A memorable day
Stepping onto the new
Oklahoma City Streetcar to ride Bricktown
Loop on the first day of service gave feelings of being part of history.
It was a happy day. It was a day when crowds of people sitting and standing close together in new cars felt festive and high spirited. After
25 years of MAPS funding, Oklahoma City has streetcars! The Bricktown loop is an amazing journey through a Bricktown that former citizens could not have known to dream. Streetcars smoothly rolled past an array of MAPS accomplishments — the ballpark, Bricktown Canal with electrically power canal boats, Bricktown’s new bus terminal and newly renovated railroad station. I passed Chesapeake Arena, the convention center, construction of a new convention center and hotel. It passed by muck and mud where the future award-winning Scissortail Park and lake are under construction. Neither last, nor least, the streetcar passed Myriad Gardens’ walking trails and Crystal Bridge.
The hour-long Downtown Loop smoothly rolled along passing new stores and restaurants, the library, museum, OCU law school, St. Anthony Hospital, the bombing memorial, and smiling people on the streets waving as the streetcar passed by.
Thank you, Oklahoma City, for this modern, beautiful, comfortable, easily accessible, debtfree people mover — on schedule, and right before Christmas. You make us proud!
C. Dale German, Bethany
Send letters to yourviews@oklahoman.com or to Your Views, P.O. Box 25125, Oklahoma City, OK 73125. Word limit is 250. Include a postal address and telephone number. For other guidelines, go to www.newsok.com/ voices/guidelines or call 405-475-3205.