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Amtrak is currently studying the possible expansion of service to northern Oklahoma cities and Kansas. Current studies are being conducted by the Oklahoma and Kansas Departments of Transportation, and spokespersons have indicated that a conclusion on whether to expand service will come later this year. Will Bryne/The Daily |
An Amtrak study examining the possibility of a new train route connecting Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas is still in progress, Amtrak spokesman Mark Magliari said.
The Amtrak Expansion Feasibility Study is examining the costs of connecting Kansas City, Mo., and Fort Worth, Texas, according a press release. The new passenger rail service would extend the existing route from Dallas to Oklahoma City, known as the Heartland Flyer, to cover the 606 miles into Missouri.
The study was requested by the state of Kansas and was originally scheduled to be completed in 2009, but Magliari said Amtrak is still working on the analysis. He said he hopes the results will be released sometime this semester.
“The issue is generally feasibility,” said Brenda Perry, spokeswoman for Oklahoma Department of Transportation. “Without enough demand from riders, the potential route could fail to break even financially.”
The new cities in Oklahoma that are included in this study as potential stops are Ponca City, Perry, Guthrie, Edmond and Davis. Amtrak already has stops in Oklahoma City, Norman, Purcell, Pauls Valley and Ardmore along the Heartland Flyer route.
If the Heartland Flyer route was extended to Kansas City, professional writing junior Jamie Birdwell said she would definitely ride the train.
“My boyfriend lives in Lawrence and we trade off every other weekend, so I drive to Kansas about once a month,” Birdwell said. “It takes about five hours on a good day.”
Depending on if a train ticket were comparable to the two tanks of gas she uses to make the trip, Birdwell said she would ride the train every once in awhile.
“It’s a really long trip, and it’d be nice to get a drink or something,” Birdwell said. “I’m always kind of scared to be driving by myself in case I were to break down on the side of the road.”
Birdwell said her boyfriend, OU alumnus and current University of Kansas graduate student Tyler Branson, would probably ride the train to Norman as well.
“He is a graduate student and has tons of readings and homework,” she said.
Plans to figure out potential costs and time for construction are premature because the feasibility study has yet to be completed, Perry said.
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While not profitable at the farebox, Amtrak service does return funding to the corridors it serves. The University of Kansas recently completed an economic impact study for an expanded Amtrak route between Oklahoma City, Wichita, and Kansas City. It showed a 3.2 to 1 positive economic impact. Like all transportation modes, including highways and aviation, Amtrak requires a minimal subsidy. Take the Interstate - 35 project between US 77 and the South Canadian River. This project will cost taxpayers $10 million per lane mile once it is complete; however, ODOT does not talk about how it will be a drain on taxpayer funding because the positive economic impact is implied. Amtrak is good for Oklahoma. The proposed Kansas City - Wichita - Oklahoma City - Fort Worth route is economically sound.
Instead of Ft. Worth to Kansas City, why not start in Houston? I remember I couldn't find a way to get to Oklahoma without resorting to paying for a very expensive plane ticket, and I was upset with the fact that Houston's Amtrak only runs east and west.
In 1979, current OU president David L. Boren was Oklahoma's junior US senator. He along with "Panama Henry" Bellmon ditched our original Amtrak service, the 90 mph Chicago-to-Houston LONE STAR, direct heir of the Santa Fe's fabled TEXAS CHIEF.
Boren has always run interference for the Oklahoma highway lobby. Most recently, he refused to raise a hand to stop the highway-lobby puppets at ODOT from destroying Oklahoma City Union Station's magnificent rail yard (300 SW 7th), center of the state's rail system, to make way for a four mile relocation of I-40.
Today, ODOT contractors are wrecking the beautiful S. Robinson Avenue railway underpass, a facility lovingly hand-built by craftsmen of our great-grandparents' generation. As a substitute, ODOT has set the former Frisco Railway mainline long overpassing arterial streets S. Robinson and S. Walker on exclusively at-grade further south on the same, key streets. Of course, this mainly affects the population of Capitol Hill, a largely minority district. After 80 years of carefree passage on these streets, commuters and emergency responders will now face the same "will I have to wait for the train" questions that now confront many in Norman.
This is ODOT's idea of "improvement." This is how they are spending public transportation dollars.
The highway lobby controls ODOT. If ODOT was really interested in development of passenger rail, it would have carefully preserved OKC Union Station. It also would have allowed the original business plan for THE HEARTLAND FLYER, daily Kansas City-to-Ft. Worth service via OKC, costs covered by First Class Mail transport -- instead of deliberately stubbing the train's schedule at OKC and then eating up the $23 million startup fund that accompanied it to Oklahoma in less than four years.
ODOT spokeswoman Brenda Perry never asks whether any given highway project can "ever break even." She gets her paycheck for mouthing the deceptive words given to her by her bosses -- words meant to darken the way of Oklahoma taxpayers, not enlighten it.
Worse yet, both ODOT and the state highway lobby are apparently deeply entangled with the Engineering schools and administrations at OU and OSU -- mutually supporting each other in beating Oklahomans out of the intelligent use of their 866-mile, state-owned rail network and the state's commercially-owned rail lines.
A word on behalf of OKC Union Station from either David Boren or Burns Hargis might have helped. Both knew the situation. Both understood Union Station's importance. Both kept their silence.
Is this the work of leadership and institutions that are really interested in better transportation for Oklahoma?
Think about it.
TOM ELMORE, OU '78
gtelmore@aol.com
Is this all that ODOT can muster after being unsuccessful in getting their $2 billion request for a high speed train between Oklahoma City and Tulsa? A comment such as "Without enough demand from riders, the potential route could fail to break even financially" is a sad testament to those who felt that ODOT could bring the money home.
Unfortunately, the state requested a full quarter of the entire national allotment for high speed rail for a train that would make a French trainfan blush. Could ODOT have been asking for something they knew they would not get so that they would not have to run another passenger train? Did ODOT's Perry forget that the Heartland Flyer does not make a profit and has not in its entire history?
And why wouldn't the Heartland Flyer be unprofitable? It only runs between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth. The idea of a train running between two metroplexes is noble. I just read the economic development study mentioned by the first post. It makes good sense.
"without enough demand from riders".....When has ODOT ever done any kind of study that would give credence to this remark???
"the potential route could fail to break even financially". ODOT can see to that by cancelling profitable mail contracts as it did on the Heartland Flyer thus eliminating any profits. ODOT needs to rename their organization....They are not a "transportation" organization but are an Oklahoma Department of HIGHWAYS.
ODOT or ODON'T
By Wanda Jo Stapleton, Oklahoma City
Published: 2/10/2010 4:33 AM, Tulsa World
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has contradicted itself about rail transportation.
First, it destroyed Oklahoma City's Union Station rail yard. This removed railroad tracks leading from downtown to the Will Rogers World Airport and tracks joining Tulsa with Lawton.
Strange that ODOT, for the Interstate 40 realignment, chose this route through a strategically located rail yard purchased as a future hub for a commuter rail transit system.
While bulldozing this rail yard, ODOT conducted dog-and-pony shows about its application for high-speed passenger rail between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
ODOT applied for $2 billion, 25 percent of stimulus funds available nationwide, to purchase new railroad tracks and right-of-way paralleling Interstate 44. Never mind that the state already owns existing rail and right of way between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Finally, ODOT ignored the annual operation costs of about $20 million.
ODOT submitted a pie-in-the-sky application with the intent of getting a rejection letter. Success!
The rejection notice came recently.
Why submit an untenable application without hope of funding? ODOT needed cover for the destruction of the Union Station rail yard and hoped the application would establish "proof" of interest in rail transportation.
The next application by ODOT'S director should be to request that Department of Transportation's name be changed to the Department of Highways.
This letter was published exclusively online.
Every little trickle of rail passenger rail service for Oklahoma is awaited with excitement. Of course the Dallas/Ft. Worth to Kansas City route stopping in more cities in Oklahoma will get lots of use! OF COURSE! Only an agency like ODOT would pretend to think otherwise.
Too bad we have to rely on the Okla. Dept. of Highways to help us get that service! The department is notoriously lacking interest in our needs and the vision to get out of its $10-million-per-highway-lane-mile thinking.
Tulsa would like to be hooked up with Oklahoma City and then with St. Louis. (It doesn't need to be "high-speed", just PASSENGER RAIL).
How about Lawton? ODOT would need to restore rail connections to Lawton.
It has to be said that ODOT's ruthless destruction of Oklahoma's rail potential, especially its plan to run a highway through the OKC Union Station rail yard, the HUB for the whole state, is really appalling.
Let's hope that business and university leaders will understand what a boon passenger rail across the state would be for us all. All need to speak out to change ODOT into an agency serving Oklahomans, not the highway lobby.
Trains really aren't that great. I'd much rather drive, and I think that 90% of people would rather drive as well. That's why there aren't really a lot of trains in this country, because we have the freedom of driving. The FW-OKC-KC line might be a good idea, but anything other than connecting the major metro areas would certainly not be lucrative or make any money. As the ticket prices would likely rise above gas prices, due to the inherently high costs of running a train, people would stop taking the train, because it would not provide benefits enough to keep people from driving. I think highways are a much better investment than train lines. Also, if the three cities felt as if a train line would really boost their economies, I am sure they could come together and create some sort of line.
Yes, yes -- tell us all about the "freedom" of the automobile.
The reality? Real freedom means CHOICE. Oklahomans have NO CHOICE but to sink more than most can afford into keeping up automobiles. We're "free" to pay as much for a car as we once did for a house. "Free" to endlessly buy oil, gas, tires, insurance (it's "the law," you know...). "Free" to walk home when we have to leave the car at the shop. "Free" to stand by the road in the dark when that expensive car quits because a $50 component failed.
We're "free" to put our lives in the hands of everybody else on the road every time we venture out. "Free" to be big, juicy liability targets. "Free" to be absolutely perfect every time we get behind the wheel -- and to pray the driver of every car coming near us is perfect, too. 43,000 Americans die and hundreds of thousands are injured, many permanently, every year in auto accidents, the number one cause of "morbidity and mortality" among young Americans.
(Japanese bullet trains have moved rider numbers equivalent to half-the-population-of-the-world at speeds over 160 mph since 1964 without a single passenger fatality...)
Funny, these claims of "the freedom of the automobile" sound just like the arguments of smarmy Heritage Foundation spokesman Ernest J. Istook -- who funded aggressive rail transit development for his pals in Utah and Arizona as 5th District Oklahoma congressman even as he simultanteously funded the destruction of OKC Union Station's magnificent rail yard in OKC. (Ever hear that "power corrupts?" Find the proof in any government in Oklahoma...)
Real freedom is CHOICE. Having no choice, no competition, no backup plan, no strategic redundancy in our basic transportation system is not "freedom." It's a path to domination by corporate monopolies, and, ultimately, to national suicide.
TOM ELMORE, OU '78
gtelmore@aol.com
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