Comments on: Bricktown Parking: Killing Two Birds with One Streetcar

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:19:44 +0000

Great Idea. For though I have to find close parking as I can’t walk very far due to injuries from Army life. The only place to get a good handicap spot is is at the Harkins but sometime they are even full. I don’t mind paying 5 dollars especially if I am spending 4 or 5 hours at Bricktown, but sometimes, I have paid 20.00 to park for an event. I would like to see a Monorail systems because it does not interfere with the pedestrians or the vehicles. It would block some views from offices but like you said it’s the city. I know the monorail is more expensive to build but it still would be cool. The Green Line looks cool too.

Some of you spoke about the city and stuff. I was doing one of my Army things and we had this girl from Chicago, we told her to take the hummer and go find these certain people. She replied that she had no license, I told her that we can give her one, we will train her on the particulars of the hummer, test her and copy her civilian license and she will be good to go. She said that she did not even have a civilian license. I asked her how a 26 year does not know how to drive? She said we take mass transit, we don’t need a car in Chicago. I just shook my head and found someone else. Must be nice to not to have car and insurance payment. LOL!

By: Light rail layout - Page 2 - OKCTalk

Light rail layout - Page 2 - OKCTalk — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:29:55 +0000

[...] Re: Light rail layout For an affordable, practical beginning of fixed rail downtown, I like Blair Humphreys green line concept… imagiNATIVEamerica ? Bricktown Parking: Killing Two Birds with One Streetcar [...]

By: Eddie

Eddie — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:26:38 +0000

Blair, I couldn’t agree more about improving the transportation options in the heart of the City. I’d eventually like to see a fixed-rail trolley/tram system that makes a loop up to St. Anthony’s and then along 10th street through Midtown over to the OUHSC/PHF and finally through the Triangle/Deep Deuce area, eventually completing the circle in front of the Ford Center.

Nice job of finding the cost for the trolley system per mile. Hopefully the inefficient and untimely gas-powered trolley buses will be replaced soon. I’m crossing my fingers for Maps3.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:43:09 +0000

Top-notch proposal, Blair, and well-stated, too. You already have my daughter interested; green is her favorite color.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:59:33 +0000

This is a really excellent idea, so long as it is planned in a manner that can form the foundation for an expanded transportation line (as you mention).

And Jason’s right: we have no parking problem. We have a WALKING problem and a PAYING problem.

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:01:14 +0000

Wonderful proposal… Sheridan would make a great straight-shot line to start us off. Eventually I’d like to see a line on Walker or Robinson going all the way to 10th St.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:16:21 +0000

B-

I think you make some great points here but let’s boil it down to what the real problem is. You actually hint at it in your post:

“Four stops are proposed, spaced approximately one-quarter mile apart, putting most of Downtown and Bricktown WITHIN A FIVE MINUTE WALK”

Walking. That is the problem. There is no real parking problem in Bricktown. I was down for opening day of The Dark Night and tried to find a spot in lower Bricktown, South of Bass Pro, next to Chelleno’s and all to no avail. I could not believe the number of people that were downtown. It was incredible. I was excited to see that so many people were down there!

As we were driving around looking for parking – which I have never had to do since we moved back to Oklahoma – I realized that the North lots are probably wide open. So, we took North and parked just north of Main Street in a lot that probably had about 20 cars in it. $5 is all it took and we were at Harkins in no time. Getting out was the same ease.

All this to say – here are the reasons we have a “parking problem” in Bricktown:

1. People refuse to walk! 5 min walk is nothing and people need to realize that the “walk” is part of being downtown. That is the joy of it! It will not hurt you I promise!

2. Get used to paying for parking! Again, this is a part of being downtown. People are so used to lumbering their huge SUV’s into big gulp sized parking lots in suburbs like Edmond that they do not know how to handle themselves in a downtown setting. We are upset about $5 parking? We pay $30 per day in Seattle when we go! That is just life in a city!

I do want to be clear – it would be great to get the public transit going and I feel that it is a better dollar spent. Let’s try to get something going before we need it. Maybe even before we are reacting to a problem.

…be bold