OKLAHOMA CITY -- Lawmakers met Wednesday at the Capitol to talk about the stalled Eastern Flyer passenger rail project.
Tulsa and Oklahoma City leaders both have committed millions of dollars to upgrading transit hubs specifically for their railroad depots.
Construction is underway in Oklahoma City at its downtown train depot.
It’s where the Heartland Flyer leaves every morning taking passengers down to Fort Worth and back.
It will also be the future home for passenger trains coming from Tulsa.
Three years after ODOT sold some of the track linking the two cities to a private company, lawmakers held a special study session Wednesday to figure out the status of the project and how to move it forward.
“At a certain point it’s not just an extra as some people see it, it is a necessity for a growing economy for a growing metro area,” said Rep Forrest Bennett, D-Oklahoma City.
Lawmakers heard reports from everyone investing in Oklahoma’s passenger rail system.
“Figuring out all the little pieces is the important part. It’s not as easy as one piece we know that we can make passenger rail work. We know that we can make it work quickly or efficiently from Downtown Oklahoma City to Downtown Tulsa, so some of those little obstacles are still in the way, but it’s nothing that we can’t fix—especially if both of our communities are working together it should be something that’s pretty easy to do,” said Blake Ewing, Tulsa City Councilor.
In Tulsa, one of those obstacles is finding a way for passenger rail service to bypass BNSF’s busy Cherokee yard in West Tulsa.
“This is just a piece of the puzzle. People of Tulsa need to continue to ask for this service and ask for their city officials, Mayor Bynum to find ways around roadblocks,” said Evan Stair, Director of Passenger Rail Oklahoma.
Private rail development companies like Corridor Capital attended the interim study session.
“This is not a 5 or 10 year project. This ought to be year-and-a-half or two-year project, because you know the tracks are there we don’t have to reinvent the wheel here,” said James Coston, Chairman of Corridor Capital. “None of them are insurmountable. There’s trackage there. There’s rights available. It can all be done, but it takes a consensus and it takes a very collaborative effort to get it done,” said Coston.
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