A three-day party is planned to celebrate the completion of the MAPS 3 Scissortail Park with the opening of the 30-acre Lower Park on Sept. 23. Two years after the upper portion of downtown’s Scissortail Park opened to much fanfare, construction on the lower portion is now complete. The celebration kicks off Friday, Sept. 23, with a free evening concert by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and ribbon cutting featuring Mayor Holt, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 25. The Park’s completion will officially tie together what has been planned for decades as part of MAPS: connecting the core of downtown Oklahoma City to the shore of the Oklahoma River, often referred to as “Core to Shore.” “What people are going to see is just a continuation of a great park.” The Lower Park will offer visitors a plethora of natural scenery and outdoor activities, including a walking trail, a hands-on nature area with climbing features for children, basketball and pickleball courts, an artificial turf soccer field and futsal court. There is also an overlook hill on the south end of the Lower Park where visitors can get a scenic view of not only the Lower Park but also downtown Oklahoma City. “One of the cool things about the Lower Park is that we were able to keep a lot of existing trees, So, there is an CITY CELEBRATES COMPLETION OF SCISSORTAIL PARK
COMMUTER RAIL (cont’d from page 11)
Hutchison explained that Salt Lake City’s intermodal transportation system allows passengers who ride the commuter rail train to seamlessly transfer to other modes of transportation, from light rail, rapid transit or regular bus, as they make their way to their final destinations. “One of the goals we have, is bringing that type of interconnectivity, efficiency, and frequency to any system we put in, so that we can ensure the public they’re going to have a seamless ride; where the transitions from one mode to another are easy, and they can get where they’re going just as easily as they can if they had to drive a car,” Hutchison said. The Chamber is a longstanding supporter of developing regional commuter rail, said Derek Sparks, senior manager of government relations for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. “We applaud Governor Henry and the RTA for their fact-finding mission to Utah. In the Chamber’s experience, these types of opportunities can shed positive light on the path forward for Oklahoma City,” Sparks said. “Our overall objective is to ultimately provide more transportation options and choices for the Oklahoma City region.” The RTA is an important component of the vision for a transit system in central Oklahoma. The Chamber championed legislation in 2014, as well as 2020- 2021, that was key to the development and ongoing momentum of this process. “The purpose of the transportation district is to bring the most reliable, affordable and efficient mode of public transit to the central Oklahoma area, primarily to connect the three cities via rail as well as other destinations within the transportation district,” Henry said.
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