The Oklahoma City government has invited residents to attend public open houses and share feedback on preliminary alternatives (or alignments) for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors in South and Northeast Oklahoma City.

BRT is a high-quality, bus-based transit service that operates similarly to light rail.

MAPs 4 EMBARK BRT includes $61 million to build two additional BRT corridors in South and Northeast Oklahoma City.

Now that preliminary BRT alternatives have been developed, the project team is seeking input to understand which key destinations along the preliminary alignments are most important to Oklahoma City residents.

MAPs 4 EMBARK BRT Open Houses:

* Northeast Corridor – Monday, June 5 from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at Ralph Ellison Library (2000 N.E. 23 Street, Oklahoma City, 73111)

* Northeast Corridor – Thursday, June 22 from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at the Oklahoma City Zoo Community Room (2000 Remington Place, Oklahoma City, 73111)

* South Corridor – Thursday, June 15 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the Capitol Hill Library (327 SW 27th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73109)

* South Corridor – Sunday, June 25 from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. at Southern Oaks Library (6900 South Walker Avenue, Oklahoma City, 73139)

MAPs 4 EMBARK BRT Pop-Up Locations:

In addition to public open houses, MAPS 4 EMBARK BRT will host pop-up tables at events and high-traffic areas around the city for residents to provide feedback and learn more about bus rapid transit.

* Northeast corridor – Saturday, June 10 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Science Museum Oklahoma (2020 Remington Place, Oklahoma City, 73111)

* Northeast corridor – Sunday, June 18 from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at the Juneteenth on East Street Festival (N.E. 23 Avenue, from N. Kelham Avenue to North Hood Street, 415 South Robinson Avenue)

* South corridor – Monday, June 12 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Supermercados Morelos (1 S.E. 59 Street, Oklahoma City, 73129

* South corridor – Friday, June 16 from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. at Wheeler District Farmers Market (Runway Boulevard, Oklahoma City, 73109)

& Northeast and South corridors – Saturday, June 17 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Scissortail Park Farmers Market (300 S.W. 7 Street, Oklahoma City, 73109)

Stay up to date on the MAPs 4 Transit project and other MAPs 4 projects at okc.gov/maps4.

Visit MAPS4BRT.com to learn more about BRT, take the survey and check event information as more public events are added.

Notes and Disclosure: MAPs4 is a debt-free public improvement program funded by a temporary penny sales tax that will raise a projected $1.07 billion over eight years. MAPs is short for Metropolitan Area Projects. Beginning in the 1990s, the city government proposed a series of taxpayer-financed improvements, primarily to the downtown area in the initial era.

The MAPs for KIDS project combined the efforts of Oklahoma City and touching jurisdictions with students attending Oklahoma City Public Schools to enact, in 2001, what was then the largest infusion of tax money into public education in Oklahoma History.

Over the past decade, the focus of MAPs projects have shifted toward areas of Oklahoma City outside the downtown core. Oklahoma City voters approved the sales tax to fund MAPs4 in a special election on Dec. 10, 2019, moving forward with a unique and ambitious plan to transform our community. The temporary penny sales tax funding MAPS 4 began on April 1, 2020, and ends in 2028.

More than 70 percent of MAPs4 funding is dedicated to what is characterized in government literature as “neighborhood and human needs. The rest is for quality of life and job-creating initiatives.” The MAPs4 Citizens Advisory Board and its six subcommittees will guide MAPs4 planning and implementation, making recommendations to the City Council.

The Council has final authority on MAPs4. The MAPs Investment and Operating Trust developed a strategic investment plan to support long-term sustainable funding for MAPs4 projects’ operational expenses and maintenance. What has distinguished the MAPs model is the commitment to finance the improvements without permanent debt, in a “pay-as-you-go” model.

Readers are encouraged to visit The City Sentinel newspaper website (city-sentinel.com) and search for MAPs stories for background and historical context on the programs. CapitolBeatOK.com, founded in 2009 by Patrick B. McGuigan also covers aspects of local and regional municipal governance. While working at The Oklahoman from 1990-2002, McGuigan served on the Keep Improving District Schools (KIDS) committee for the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation. The committee’s work laid the basis for the aforementioned MAPs for KIDS program during the terms of former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys.