Tag Archives: drawn

Bricktown at Night

wpid11477-AU0E0972.jpgAs part of the regeneration program that is underway in Oklahoma City, an area known as Bricktown is becoming a focus of development. It is a short walk from the heart of downtown. What was there before I don’t know but I imagine bricks had something to do with it. There are a lot of restaurants, bars and hotels in the area with a canal structure running through them. It is also the home of the minor league baseball stadium.

wpid11475-AU0E7630.jpgI stopped off for dinner one night after wandering around the city a bit.   After my meal, I was walking back to the hotel and grabbed a few shots of the area. It was pretty dark and I had the ISO ramped way up but you can get a bit of a feel for the area. You can also see the lights of the baseball stadium in the background. I guess that they had a game that night. There are also horse drawn carriages plying their trade on the streets. This was a familiar sight when we lived in Chicago. They have gone to town on the lighting of these examples though. I guess it helps get some attention.

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Oakland Airport BART Connector

wpid11984-AU0E3142.jpgUntil this weekend, the connection between BART’s Coliseum Station and Oakland Airport was a bus service called AirBART.  It was $3 and was reasonably frequent and didn’t take too long provided you times it well.  However, it wasn’t the easiest connection.  Consequently, a rail connection has been built.  I won’t get into the doubling of price for the ride.  That can wait to another day.  However, Friday 21st was the day in which the commissioning ended and the first public access was given.  There were free rides for the public before formal service opened on the following day.

wpid11990-AU0E3196.jpgI went along to check out the system.  It is a cable operated vehicle which runs automatically.  There is a station connected by escalators to the existing BART station at one end and the other end is in the parking lot at the airport.  Halfway along the track (which is elevated for a large portion of the journey and at ground level or underground for a section) is the maintenance facility and power source.  Here the train briefly stops as it changes from the cable for one half to the cable for the other.  The stop is quite brief.

wpid11982-AU0E3093.jpgI filmed the operation during the demonstration runs and you can see how the system looks below.  Now we shall see how much use it gets!