the Norman Sustainability Network

From The Norman Transcript:

Oklahoma Department of Transportation officials were criticized for their tactics at a Monday press conference at the state Capitol.

The criticism comes from a group that has been promoting a 200-foot shift of the Interstate-40 Crosstown Expressway to preserve the Union Station railyard and central Oklahoma’s future intermodal hub opportunities.

Oklahomans for New Transportation Alternatives Coalition or OnTrac held the press conference to respond to recent statements by ODOT director Gary Ridley and to urge Gov. Brad Henry to listen to all sides.

{…] Ridley wrote in his Oct. 15 letter to Mayor Cindy Rosenthal that modifying the engineering for the Crosstown Expressway would result in a five-to-eight year delay and an additional cost of $240 million to $340 million.

“It will be extremely difficult for the department to guarantee the safe operation of this fracture critical bridge to the year 2020,” Ridley wrote.

OnTrac communications director Marion Hutchison questioned Ridley’s numbers and time lag and said highway engineers had told them that reengineering the Crosstown to move parts of it about 200 feet to the south and add two rail overpasses would cost about $30 million to $50 million.

“It’s going to cost a lot more than $30 million or $40 million to put back in a hub,” Hutchison said, if the railyard is destroyed. “All we are asking is that we have an opportunity to discuss this.”

Read the rest.

See also:
Ontrac/ODOT trying to sway public opinion on Union Station / The Journal Record

Update:

Also see also:
I-40 work could derail train plan in state, foes say / The Tulsa World

We have a couple events coming up this week.

Buy Fresh, Buy Local is meeting Tuesday, Oct 28th at 6:30pm in OKC at the Oklahoma Food co-op sorting site.

We will be meeting in committees and developing strategies for supporting local farmers and customers.  If you would like to carpool contact Kara Joy at kjoymc@gmail.com.

Join us this Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 5pm, at 930 w. Boyd, Apt # 3 for a potluck and phone bank for Union Station. We will be calling people who signed our petitions to ask them to join us in a phone calling and letter writing campaign to Governor Brad Henry regarding the fate of Union Station.

Bring food if you’d like, but more importantly bring yourself!  Help us get the word out!

From The Norman Transcript:

Kara McKee remembers the reaction when she first proposed planting a community garden in front of Food and Shelter for Friends on James Garner Avenue just south of Main Street.

“Everybody said, ‘People are going to come steal your vegetables,’” said McKee, who began working at FSFF in April. “I said, ‘They can’t steal them, they’re already free.’”

The verdant, organic community garden has yielded everything from herbs to pumpkins this year, thanks to a large variety of helpers and organizations that donated materials.

Many plants or seeds were donated by Prairie Wind Nursery, the Oklahoma Food Bank and the Redbud Housing Coop.

And the Norman Sustainability Network provided bricks that surround the garden and labor to dig it. Free compost came from the City of Norman.

Local construction workers who were helping remodel the FSFF offices brought them a flat of fuchsia-colored periwinkles that livened up the garden on the street side.

“It’s a real source of pride,” McKee said.

Read the rest.

From The OU Daily:

Normanites addressed the Oklahoma City Metro area’s lack of public transportation at the University of Oklahoma Undergraduate Congress Tuesday night in Adams Hall.

Eric Pollard of the Norman Sustainability Network and OnTrac, an organization focusing on transportation opportunities for Oklahoma, said the state has a terrible record concerning public transportation.

“Oklahoma City ranks 50th out of the 50 biggest cities in the country. It’s dead last,” he said.

Pollard said the Interstate Highway 40 Crosstown Expressway is scheduled to be relocated through the Oklahoma City Union Station rail yard. If the project is completed as planned, it would destroy any viability of establishing a modern rail transit system for central Oklahoma without having to spend millions of dollars rebuilding infrastructure in the future, he said.

“With the potential for $5 gas, not all of us are going to be able to drive our cars around Oklahoma City,” Pollard said.

Read the rest.

From The Norman Transcript:

It wasn’t what she’d planned on.

In fact, the thought really didn’t even enter her mind, until that trip to Portland.

And even afterward — after the trip was over and she’d done the research — she still wasn’t keen on the idea.

But Mary Francis believes in community.

She’s big on diversity.

And she likes to hear other voices.

So the self-described hippie-turned-community-activist decided to roll up her sleeves and give the project a shot.

And now, she’s trying to build a radio station — from the ground up.

Read the rest.

Update: News Channel 5 also covered the meeting.  Their report is available here.

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This was a big step towards saving the Union Station rail yard, and all over Oklahoma the momentum is on our side.  Thanks to Ed Kessler, OnTrac, and everyone else who worked so hard to make it happen!

If you haven’t yet signed the petition, you can now do it online by going here.

From The Norman Transcript:

Norman councilmembers unanimously passed a resolution in support of preserving the state’s chance for an intermodal rail system and preservation of the Union Station rail yard at their regular Tuesday evening meeting.

The resolution requests Gov. Brad Henry to appoint a special commission to consider future rail transit options in the Oklahoma City area, future uses of Union Station and its rail yard and alternative routes for the Interstate-40 Crosstown Expressway.

It states that the rail yard “lies at the center of the state’s unique network linking the state’s major towns, Tinker Air Force Base and Will Rogers World Airport and is the last grand urban passenger rail yard in the west that remains virtually unused with all of its original space and much of its essential infrastructure intact, including numerous tracks connecting every corner of the state.”

Read the rest.

If you haven’t yet signed the petition to protect the Union Station rail yard, you can now do it online by going here.

From The Journal Record:

Everyone asked to speak to state Senate members on Monday had opinions about what the state should do regarding the fate of the rail yard for Oklahoma City’s Union Station. What they didn’t have was an estimated cost to attach to their opinions.

Whatever it costs to alter the alignment of the Crosstown Expressway project will be a savings compared to what will be lost if the Crosstown project ruins Union Station’s yard, said Garl B. Latham, president of Latham Railway Services. Moving the proposed alignment for the new Crosstown just 300 feet would allow the new highway to avoid cutting through Union Station’s rail yard, taking out some of the tracks leading to the station.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation Director Gary Ridley disagreed. Delaying the Crosstown realignment project for the sake of again reworking the alignment is a dangerous proposition, he said, as the existing Crosstown structure should have been replaced years ago.

Latham worked for years for Dallas’ DART passenger rail system. Officials for Amtrak and the city of Dallas greatly underestimated how much room they would need to build a multi-modal transportation hub out of that city’s Union Station. The Dallas facility is close to the Hyatt hotel, which had sought to expand by purchasing more of the station’s property. Now the city would like to expand the train facility, but there is no more room.

“I would encourage anything that could be done,” said Latham. “It would be of no small significance to lose this asset.” A multi-modal hub would not only carry passengers, but would allow goods to be transferred from train to truck and vice versa – a feature impossible to build at Oklahoma City’s far-above-street-level Santa Fe Station. The Santa Fe Station lacks the land, the parking space, and many other amenities already in place at the Union Station.

Read the rest.

Our letter recently published in The Norman Transcript:

The Transcript’s excellent Sept. 17 article “Rail resolution steaming ahead” should be a call to action for Norman citizens.

The Norman Sustainability Network strongly supports the resolution to protect the Union Station rail yard and encourages all Normanites to come to the city council meeting Tuesday to show their support. We have collected signatures from more than 500 Oklahomans who agree that mass transit infrastructure is vital to our state’s future.

We realize that I-40 is in dire need of repair, but there are several alternative routes for the Expressway that would not encroach on the rail yard.

We need tracks for freight, passenger rail and eventually light rail as well as ample space for bus routes up to Union Station. If the facility is protected and expanded, we could have trains serving Norman, Tulsa and many other Oklahoma cities. Combined train and bus service could reach the state capitol, OU Health Sciences Center, Will Rogers Airport, Remington Park, and Tinker, Altus and Ft. Sill military bases.

There is no good replacement for the Union Terminal, which was purchased in 1989 for an announced purpose as a rail hub. If the hub is destroyed, Oklahoma will lose population and economic opportunities to those states that have better planned for the future.

On the other hand, a revitalized passenger rail system would further the goals of both MAPS and Core to Shore. A study by the University of North Texas found that the DART metro system in Dallas led to $4.26 billion in economic development. Office properties near DART rail stations increased in value 53 percent more than comparable properties not served by rail.

With rising gas prices and environmental damage from ozone and greenhouse gas emissions, alternatives to driving will only become more important. But if we make the right choices now, we can protect and enhance our economy, environment and quality of life.

We ask all Oklahomans to take notice and contact our leaders in state and local government. It is not too late to make our voices heard.

GENE PERRY

THE NORMAN SUSTAINABILITY NETWORK