Twelve months of Taylor

[rwarn17588]

As an outsider myself and with a city and/or police department that seems to be having trouble with crime, I'm thinking that maybe new blood and fresh perspectives are needed.

Then again, I could be wrong.

[Wilbur]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

I'll have to say anyone would be an improvement over Bill LaFortune, who I had great hopes for.  Who I believe a lot of people had great hopes for.  But he demonstrated to too many people he did not have what it took to run this city.  He was far too hands off.

Mayor Taylor is a lot like Susan Savage.  Very involved in a lot of projects.  Although, the dog catcher could look good following LaFortune.

I have some serious concerns with Taylor.  Her latest statement saying she is keeping the names of outside police chief candidates secret is disturbing.  Does this mean she, and only she, will be conducting the entire hiring process?  At least with past mayors, who made public the names of the candidates and there were community panels who assisted in the hiring process and made recommendations to past mayors.  Why do I believe she already has someone picked, and had them picked prior to this process starting.

And I can't blame only Taylor for my last point.  Many past mayors claimed poverty, right up to the point they found something they wanted to spend huge amounts of money on, then miraculously, found the money.  Can you say 'a new city hall?'

Wilbur, what is the opinion amongst the rank and file officers at TPD over this?

"Outsider" to me means we have to pay someone more money to come to Tulsa in the first place.  Someone who is not in tune with the culture of our police department.

Kathy's an outsider so I guess it's irrelevant to her that many Tulsans would be more comfortable having someone who made his bones on the local PD be promoted, rather than another of her cronies put in as chief.  I think it stinks.

I'd say the rank and file are somewhat split.  The union must represent their members (including the three internal candidates), so understand where their position is from.  On the other hand, there are officers who want the best chief possible, whether that is an internal candidate or an external candidate.

For the most part, the police chief is a personnel manager.  He/she develops policies, makes hiring/firing decisions and takes disciplinary action.  Their affect on the average street cop is minimal since you can only handle domestics, robberies, collisions, ..... in only so many ways.

Saying a police chief must abide by certain established crime fighting techniques is a misnomer.  Tulsa is a unique city, just like every other city is unique.  Therefore, Tulsa must be policed in a way that will likely be different then some other city.  Tulsa's police chief must police Tulsa in a way that is best for Tulsa, not necessarily in a way that is best for Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, .....  We don't need community based policing, we need Tulsa based policing.

Palmer succeeded here because he understood this philosophy and he stayed out of politics.  He established ways for the police chief to disagree with the mayor and still have a good working relationship.  This town does not want a police chief who is only going to say 'yes ma'am' every time the mayor speaks.

I'm concerned Taylor may be trying to bring in someone who is single issue based, which causes other areas of enforcement to suffer.

As far as an outsider being paid more simply because they are an outsider probably isn't correct.  Police chief salaries/benefits are going to be regional based and in line with other similar cities.  Been was making more then Palmer.  I'm confident the next chief will make close to the same thing.

[pfox]

quote: Economic development: Taylor said development downtown and along the Arkansas River would struggle without an improved mass transit system.

1000% Yes.

quote: Excuses, excuses, excuses. The average Tulsan refuses to use mass transit.

You are living in the stone age if this is how you evaluate the success of a mass transit system, my friend.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by pfox

quote: Economic development: Taylor said development downtown and along the Arkansas River would struggle without an improved mass transit system.

1000% Yes.

quote: Excuses, excuses, excuses. The average Tulsan refuses to use mass transit.

You are living in the stone age if this is how you evaluate the success of a mass transit system, my friend.

No, not living in the stone age.  Mass transit isn't that attractive in the central U.S. where there is so much sprawl and we are used to the freedom of traveling on our own schedule.

People are used to the convenience of their own cars, and as well, the mass transit systems of the east coast had much of their infrastructure in place a long time ago at a much lower cost.

The fact is, MTTA is under-utilized.  It has the image to most as being used only by those too poor or physically un-able to drive.  Mass transit works amongst more varied levels of society in crowded urban areas due to traffic and limited parking space.  Neither of which Tulsa suffers from based on the scale of larger urban areas.

I see and get the practicality and *ideal* of it.  Yet in the same thought, I see more empty seats on more vehicles of mass transit due to the mind-set of the average Tulsan not being willing to go a day without their car.

[pfox]

Tulsa Transit runs, at best, a bare bones schedule and fleet.  While I don't disagree with the basic premise that we in these "flyover" states do love our cars/trucks, the bottomline is that we have never placed an emphasis on Transit.  TT maintains a minimum level of service on the meager budget they have.  They don't run at night or on Sundays. The schedule is not convienient, like you said, for the avg traveler.  You can't change a culture with those parameters.

That being said, even in the most used transit systems in the US, save NYC and MAYBE Boston, the ridership only represents a small portion of the everyday travelers.  In Tulsa, you don't need most people to ride the bus/train/streetcar to have a significant impact on congestion, you just need some.  What percentage? let's say 10% is an agressive number in Tulsa.  And lets imagine 1000 riders at peak hours per day on a commuter rail line. The line would make two runs in the morning and two in the evening.  If that route is, say, adjacent to the Broken Arrow expressway from BA to DT Tulsa, 1000 riders represents 20% of the total peak hour vehicles on that route. Would you consider a reduction of 20% of the vehicles at that time to be a measure of success?

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by pfox

Tulsa Transit runs, at best, a bare bones schedule and fleet.  While I don't disagree with the basic premise that we in these "flyover" states do love our cars/trucks, the bottomline is that we have never placed an emphasis on Transit.  TT maintains a minimum level of service on the meager budget they have.  They don't run at night or on Sundays. The schedule is not convienient, like you said, for the avg traveler.  You can't change a culture with those parameters.

That being said, even in the most used transit systems in the US, save NYC and MAYBE Boston, the ridership only represents a small portion of the everyday travelers.  In Tulsa, you don't need most people to ride the bus/train/streetcar to have a significant impact on congestion, you just need some.  What percentage? let's say 10% is an agressive number in Tulsa.  And lets imagine 1000 riders at peak hours per day on a commuter rail line. The line would make two runs in the morning and two in the evening.  If that route is, say, adjacent to the Broken Arrow expressway from BA to DT Tulsa, 1000 riders represents 20% of the total peak hour vehicles on that route. Would you consider a reduction of 20% of the vehicles at that time to be a measure of success?

You are preaching to the choir.  If I didn't need to go various places during the day and I could stay at my office and had adequate choices for lunch within walking distance, I'd leave my truck at home and take public transit or car pool.  That would be an ideal situation for me.

However, idealism and practicality seldom meet.

The economics of rail transit for 1000 riders isn't overly practical due to land acquisition/construction, operational, and maintenance costs.  Adjacent to the BA would require the purchase of residential and commerical properties from roughly Sheridan to about Lewis which also results in high legal fees unless the railroad were willing to cede it's line through the middle of the BA through there.

It would either have to come with a very high fare, which is dis-incentive to ride or high subsidies via taxes from the other 750,000 or so in the area who won't use the system.  

I'm not trying to crap on your ideas, just saying it's obviously never registered as a high or practical priority with our elected officials or voters over the years.  Instead we want large stadiums with half-empty seats, improvements for outlying communities, and higher salaries for our at-will employees and city councilors.

Perhaps when gas is $10 per gallon some day and the purchase price and cost to insure a vehicle outstrips the income of the average worker, the demand for public transit will increase to a point it becomes practical.

For now, all Ms. Taylor is doing is making political noise.

[pfox]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by pfox

Tulsa Transit runs, at best, a bare bones schedule and fleet.  While I don't disagree with the basic premise that we in these "flyover" states do love our cars/trucks, the bottomline is that we have never placed an emphasis on Transit.  TT maintains a minimum level of service on the meager budget they have.  They don't run at night or on Sundays. The schedule is not convienient, like you said, for the avg traveler.  You can't change a culture with those parameters.

That being said, even in the most used transit systems in the US, save NYC and MAYBE Boston, the ridership only represents a small portion of the everyday travelers.  In Tulsa, you don't need most people to ride the bus/train/streetcar to have a significant impact on congestion, you just need some.  What percentage? let's say 10% is an agressive number in Tulsa.  And lets imagine 1000 riders at peak hours per day on a commuter rail line. The line would make two runs in the morning and two in the evening.  If that route is, say, adjacent to the Broken Arrow expressway from BA to DT Tulsa, 1000 riders represents 20% of the total peak hour vehicles on that route. Would you consider a reduction of 20% of the vehicles at that time to be a measure of success?

You are preaching to the choir.  If I didn't need to go various places during the day and I could stay at my office and had adequate choices for lunch within walking distance, I'd leave my truck at home and take public transit or car pool.  That would be an ideal situation for me.

However, idealism and practicality seldom meet.

The economics of rail transit for 1000 riders isn't overly practical due to land acquisition/construction, operational, and maintenance costs.  Adjacent to the BA would require the purchase of residential and commerical properties from roughly Sheridan to about Lewis which also results in high legal fees unless the railroad were willing to cede it's line through the middle of the BA through there.

It would either have to come with a very high fare, which is dis-incentive to ride or high subsidies via taxes from the other 750,000 or so in the area who won't use the system.  

I'm not trying to crap on your ideas, just saying it's obviously never registered as a high or practical priority with our elected officials or voters over the years.  Instead we want large stadiums with half-empty seats, improvements for outlying communities, and higher salaries for our at-will employees and city councilors.

Perhaps when gas is $10 per gallon some day and the purchase price and cost to insure a vehicle outstrips the income of the average worker, the demand for public transit will increase to a point it becomes practical.

For now, all Ms. Taylor is doing is making political noise.

Well, in this case, the right of way exists in its entirity, from DT BA to DT Tulsa.  Most of the time, commuter rail, which runs on "heavy" rail gauges, exists in conjuction with freight traffic via a use agreement, which is feasible in this instance.  The costs for implementing such a line have been estimated at around 39 million for upgrades, stations, crossings and vehicles.  Theoretically, if Tulsa & suburbs could add a second line for a similar amount, they could potentialy qualify for New/Small Starts funding for the majority of the cost. At an 80/20 fed/local ratio that totals up to about 16-20 million in local funds.  Considering the amount of money the public has authorized for said sports arenas, Boeing, Roadways, Fairgrounds improvements, I'd say that is a relative bargain.

I'm just sayin'

[MichaelC]

That's cool.  

I know the Metra system (the parts I was on anyway) in Chicago runs on the same tracks as regular freight.  Kind of wondered about that.

[Conan71]

Pfox,

Thanks for the clarification.  That lowers my estimate of acquisition and construction by a huge amount and certainly makes it look more feasible.

That's why I'm here.  I'm not so entirely entrenched in my paradigms that I refuse to learn something new. []

I still, though, don't see the correlation with a rail line from BA to DT bolstering Ms. Taylor's assertion that no river development will happen w/o mass transit.  Maybe if I liked her better, I'd be willing to bite on that point.[}:)]

[RecycleMichael]

It sounds like one of the keys is to get a trainload of federal dollars. How do we do that?

[cannon_fodder]

Mass Transit Cities in the US:
NYC
Washington DC
Chicago
San Francisco
Boston
Philadelphia
LA

New Orleans is the smallest town on the list, and not a city I would like to emulate (pre or post Katrina).

Shows both trips and passenger miles.
http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/uzapmiles.cfm.  

ps. look at the passengers in the Texas city and compare with miles with other locations.  wow.

[rwarn17588]

Last I heard, Tulsa has the second-lowest commute times in the nation for a major metro area.

Until those commute times go up substantially, there's not much point in budgeting a lot of money for public transit.

While I like public transit because it conserves energy, I'm not going to deny reality, either.

[shadows]

The people assigned the mayor the obligation to provide a police department, as a duty in the charter.   The Judge ruled that because the citizens did not understand that requirement he could see no irreversible harm as the charter had not been voted on.   He said the group could come back if the proposition passed.   He was able to get a promotion which increased his pension after he retired later.

Mass transportation by street cars was available in Tulsa in the past going in many directions on schedules.  

The Sands Springs line was in operation for years between the two cities.

Your could catch a passenger train from DT to B.A. for .20 cents.

Your could catch the heavy rail from DT to Claremore for .20 cents.

Decentralization of the focal point of DT makes is no longer available to run a commuter where there is no point of destination.

If the arena is a success to bring the people back DT then it would only be profitable on the nights when a program that would attract the masses was available.

Rail mass transportation can only be used when the masses are available to be transported.

It would be interesting to see the design of where the terminal points would exist.

It would have the same effect as building a runway and catching an air plane to the suburbs.

   

[Hometown]

Taylor's first year:

Positive -- Standing up to the TPD.

Negative -- Beginning the end of Civic Center.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by teddy jack eddy

Mayor Taylor has singlehandedly saved Tulsa from ruination by the Republican "leadership".

God bless her.

Care to elaborate on precisely what she has done to educate the rest of us, or do you usually make generalized partisan comments with no basis in fact?