Streetcars to be free through Feb. 1
Oklahoma City Streetcars will be free to ride through Feb. 1, Embark transit said Friday.
Plans had been to collect the $1 fare beginning Sunday.
Mayor David Holt said on Twitter that ridership figures since service began Dec. 14 demonstrated the “excitement our community has for this new amenity.”
“At the same time,” he wrote, “many of our citizens are still learning how to use the system and our team is still learning how best to operate it.”
New Year’s Eve put a punctuation mark on simmering criticism over startup problems. Lengthy wait times for streetcars that night prompted social media discussions about installing systems giving streetcars priority at more traffic signals.
Thursday, streetcars switched to a reduced schedule after ice collected on overhead wires.
Holt wrote that, “In just three weeks, we’ve had the opening, rain, ice and New Year’s Eve.”
“There really hasn’t been time for passengers and operators to experience ‘regular’ service for an extended period,” he said, “and there certainly hasn’t been time to properly phase in fare collection.”
The free-ride period now will coincide with an effort to gauge support for regular Sunday service.
The 6.9-mile system opened with plans to devote only 5 percent of service hours to Sundays, primarily for events such as Sunday evening Thunder basketball games.
Regular service was limited to Mondays through Saturdays on the downtown loop, and Fridays and Saturdays on the shorter Bricktown loop.
The introductory period was to include Sunday service on Dec. 16, 23 and 30. Shortly after opening, Embark announced plans to extend Sunday service through Jan. 27.
The move is intended to see whether demand for shopping, restaurants and entertainment downtown is sufficient to justify service seven days per week.
Sunday ridership figures have been encouraging, with 4,270 trips Dec. 16 and 5,297 on Dec. 23.
Last Sunday, technical problems kept Embark from compiling a count. Not counting the missed day, daily ridership averaged 4,000 from Dec. 27 to Dec. 31.
“Extending the free period gives our residents, downtown employees, and visitors more time to try the service, and learn how it works,” Embark tweeted on the @OKCStreetcar account.
The process of getting streetcars moving more swiftly through intersections already has begun, with an estimated $450,000 price tag.
Frequency and consistency are seen as keys to success in any public transit system. Replying to Holt after Friday’s announcement, Josh Turmel asked, “Can you guys add more cars soon, or at least during weekday lunch/busy evenings so we’re not waiting up to 15 minutes at a station?”
“We’re in the CBD [central business district] and would love to use it to get to Midtown or Bricktown,” wrote Turmel, a software engineer, “but the wait almost negates it if you’re OK walking.”