Some might say that it is ridiculous to value land that floods at downtown property value.

Suppose a belt of land, in the Dallas Floodway, in the Trinity River floodway, 300 to 600 ft. wide, and 7 miles long, didn’t flood? What would be the value of this land? What would be the value of land upon which we could build a San Antonio venue?

How much more attractive would the Trinity River Park be locally, and internationally, if we had an even better San Antonio venue?

How much more attractive would the Trinity River Park be if we had a “Town Lake” venue, 7 miles long?

This can be done by using the proposed tollway highway. We can bury the tollway highway in a unique tunnel, which will reclaim land in the Dallas floodway, and provide even more, significantly more than 800 year flood protection.

If we build it, if we build a World Class Trinity River park they will come from all over the world, and then will Dallas become a world class city, and then will Dallas become economically stable, and then will Dallas finally come together as an internationaly city.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/schutze/

I’m not rcommending a classic, traditional tunnel under the Dallas floodway, but on top of it. We would atart off by building a basic at-grade 6 lane highway…no frills, no landscaping…and then enclosing it in a concrete sttructure, and burying it until the top of the buried highway, then a tunnel, is above the existing levee.

This would be a lot cheaper than a classis bored underground tunnel.

This would do three great things. First, we would eliminate the 50 year old levee. Second, we would get 1000 to 2000 year flood protection with a concrete structure, at a very low cost, not from earthen levees. Third, remember the Simon and Garfunkel song, “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”? The top of the buried highway, “tunnel”, would be at an elevation which would not flood. It would be a minimum of 140 feet wide, and could be made 200, 300, up to 800 feet wide, by excavating the Trinity River, to compensate for the cross-section taken away. By excavating the river, we could create a great ‘Town Lake”, up to 7 miles long, created by a dam at or near Corinth St.

Dallas can have a San Antonio venue in our Trinity River park by burying the Tollway-Highway! The Crows, the Perots, the Hunts should droll over this!

Go to the website below and learn about Kaula Lampur.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=228685

“…I’ve been trying to parse this bit of rhetoric, which came in response to Veletta Lill’s question (for the third time) about where Hunt would put the road, if not in the flood plain. Let’s see here. “There are lots of places we can put this road, but I’m not going to name one, even though you’ve asked me the question three times.”

We went nuts because we want a park, and the low speed access road we voted for in ‘98, not the Dallas North Tollway.

Here is some retoric for you, my alternative is scrap the road, it is unneeded and will cause more congestion than it solves, just like every other freeway in Dallas.

Is this an accurate quote?

No, not accurate.
40 yards = 120 feet
1 Lane = 12 feet, 4 Lanes = 48 feet, 6 Lanes = 72 feet
(Sounds good so far? We aren’t done yet…)

Breakdown lanes (shoulder) = between 6 feet to 10 feet per shoulder, so the conservative estimate would be 24 feet and the liberal estimate would be 40 feet. I will be using the liberal estimate because, like the pricetag and my waistline, things get bigger as time goes by…
Center median barrier to keep all of those cars from having head-on collisions: 2 feet minimum.

72+40+2=114 (Awesome job Mayor Tom! We have 6 feet to spare!)

But Mayor Tom, how are we gong to get on and off this high speed road through your park? Now let’s add 15 feet per side for entry and exit ramps and acceleration / deceleration lanes (and we all know that is a pretty weak estimate). 72+40+2+30=144
So now we are a liitle over on your generous estimate of 40 yards. Too bad I’m not finished yet.

How about the earthworks / berm needed to raise the tollway. That has to be twenty feet per side, minimum, to handle the weight of those big cargo trucks and SUVs. I am sure you are not going to call the berms part of the park, that would be disengenuous of you Mayor Tom.

72+40+2+30+40=184 … 61 yards. Your estimate is only off by slightly more than 50%. I wonder what other figures are off…

Now, let’s talk about the fences… You know, the ones the artists left out of all of those pretty NTTA watercolor diagrams. I know it is hard to paint chain-link, but somebody should mention them at least. We are going to need a fence to protect those children in the park. They might just wander into oncoming traffic on your parkw.. oops, I mean high speed, limited access, free gift from the city to the NTTA, TOLLWAY. And what a drag it will be for those tollway beancounters if they have to close the road for a few hours while they scrape some poor kid off the pavement. Don’t worry about the fences increasing the girth of your estimate, you can put them on the aforementioned berms.

http://www.dallasblog.com/200709261000479/dallas-blog/trinity-debate-in-oak-cliff-draws-crowd.html