Okalhoma City is planning for a new Amtrak route that would connect it to Fort Worth.
By David Averill
TULSA (MCT) — Kansas transportation officials recently asked federally subsidized Amtrak to consider extending its passenger train service from Newton, Kan., south to Oklahoma City. The feasibility study would be paid for with up to $200,000 from the Kansas Department of Transportation.
The extension would link two existing passenger train routes — Newton to Kansas City, Mo., where there are connections to Chicago and Los Angeles, and the Oklahoma City to Fort Worth “Heartland Flyer.”
Oklahoma City’s City Council promptly endorsed the proposal.
But here in Tulsa, Councilor Rick Westcott raised a red flag. He said that an Amtrak extension that “leaves 1.1 million northeastern Oklahomans without service is unacceptable.”
“It is unacceptable to expect Oklahomans who live in this part of the state to continue to subsidize alternative transportation which only serves Oklahoma City. It is an inefficient expenditure of the citizens’ money,” he said.
Westcott is absolutely right.
From 1979, when Amtrak quit the state, to 1999, when it returned, every passenger rail plan advanced by legislators or other officials included provisions that Tulsa service would be the second phase or step, after Oklahoma City. A law enacted in 1993, which permitted spending state tax money to subsidize Amtrak service, required that only a route that included both Tulsa and Oklahoma City would be eligible for state funds.
When the Heartland Flyer made its maiden run on June 14, 1999, one of the dignitaries on hand was Lee Bullock, president of Amtrak Intercity, who said Amtrak was working with state officials to develop passenger rail service to Tulsa. “At some point in the future there will be train service to Tulsa,” Bullock said.
His promise, obviously, has not come true. Nor have any of the various plans hatched over the years by lawmakers and others to restore rail service to Tulsa, just after Oklahoma City got its train. And despite the law passed in 1993, the state is subsidizing the Heartland Flyer to the tune of $2.85 million a year, even though it doesn’t include a Tulsa connection.
When it comes to passenger trains, Tulsa continues to be ever a bridesmaid and never a bride.
When Amtrak quit its Fort Worth to Kansas City Lone Star route in 1979, it left Oklahoma as one of only a handful of states that did not have an Amtrak train. And when the state clamored for restored service, Amtrak said it would return only if the state subsidized it. According to news reports at the time, it was the first time such a condition had been imposed, even though only one of its 40 routes — an east coast train — was a year-round money maker.
Former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles engineered a $23 million federal grant, under legislation that was intended to benefit the few states that didn’t have Amtrak service but were helping to support it through federal gasoline taxes paid by their residents. The $23 million got the Heartland Flyer on track and subsidized the operation for a couple of years before the state subsidy began.
Amtrak service to Tulsa would be nice. There are many people, me included, whose pulses quicken at the very thought of boarding a passenger train in Tulsa and traveling via Pullman car to Seattle, Chicago or even New York. Realistically, the best passenger train service for Tulsa would link it to Oklahoma City, possibly as part of a route from Oklahoma City to St. Louis or Kansas City.
If Amtrak is to expand service in Oklahoma, it ought to fulfill the long-standing promises to include Tulsa. And it ought to be subsidized by the feds and the state, just as Oklahoma City’s was and is.
Meanwhile, there is this: Passenger service that would most benefit Tulsa would be light rail commuter service linking it with Broken Arrow and possibly other suburbs like Sand Springs and Owasso. While federal transportation dollars might be available to help with such an enormously expensive project, light rail would have nothing to do with Amtrak.
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Extending to Newton was also promised long ago.
I think it would be great to save gas and time once in a while to have another station in Tulsa for traveling with Amtrak Train, it’s another transportation to be convinient for older people and many others for experiencing it.