NINE years after Oklahoma City voters approved a streetcar system as part of the 1-cent MAPS 3 sales tax, they're getting it beginning Friday. With a $136 million price tag, it's a huge piece of an evolving — and improving — transit system for the city.

The streetcar system, under construction for the past 22 months, will open debt free, as is the case with all the MAPS projects. The system comprises seven sleek, brightly colored, low-floor streetcars that will travel on roughly 5 miles of track in downtown and Bricktown. Rides will be free for the first three weeks; after that, it's $1 per ride.

At a recent city council meeting, the city's planning director, Aubrey McDermid, described the streetcar as “an economic development catalyst and tool sustaining the viability of downtown for many generations.”

McDermid also noted that 70 percent of millennials are power users of modern, multimodal urban transit networks. “This trend is not a trend that's going to be going away,” she said.