over $4 gallon, would change some minds.  Combine these with visionaries among us and you could get it done.

Do you know if part of the study will include a transport model for the proposals such as TRANPLAN? Or if modelling work has been carried out in the Tulsa met area for other proposals in the past.

[shadows]

Was it not in the wizard of oz that the rabbit was answering by "Lets have a party",

Tulsa uses the same logic with "Lets make a study".   They have rooms of these studies that are never implemented.

Has the Broken Arrow to Tulsa express bus stopped or is it still in operation where one can drive to the parking lot to take  it which is nearly as far as the distance by car downtown Tulsa?

[si_uk_lon_ok]

quote:Originally posted by si_uk_lon_ok

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

As a reminder, what is being studied right now is commuter rail and bus rapid transit from Broken Arrow to downtown Tulsa.

It is a simple study that is examining whether it makes sense.

Other potential commuter rail corridors where ROWs currently exist are:

Bartlesville-Collinsville-Owasso-Tulsa Int'l North-Downtown

Claremore-Catoosa-Tulsa Int'l South-Downtown
(A study request for intercity service on this route is pending with Amtrak)

Bixby-Aquarium/Riverwalk-Jenks-Union/Skelly-Downtown

Oklahoma City-Chandler-Stroud-Bristow-Sapulpa-Red Fork-Downtown (studied in 2000, $300-900 million, depending how fast you want to go).

Sand Springs-Downtown (Charles Page Line)

In my opinion, the existing Broken Arrow study should also include Muskogee and Coweta.  Fifteen miles is a short distance for heavy rail commuter.

Maybe a vote could be scheduled whether to earmark excess revenues from VISION 2025 for establishing the Broken Arrow corridor, buying up the ROW or trackage rights on these others, and establishing a downtown street car circulator linking the commuter rail station with TCC, OSU-TULSA, OSU Medical Center, BOK/CIVIC Center, residential, and employment centers.

Sustained gasoline prices over $4 gallon, would change some minds.  Combine these with visionaries among us and you could get it done.

Do you know if part of the study will include a transport model for the proposals such as TRANPLAN? Or if modelling work has been carried out in the Tulsa met area for other proposals in the past.

I've realised that Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam do VISSIM. Does anyone know what modelling tool (if  any) they are using?

[shadows]

Quoted:
I've realised that Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam do VISSIM. Does anyone know what modelling tool (if any) they are using?
_____________________________________________________________

The present tool being used it "how much more can we fleece the public by selling them on another  pipe dream",

If Tulsa annexed an area of a 75 mile circle then they might be able to sustain a  light rail system with an additional sales taxes..
\\

[cannon_fodder]

Another article in the Whirled about this today... I tried to find the article online to link to it but couldnt... their website is a mess.

The article had no real 'news' in it for anyone paying attention, but made one good point:  if BA continues to grow and downtown actually takes off, the go-to alternative is probably adding lanes to the BA.

That, I do not want to see.  The BA manages to fit into the city as much as possible.  The on ramps are small, buildings are wrapped by exits, and things are all squirrelly in generally.  But that's ok.  For a 6 lane freeway it has a small footprint.  Many, many neighborhood and business would be ruined by enlarging the freeway (MINE INCLUDED!).

Not too mention an I-244 style 8 lane freeway is large, lifeless, untaxable, ugly, and a community divider.  This may just by NIMBY,  but while freeways are needed, we need to do something to stop them from growing ever larger in the middle of our cities.