Need Advice in saving OKC's Union Station from destruction

[Anonymous]

Dear TrainJunky29, I appreciate your feedback. I still think my statement is pretty straight forward and will try and adjust it. I was actually focusing on NightCrawler's hostility about my alleged attack on trucks. Your's stood out about preserving the station.

Unfortunately I am a preservationist. I have contacted the Oklahoma Historical Society and they could care less about the station, just the depot. Nothing short of a major lawsuit will save the station or some good graces on behalf of our legislature.

So now were trying to see if our state legislature cares about their taxpayers and unfortunately it doesn't look good.

[Anonymous]

here is a pretty good article about why the bridges need to be replaced.

http://www.news-star.com/stories/061904/New_15.shtml

as for why they are routing I-40 where they are, i have no idea. i guess sending it through an unused rail yard is better than tearing down someones house and foecing them to move like they do in California.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by NightCrawler

here is a pretty good article about why the bridges need to be replaced.

http://www.news-star.com/stories/061904/New_15.shtml

as for why they are routing I-40 where they are, i have no idea. i guess sending it through an unused rail yard is better than tearing down someones house and foecing them to move like they do in California.

Moving it through an unused rail yard is the worst idea ever. Especially if Oklahoma is considering trying to keep the upper income downtown and if the population density satisfies Istook's requirements. He just hates rail period which is why he needs replacing. Jacksonville FL has the same population density as OKC and they are already planning for their rail system.

Unfortunately I will have to comment on 'chunks of concrete' falling issue. When they raised the amounts trucks can carry back in the 70's, our bridges have deteroriated at an exponential rate. My recommendation is that they reroute trucks off of the bridge and unto I-240 where there's no long bridges. I don't care about out of state truck drivers using our highways. I just care about OKC's future. Other cities reroute trucks, why can't OKC?

[Anonymous]

if the state of Oklahoma didnt waste all it's highway money on everything but highways, they could have upgraded their bridges to current standards long ago like many other states. the interstate highways were built to serve 2 purposes; to move the military and to move interstate commerce by truck. pretty much everything you own moves by out of state trucks, and they ned to get where they are going as fast and as safely as possible. by routing trucks onto I-240 you dont solve the issue of the bridges falling apart. they are still in bad shape and in need of repair and replacement. and the issue of increased traffic has nothing to do with trucks. if you remove the trucks there is still thousands of cars that use that highway and the highway will still need to be widened to accomidate them all.

how do you solve this? someone in Oklahoma needs to consider light or commuter rail to get those cars off the interstates. i dont know what OKC has against transit because i dont live there. but this is the best and cheapest idea they have come up with even though it is another short term solution.

i wish parts of the station didnt have to be torn down for another dirty, clogged interstate. but, unfortunately, thats the way things seem to be going lately. and no one in the Oklahoma government seem to want to do anything about it.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by NightCrawler

if the state of Oklahoma didnt waste all it's highway money on everything but highways, they could have upgraded their bridges to current standards long ago like many other states. the interstate highways were built to serve 2 purposes; to move the military and to move interstate commerce by truck. pretty much everything you own moves by out of state trucks, and they ned to get where they are going as fast and as safely as possible. by routing trucks onto I-240 you dont solve the issue of the bridges falling apart. they are still in bad shape and in need of repair and replacement. and the issue of increased traffic has nothing to do with trucks. if you remove the trucks there is still thousands of cars that use that highway and the highway will still need to be widened to accomidate them all.

how do you solve this? someone in Oklahoma needs to consider light or commuter rail to get those cars off the interstates. i dont know what OKC has against transit because i dont live there. but this is the best and cheapest idea they have come up with even though it is another short term solution.

i wish parts of the station didnt have to be torn down for another dirty, clogged interstate. but, unfortunately, thats the way things seem to be going lately. and no one in the Oklahoma government seem to want to do anything about it.

There have been requests made to U.S. Representative Istook to do a light/commuter rail study for $9 to help with highway congestion. He refused. He doesn't want Oklahoma City to compete against Salt Lake City Utah so he destroys us from the beginning. There was an effort to put a streetcar downtown and Istook threatened our federal funding if we did so the streetcar put there by Randy Humes was yanked.

So why does Salt Lake City have a decent rail system and Istook bound and determined to destroy ours with his highway funding bill? The largest in Oklahoma's history? There are speculations but it's just those.

Istook is Oklahoma's representative just in name only. The bad thing is that Oklahomans think that he's doing us a favor. We don't even get 100% of our highway funds back. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is also highway interest controlled. Senator Nickles demanded that ODOT start Amtrak service again and gave us $23 million to do so. ODOT was determined to embarrass the train so they refused to let it go north of Oklahoma City and they have it stop at the Santa Fe Station where they won't even open the bathrooms or waiting rooms because it's privately owned. Because the train doesn't connect to Chicago, the train is losing money and ODOT's on the band wagon at how it costs us so much money when they're the ones that sabatoged it to begin with.

Oklahoma is in a sad state of affairs.

[locomutt]

Well this may not be any consolation,but Cincinnatti did save their union station,and the beautiful murals there;Louisville has their union station,minus tracks,and train sheds;albeit the terminal for our local transit co.(bus)

Although,they did build a new spur into the station,so Amtrak could come across the river into Louisville,'tho that didn't last very long,due to track conditions on th rest of the railroad.

Just keep working with the "press" and other concerned citizens,and maybe you can do something. With the mentality of some our government officals,this will be a "big" uphill battle. Good Luck!