Why Am I Blogging Here?
When invited to participate as a guest blogger here by Kinsey Crocker, account executive with Anglin Public Relations, in an email she said,
I work with the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority (COTPA). We are going to be hosting a series of public discussions to: (1) collect citizen input on where the modern streetcar should go in downtown Oklahoma City and (2) get public input on an Alternatives Analysis looking at other transportation options for the future of downtown Oklahoma City. We’ll gather citizen input through a series of public meetings beginning March 29 and through online forums, discussions and surveys.
The reason I am contacting you, we are looking for several guest bloggers (who are not employed by the city or on the transit oversight committees) to attend some of the meetings and report on the process on our LetsTalkTransit.com blog. Would you be interested?”
Her statement, “collect citizen input on where the modern streetcar should go,” caught both my attention and fancy and after speaking with her and agreeing to participate, she gave this definition of my and the other bloggers’ role here:
Your role is to serve as a citizen reporter for those who can not attend the meetings. You should report on what happens at the meetings, what questions are being asked by the public and provide your own perspective.
That explains part of why I am here, but not all. You may know that I’m an Oklahoma City history aficionado and, as part of that moniker, I and fellow blogger here, Dean Schirf, we do love our trains. Both Dean and I have written extensively on that topic in my history blog. Dean is more into “big” trains but I’m also nostalgic about smaller urban trains, the trolleys, like that shown above.
The March 29 Evening Public Meeting
The meeting was the second such meeting scheduled today, an earlier meeting having occurred in the City Council chambers at 200 N. Walker. Having time conflicts with its 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. schedule, I couldn’t make the earlier meeting. The evening meeting was scheduled for 6:00 - 7:30 p.m., and this piece reports on that although I assume that the 11:30 a.m. meeting was much the same.
Uncharacteristically, I arrived well before the appointed time to begin and looked around to see who, if any, I knew. Jeff Bezdek, founding member and mover-and-shaker in the Modern Transit Project (I’m sure that he has a more appropriate title but I don’t know what it is) was there; one of my favorite Oklahoma legislators, now retired House member Debbie Blackburn, and friend Casey Cornett were, too, as was Michael Scroggins, Public Information Officer for COTPA, who’d earlier given Steve Lackmeyer and me a most excellent tour of Union Station.
The evening meeting was not crowded so you might look over the 40 or so faces to see who you might know:
The meeting convened shortly after 6:00 p.m. Jennifer Eve, moderator, introduced the three speakers: Rick Cain, director of COTPA; Mike McAnelly with Jacobs Engineering; and
Project 180 engineer and coordinator Laura Story.
Laura was present only to comment briefly upon Project 180's coordination with the transit elements of MAPS 3 so to avoid unnecessary digging up of streets, etc. Truth is, Project 180's fast pace (set to begin in May 2010) may well be driving the speed and timing of the modern streetcar component of MAPS 3, and, if it is, hats off to Project 180. But, the heavy lifters during the presentation were Cain and McAnelly.
As it developed, the meeting was largely expository of the modern streetcar and its potential commercial and other benefits — the subject of possible downtown transit routes never came up at all. If you’d care to peruse the content of this website and compare them with what Cain and McAnelly had to say, I very much doubt that you’d find anything new being said. Of the main presentations, my sense is that McAnelly’s was the most informed and articulately presented although both were fine. That said, the types of topics developed were very fundamental, such as ...
- What is the modern streetcar?
- How does it work with other traffic?
- How is the modern streetcar ADA compliant?
- Who are current manufacturers of modern streetcars?
- What cities presently and prospectively have them?
What about fares — some free, some not?
I’m not developing these and other generic topics here because I don’t see what was presented as being particularly newsworthy and no breaking news was presented during the presentations. Questions from the audience were written upon forms and were then selectively presented to either Cain or McAnelly, and quite a number were presented (I wasn’t counting). That said, no voices were heard during the meeting other than those of Jennifer Eve, Rick Cain, Mike McAnelly, and Laura Story.
I will elaborate more if comments request it after this post is done. But, as Bryan Dean said in his Oklahoman article about today’s meetings, “Monday’s meetings were mostly informational,” and he is accurate in that description. Read his report for more than I’m saying here. He doubtless attended the mid-day meeting.
This meeting was scheduled to end at 7:30 p.m. but it adjourned at 7:00, lasting less than 60 minutes’ time. I was easily able to return home to eat some soup and tapioca pudding and settle in to watch my all-time favorite TV show at 8:00 p.m., 24, in which I was once again able to voyeuristically participate in Jack Bauer’s endeavors to save us all from hideous acts of international terrorism. Now, to be fair, there aren’t many, if any, that have the capability of topping my hero Jack Bauer in my interest level, and this meeting, while generally informative, gave me nothing new to chew on. Jack Bauer always does.
Evaluation
It’s probably fair to give this first meeting a pass on public participation and a discussion of competing ideas, neither of which really occurred today. But since the meeting was apparently designed to be general and not specific in its scope but was merely an informative stage setter, that’s almost OK — except for the fact that we’ve been there and done that during the MAPS 3 campaign.
As for me, only one such pass is OK. Future meetings need to provide a place for true public discussion — speakers and voices other than public officials actually need to be heard from the floor — and what about this concept: a meeting wherein ALL presenters would be non-public officials. Speaker 1 would advance and argue for Route #1; Speaker 2 would do the same for Route #2; and so on. If the Mayor or his proxy wants to present a route based on the “spoke system” he referred to during the MAPS 3 campaign, that would be great, too. That’s REAL public discussion.
The submission of written questions which are then selectively advanced to a presenter by a question-screener may assure good order and avoid chaos, but that method does not allow for spontaneity and it does not provide for public discussion, not even close. “Discussion.” Look it up in your Webster’s.
What we heard today was a general description of the modern streetcar. What we did not hear was a more fundamental description of why these 7 meetings were occurring or why they would matter when all is said and done. Window dressing we don’t want or need. What we do need is bona fide discussion, defined here to be “Consideration of a subject by a group; an earnest conversation.”
Future meetings need to definitively define the process
- WHAT IS the overall process for determining the downtown transit routes;
- HOW DO these meetings relate to that process; and, if they don’t relate, then why bother?
But, like I said, today’s meeting almost gets a pass. As a general information meeting, it was nicely presented, but I’m guessing that the 40 or so in attendance were already primed on the topic and were hoping for a bit more.
Posted on
Tue, March 30, 2010
by Doug Loudenback
filed under