Imagine this: It’s summer 2040, and Oklahoma City Thunder fans in suburban OKC, Edmond and Norman are getting ready to head to a playoff game and cheer on the home team in pursuit of a third NBA title. Fans drive to their city’s transportation hubs where they catch a train to downtown OKC that lets off just yards from the arena. The journey takes about a half hour, and there’s no need to fight interstate traffic or pay out the nose for parking.
While that might sound overly optimistic in a country that values car culture, light rail lines connecting communities are among the components proposed in the ENCOMPASS 2045 metropolitan transportation plan developed by the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments, which includes OKC and most of the surrounding municipalities. As a next step, ACOG is now hosting meetings to create a long-range transit plan for the metro. The Regional Transportation Authority of Central Oklahoma is the “implementing agency” tasked with funding, planning and creating additional mobility options within its regional transportation district.
For the new long-range transit plan, the effort has been proposed in three phases. Currently in the first phase, the RTA is conducting a broad assessment of what may be needed, and wanted, by the public.
The second phase will focus on evaluation, including the development of a long-term transit vision, a mid-term planning scenario, and a short-term planning scenario.
Finally, the third phase will include recommendations on how central Oklahoma can implement the ideas captured in the evaluation phase.
“The purpose of this plan really is as the name implies,” RTA executive director Jason Ferbrache said during a recent town hall event. “It’s a long-range transportation plan for us as a region — particularly for those of us that plan transportation improvements and operate public transportation systems — to work together to envision what should the region’s public transportation system or network look like in the next 25 or 30 years, understanding that we need to plan now to account for things like growth and changes in our region, and make sure that we are equipped to have a public transit system and mobility choices that our region is going to want in the years to come.”
ACOG and the RTA are seeking public input over the coming months through an online submission form and a public town hall to be held in the spring. Recommendations are expected to be ready to provide to community leaders in the metro area by the end of the summer, though a planned vote on a three-city sales tax that would help fund light rail has been delayed.
EMBARK, Oklahoma City’s bus transportation provider, Edmond’s Citylink, and EMBARK Norman are also involved. It’s been about two decades since the last comprehensive look at the area’s transportation outlook and plan, EMBARK planning manager Chris Nolen said.
“The last time central Oklahoma did a long-range transit plan was 20 years ago,” Nolen said. “And actually, in that plan, the 2005 Fixed Guideway Study, the Northwest Rapid BRT line and the streetcar line were both the original ideas for those projects and were in that plan and have since been successfully implemented,” Nolan said. “And each city has also done terrific work. The City of Norman did the Go Norman Transit Plan, which realigned their local bus routes, resulting in increased ridership. The City of Edmond did something similar with their Edmond Shift Plan, and Oklahoma City did something similar with their OKC Moves Plan, realigning their local routes to boost ridership.”
Currently, the collaborative plan includes a commuter rail line that would run between Edmond and downtown OKC, as well as between downtown OKC and Norman. It would also include light rail transit (LRT) to the Will Rogers World Airport in southwest OKC, as well as bus rapid transit to Tinker Air Force Base and a far-west portion of the OKC metro area. In 2023, EMBARK launched a bus rapid transit line connecting downtown to northwest OKC via Classen Boulevard and Northwest Expressway.
While there will be many chefs in the kitchen when it comes to developing and implementing the final plan, Ferbrache said the involvement of all stakeholders is imperative. ACOG’s transportation management area includes four counties and more than 30 cities and towns in the region.
“As you can imagine, the project is primarily funded through ACOG and the MAPS 4 program,” he said. “All of the transit providers, member cities — such as Oklahoma City, Edmond and Norman — are all stakeholders and working partners in developing this plan. And so I think the takeaway, hopefully, for anyone listening is that this plan is not being led by one particular entity. It truly is a collaborative effort.”
The bill will be split, too. If central Oklahoma ends up having light rail lines running through the OKC metro, the costs will be mostly borne by a sales tax that would need to be passed simultaneously by voters in OKC, Norman and Edmond. ACOG executive director John Sharp said a better picture of project costs will come once the evaluation period concludes.
“The reality is that to fund this vision, some type of dedicated sales tax is probably going to have to happen,” Sharp said. “But the exact timing and amount of that, I think, is yet to be determined and not something that this long-range transit planning effort is going to try to answer. (It is) something that the RTA will handle separately whenever the time is right. From a regional perspective, we will have to determine some ballpark figures in regards to the costs of each of these, because the plan that we hand off to the federal government has to be fiscally constrained. So if we spend $10 billion in the next 30 years, we’ve got to have $10 billion in the next 30 years. So, eventually, we’re going to have to come up with some numbers in order to feed that regional model and regional plan.”
So far, municipal partners split on light rail
The crown jewel of the long-range transit plan might be a commuter rail corridor that spans Edmond to Norman with OKC and the area’s airport in the middle. As proposed, the project would require the financial support of all three communities in terms of a sales tax levy in each city.
But while members of OKC’s city government have signaled support for light rail both at the city council level and when it comes to long-term planning, metro area partners seem to be more of a mixed bag. In 2022, the municipalities of Del City, Moore and Midwest City withdrew from the Regional Transportation Authority amid concern over costs and concepts.
With OKC, Norman and Edmond remaining in the RTA, each city would need to approve a sales tax for the light-rail plan to move forward. However, convincing voters to raise revenue is rarely easy, especially in Oklahoma where sales taxation is one of the only ways to fund local services. As such, Oklahoma County voters face a potential vote this year on a new sales tax to fund the construction and operation of a new jail.
Fresh from rejecting a property tax increase to fund general obligation bonds for a slate of municipal projects, Edmond could be the hardest community to convince when it comes to the light rail proposal’s sales tax plan.
In a recent Edmond mayoral debate hosted by NonDoc and News 9, none of the four candidates seemed enthusiastic about the cost of funding a light rail line.
Mayoral candidate and former Edmond City Council member Tom Robins said he has participated in RTA meetings on the subject of light rail. He will face off against Mark Nash in a runoff for Edmond mayor April 1. But even though Robins said he sees merit in the light rail concept, the associated sales tax looks problematic to his eyes after Edmond voters roundly rejected a GO bond package in November, a decision that leaves Edmond leaders with only sales tax dollars as a revenue stream for city services.
“I’ve been in the meetings with (OKC Mayor) Dave Holt and Gov. (Brad) Henry,” Robins said during the debate. “Here’s the deal. The citizens have said they don’t want to have dedicated bond funding. That leaves only sales tax. In my last meeting with Mayor Holt and Gov. Henry, they said they wanted a .75 percent sales tax, which would bring us to 9 percent sales tax (in Edmond). We don’t have that to give because we need to give sales tax to potholes, street repairs, and programs of Edmond. I cannot look into the eyes of the citizens of Edmond to ask them to support a .75 percent or 1 percent sales tax, because that would be crushing to businesses, so I will be focused on potholes and the streets before bringing millions of dollars in funding for a train.”
Unlike Robins, Nash opposed last year’s failed GO bond proposal in Edmond. During the debate, he said there is no way he could support a sales tax to fund light rail until the city’s financial issues are better understood.
“We’re talking about more taxes on us,” Nash said during the debate. “We don’t even know how much we need to run city government at this point. So how are we expected to vote on something that we know nothing about except that it is coming to the table? We have to come up with answers on how much it costs to run the City of Edmond first.”
While Edmond’s outlook seemed icy, candidates for mayor of Norman had different thoughts when asked about light rail during a debate hosted by NonDoc and News 9 on Jan. 30. With University of Oklahoma events drawing significant traffic throughout the year, Norman Mayor-elect Stephen Tyler Holman said light rail could benefit Norman residents in several ways.
“I do support the plan,” Holman said of the RTA sales tax proposal for light rail. “I have been working on it and have been a part of it since before I was on the city council. I think it is one of the best ways we can provide real relief for traffic congestion on [Interstate] 35 by providing people with other options to get around. What if people from Edmond could ride the train down here instead of crowding our streets and parking everywhere and all the other stuff we deal with on gamedays? And what if Thunder fans in Norman could ride it to games in Oklahoma City and then come back to Norman? I do support it, and I hope Norman voters will think about it. The sales tax is the biggest concern to me.”
Light rail vote delayed following grant award
As those pushing the transit plan try to win over the hearts and minds of voters, it will likely be a while before residents in Edmond, Norman and OKC are asked to approve a sales tax to fund the light rail system that would connect the three biggest municipalities in the metro area. A vote initially suggested for mid-2025 has been delayed following the RTA’s receipt of a $400,000 federal grant to evaluate 52 railroad crossings between Edmond and Norman.
“This grant will allow us to evaluate and determine which crossings will need upgrades so we can improve traffic patterns across the metro and continue to advance the planning for commuter rail,” Ferbrache said. “Reducing rail congestion will help us create better pedestrian and automobile traffic flow for our residents.”
Former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, who is the board chairman of the RTA, told The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer he expects the matter to go before voters in the three cities sometime in mid-2026. However, there are also concerns about federal funding in the wake of the Trump administration’s attempts to slash government agencies and grant funding.
“We are concerned about the change in administrations,” Henry said. “It’s no secret the Biden administration was enthusiastic about transit. We don’t think the Trump administration will be negative at all. But they may have different priorities. On the other hand, they may be more willing to mitigate regulatory difficulties we face.”
