OKC Streetcar – Jim Stafford's BlogOKC

Streetcar2 — OKC Streetcar at the Business District stop in downtown Oklahoma City

A few weeks ago, I made the argument in a blog post that the OKC Streetcar had no real purpose, even though I’m a huge fan.

The point was that the Streetcar has no destination, so you can’t really plan a trip, say to the Capitol from downtown. You can read the post here.

After this past weekend of big downtown events, I think I need to revisit the subject.

I made the argument in the original post that maybe the Streetcar could find a purpose by providing transportation into downtown for big events like Thunder games.

Rather than enduring traffic jams and competing for expensive parking near the Chesapeake Arena, fans could find parking near the north end of the Streetcar and ride down to the arena.

Bingo.

Aboard the OKC Streetcar, Arts Fest bound

This past weekend confirmed to me that the Streetcar can indeed bring value to our population. With the OKC PrideFest and Arts Festival ongoing simultaneously, thousands of people were drawn to downtown.

My family and I drove downtown Friday evening to visit the Arts Fest and found a convenient (and empty!) lot near N. 11th Street. It was near the North Hudson Streetcar stop.

So, we caught the Streetcar there and rode it down to the Business District stop. We exited and walked a block over to the Arts Fest.

Turns out, there were scores of others who had the same idea. We boarded a Streetcar that had a least 20 people on it along with four others at our stop.

We saw multiple groups of people parking and walking to the northern-most Streetcar stops to ride into the downtown.

My friend Steve reports that his family visited the Arts Fest on Saturday and took the Streetcar down from the North Hudson stop, as well.

When Steve and his family left the Arts Fest to make the return trip, the car on which they rode was packed with more than 50 people, he said.

Of course, the Streetcar was free last week. so take that into account.

And, as Steve points out, occasional festivals and NBA games don’t create ongoing value for the Streetcar.

paula streetcar1 — Paula and grandson Solomon Stafford at OKC Streetcar Library stop

This morning’s edition of The Oklahoman has an in-depth look at the Streetcar and makes the case that its real value is that of encouraging investment in real estate and construction downtown.

That’s not exactly an endorsement of a Streetcar that serves the greater good.

“It truly is a downtown novelty until ridership is majority residential commuter,” Steve said.

If that is true, then we need a bigger downtown population that is willing to give up their cars to commute, along with an extension of the Streetcar line.

I’m still arguing for a connection to the nearby University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Capitol.

But I took heart in the numbers of people this past weekend who found value in the Streetcar as a means of transportation to big downtown events.

The OKC Streetcar proved to me that it has an actual purpose beyond real estate development and tourism.

It IS there to serve the greater good.

Let me say first that I love the OKC Streetcar. I love to ride the rails of any sort whether trains, subway or streetcar.

Especially OUR Streetcar.

When the OKC Streetcar launched in December 2018, I made a day of it. I took Edmond’s CityLink bus to downtown OKC, walked over to Leadership Square and caught the tail end of the opening ceremony followed by the launch of the inaugural ride.

Then I walked over to the Library stop, caught the second Streetcar that came by and rode the entire downtown loop, which took almost an hour.

The next month, downtown for a Thunder game with my family, we parked near the Chesapeake Arena and caught the Streetcar up to Automobile Alley, where we exited and walked over to Hideaway Pizza for a pregame meal.

We then caught the Streetcar at the OCU Law School stop and rode it back down to the Cox Center, from where we walked into the arena just as the National Anthem was being performed.

So, yes, I love the OKC Streetcar.

But there’s a problem.

I have no reason to ride it because it’s a Streetcar that goes, well, nowhere. It’s a loop through downtown from Bricktown to Scissortail Park up to NW 11th Street and back down.

As much as I love the rails, our Streetcar wasn’t built for a commuter who would love to use it to get to downtown instead of to ride around downtown in a loop.

As much as people don’t like to hear it, it was built as a tourist attraction.

So, from my point of view, the OKC Streetcar doesn’t serve the population. You see Streetcars go by all the time that are virtually empty. The numbers recently released by Embark show that lack of ridership, although as it pointed out, the Pandemic did it no favors over the past year.

But we have the Streetcar and I still love it. I’m just trying to figure out how it can be made more useful to a commuting population.

For instance, perhaps there could be sort of a commuter lot on the north edge of downtown devoted to people who drive in for a big event like a Thunder game or Scissortail Park concert. They could park at the lot, take the Streetcar on down and not worry about finding a parking space.

Now that would fill an actual need.

My friend, whom I will call “Steve”, suggests a faster Streetcar and new routes.

“Speed and a spur to populated areas to make it a commuter option,” Steve said. “It just takes way too long to get around the segments.”

Thank you, Steve. A commuter option is exactly what it needs.

New routes would be a major financial hurdle at this point. But the Streetcar needs desperately to connect the OKC Innovation District, the OU Health Sciences Center campus and the Capitol — and NE 23rd Street — to downtown.

Someone please make that happen. Then we would no longer have a Streetcar to nowhere.

We would have a Streetcar with a purpose.

Tag: OKC Streetcar

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We need a Streetcar with a purpose