Streetcars have officially returned to Oklahoma City following a ribbon cutting ceremony Dec. 14, which was the first of several activities planned during the next three weeks to celebrate the new transportation option.
“This is a historic day decades in the making,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt. “Our streetcar will be an important economic development tool for our entire city, accommodating visitors and residents alike. It will encourage walkability downtown, answer the question of how residents and visitors will circulate downtown once they arrive and will inspire private investment all along the route.”
The 4.8 mile-project serves 22 platforms with five streetcars every 15-18 minutes. Each OKC Streetcar stop is ADA-accessible for easy, level boarding with signage, real-time arrival information, covered shelters and a ticket vending machine. Oklahoma City’s public transit system, EMBARK, has incorporated the streetcar routes into its mobile ticketing app and other EMBARK-supported apps for trip planning and real-time system information.
The streetcars run on two routes, a Downtown Loop and a Bricktown Loop, and are powered via overhead wires for part of the route and operate on batteries for the rest of it.
The $135-million was financed through a voter-approved one-cent sales tax that was active between April 2010 and December 2017. In addition to the route, the project included the construction of storage and maintenance facility.
Herzog-Stacy and Witbeck built the rail line. Consultants on the project included ADG, Jacobs Engineering, AECOM and SOJ. EMBARK contracted Herzog Transit Services to manage OKC Streetcar’s day-to-day operations and maintenance. Brookville Equipment Corp. supplied the streetcars, the first of which were delivered in February 2018.
