I’ve always hated telephone poles. When I was a kid, I lived outside of Denver near Red Rocks, and we used to take long weekend drives to the mountains. I would sit in the back seat and stare out the window, hoping that we would come across a place where I couldn’t see a telephone pole no matter where I looked. I thought they were ugly. They messed with the mental postcard I was forming. I told myself, when I’m king, the first thing I’ll do is get rid of the telephone poles.
So I understand the desire to keep certain things out of the park planned for the Trinity River project. Like a toll road. I don’t hate roads like I do telephone poles — in fact, I like roads, big roads, roads that let me jet my lazy butt from one part of town to the next without stoplights or speed traps — but I get why people have reacted emotionally to the idea that a toll road will screw up their big urban park. They’re focusing on the “park” portion of urban park. They want places to walk, places to talk, places to picnic and take pictures and commune with nature, and they don’t want to compete with 18-wheelers and Lexi doing 95 mph. They want a park without that highway whoosh, as it were.
That’s certainly what Angela Hunt wants. She talks about being moved by her post-graduate travels in Europe, where she came across scores of delightful urban parks, absent the fat Americans who cluster in mall parking lots. It fed her desire to question the Trinity River park, and it sharpened the vision she had of what it should look like. She agrees with the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, who says: “A modern city needs areas free from density, noise, and the frenzied urban pace. We must re-create the kinds of spaces that lend themselves to talking, walking, discovering, relaxing.” In Hunt’s vision, there was no way this could occur with the Trinity toll road running alongside the downtown portion of the park.
I have no problem with that vision. I have a problem with ignoring the “urban” part of “urban park”: ignoring, in other words, how people in this urban environment really live, day-to-day.
Because this ain’t Paris. I wish it were. Look at this gallery of urban parks in Paris. I would fall in love with that vision, too. But they are not built in huge open areas between portions of the city, as this park is to be. They’re built within densely populated areas or tourist destinations, meaning foot traffic is not a problem.
But people will not walk to the Trinity park. They will drive, the same way they do to Zilker Park in Austin, one of my favorite urban parks in Texas. (And not just because I get to ride the Zilker Zephyr.) Austinites seem to be able to live with roads running all through the park, and Mo-Pac highway running alongside it.
I know, supposedly people will walk from downtown, but, seriously, do you think folks are going to park at Reunion Arena and cart their sweaty guts to the parks in July? No. Won’t happen. So I need a road there, and I need it to get me to the parks.
Aha, opponents of the toll road say: this is another problem! No direct access to to the park from the tollroad.
Yes, direct access to the parks from the toll road was promised. Currently, you will have to exit the toll road onto to cross streets, which then will lead to the park. But this is not a big deal. If I can figure out how to get onto 360 North from I-30, I can figure out which street I need to turn on to get to my park destination.
So, the toll road should not be a deal-killer for most folks who want to use the parks. True, it’s not ideal. It would be better if it was a 35-mile an hour road. There also shouldn’t be one telephone pole in sight. You compromise.
But even though the Vote Yes campaign has (smartly) made the aesthetic effects of the toll road on the park its primary contention, that doesn’t mean that debunking those concerns invalidates other toll road points made by Vote Yes.
For example: should it give you pause that the toll road was downplayed for years, and that Dallasites thought they were voting for a park project when in fact they were voting for a road project?
Of course it should. We were misled. That should give any right-thinking person concern.
I know that the Dallas Morning News ran a huge story that tried to show folks knew they were voting for a toll road, not a park project. But that’s just wrong. They didn’t quote their own architecture critic, David Dillon, who wrote in 2003 that voters “unquestionably” thought they were voting for a park.
But should that really be a deal-killer, either? I have a buddy who is a big-time commercial real estate guy. He told me last weekend that every step of the way in any project, he is lied to. Suppliers. Planners. Other developers. Architects. All part of the big-budget development game. We need to do what he does, which is try to keep our costs in line and keep folks honest, but just because some folks were better about manipulating this project to their advantage (i.e., the road interests), we’re supposed to do away with the roads altogether?
I suppose that’s fine if the toll road really offers no public service. Sorry, as a road lover and a man who drives a lot, I don’t buy that.
For example: the idea that this will provide traffic congestion relief is important. The Vote Yes side says there are better ways to provide it, that it won’t give traffic relief, and that it’s wrong to encourage folks to drive, anyway.
Well, all I have to go by is local history. It was said that re-doing Central Expressway would provide traffic relief, and it has. The high-five redo at Central and 635 has made my travel northward palatable again.
Folks who try to drive through the downtown mixmaster every weekday from 4 p.m. on every day, as I used to, will take even the most modest improvements or alternatives to their routes. I believe that this will help.
So I’m going to vote no, and keep the toll road, right? Not so fast. I just wanted to point out that I have no objections to the toll road itself, because I don’t think it will destroy the park experience, I want a high-speed roadway to get me to the park, and I think traffic relief is necessary, even if it will be very modest (or even negligible, given the other factors). That’s because roads don’t destroy my urban experience. What obliterates my enjoyment of all things urban? (Besides telephone poles, I mean.) Parking. And that’s still a huge problem, one that provides insight into my biggest concern about this project, and the one that you should focus on, too: funding.
Tomorrow: My life is run by parking spaces.
23 comments
It sounds like if the toll road is built, it’ll be the only way to access the park (via car). Yes/no?
Eric, did Central’s reconstruction really solve traffic? What role did DART’s red line play?
Has anyone ever actually proven that the toll road will relieve traffic? I still don’t understand how that’s supposed to work. What traffic is it relieving?
Radical -
It will relieve traffic by routing drivers around downtown. Have you driven South through downtown at rush hour? Absolute gridlock. It is very easy to see how it will relieve that traffic.
The toll road will just get congested, too, within a few short years. That doesn’t mean a reliever route isn’t necessary, but should we deliberately install an inevitable eyesore and source of noise/air pollution into our urban park? A “once in a generation opportunity,” as touted by your own estimable publisher, and we’re using it to implement yesterday’s failed solutions?
Heck, I might have even gone for it if they weren’t going to allow commercial semi trucks on the damn thing. That right there is a dealbreaker.
The Allen Group’s contribution to the Vote No PAC should concern anyone who thinks that this will take existing traffic out of the canyon and mix master. I fear that this road will be occupied by future inland port traffic and that those of us on south and east RLT, Central and DNT will be sitting in the same traffic as always.
Why don’t we just build another version of Central Expressway down Industrial. A depressed freeway with city streets (cars, pedestrians, bikes) crossing at grade seems like the only thing short of a tunnel that would not create a barrier between downtown and the park. Cantilevering the access roads would also narrow the footprint and likely save some of the cherished businesses along the corridor. It seems that this solution would improve the land value in the area and appease the mayor’s campaign contributors who are counting on a big payday.
Eric admits that the Dallas voters have been misled… If the Trinity River Project is not what the voters approved in 2003 then we all have a responsibility to vote in favor of proposition one.
No, Mike: Misled in 1998. I think the Balanced Vision Plan in 2003 went a long way toward getting us closer to what voters wanted.
As for reliever routes: I don’t want to bog everyone down in this, but, no, the toll road will not be a panacea for the mixmaster. I think it will help, but that’s admittedly a bid dash of wishful thinking. However, there are no wonderful alternatives to these problems. Some people would have you believe that doing nothing is better, because that forces people to take public transportation and find other alternatives. But a groundbreaking Canadian study recently concluded that cities that tried that approach (like Portland and Seattle) did nothing to fix their congestion problem. Folks didn’t change, in other words. They just stay in their cars longer.
I think we should be against progress and in favor of defeating anything that might potentially benefit any business. That will make Dallas a Great American City. See how nice the Fair Park area is without the new Cowboys stadium cluttering up the view of run-down tenements? And as we’ve seen, the AAC/Victory part of town was just a huge corporate-benefit boondoggle, that part of town is still a wasteland. We beat back Strong Mayor and look — all our problems at City Hall miracled themselves out of existance!
Regarding Zilker, the road that runs through it is not a highway or a tollway for that matter. And they are pedestrain crossings throughout this section of road.
And MoPac for the part that runs next to Zilker is partly elevated.
I am glad that Eric is publishing these columns. I almost early voted today but decided to wait. The column and blog posts give me food for thought as I make my final decision. Reading a Jim Schutze column is no help because he is a polemicist, and DMN editorials are also flawed in their own way.
Cy, please cite Business Number One that would benefit from a toll road. I’m willing to believe everyone here wants what’s best for our city and, yes, its economy. It’s too late to put the Cowboys Stadium in Fair Park, or in the river bottoms, for that matter.
As for Victory Park, you make a good point. It makes the breast swell with civic pride to see all the families from Oak Cliff, Lake Highlands, etc., taking their leisure at a shared public destination like that. Ross Perot Jr. takes so many risks just for our benefit!
The big difference between Mopac in Austin and the proposed tollway here is that Mopac wasn’t built in a floodway.
It is unfortunate that Ms. Hunt is using this pinnacle city issue to begin her launch into a higher political role in the future (I’m sure she’ll run for mayor). Just as ex-Mayor Miller recanted her original opposition to the arena and Trinity river proposals (and will do again for losing the Cowboys stadium), Angela will look back later and apologize for not seeing the big picture of what is needed in this project.
Hopefully, Dallas residents are smarter. Actually, I know they are. They’re not deciding the fate of the Trinity project for political gain or for what it can do for their personal careers. They’re voting “NO” to making Dallas a better place.
On access to the park from the toll road: NTTA’s drawings provide for no access to the park from the toll road. How the park is accessed is somewhat of a mystery in the hole plan, really. Schutze reported in September that the $50M for that is missing (Baby Mitch. Sep 13, 2007.).
This is actually the point of Hunt’s purposed ordinance. It effectively requires any road built inside the park to actually provide access to the park. The point isn’t to stop a road from being built, the point is to stop a high way from being built.
“We were misled. That should give any right-thinking person concern.”
I think this is the main reason I’m cancelling out your vote Saturday and voting Yes, Eric.
You play it down by saying, “hey, folks lie every day. What’s the big deal?” The big deal is that these are elected, public officials who are supposed to be serving the people, not constantly screwing them over to satisfy special interests. Every voter has a right, if not a duty, to hold their public officials accountable for what they promise. Excusing their bad conduct by voting no will just keep this city mired in corruption and further BS. (And yes, elected officials thinking about what’s best for significant campaign contributers instead of the city as a whole is corruption in my book.)
Think about it: if the toll road was such a deus ex machina for the City of Dallas in 1998, why didn’t they come straight out and ask for a toll road? I suspect the answer is it’s not, it won’t be, it never will be. The only thing it seems certain to do is to make cetain special interests very rich.
I also wish Dallas would be like Paris in terms of parks and culture, but I’ll settle for something more akin to Memorial Park in Houston. Is that too much to ask?
Eric,
This was an interesting post but I disagree with you.
Regarding Portland and Seattle, as you may know, most progressive urban planners actually say that traffic congestion is a good thing in a city because it forces local municipalities to design for density and mixed use developments within the urban core through zoning regulations and development incentives. But in Dallas, we do not have a Director of Urban Planning or an Urban Planning Department for that matter.
I know it may seem counterintuitive, but one of the most respected urban planners in the world was in Dallas a couple of weeks ago (Larry Beasley from Vancouver) thanks to The Trinity Trust and Dr. Gail Thomas and he reiterated the point that traffic congestion is not necessarily a bad thing in a city.
It was an outstanding lecture and was truly inspiring. You should look into this – I think the lecture was filmed so copies are available. Also, the Congress for New Urbanism has some very good material for your to peruse as well (www.cnu.org).
Many cities throughout the country are tearing down massive freeways that cut through their downtowns as well as highways that block access to their waterfronts. Our planned Trinity tollroad will block access to the river. I have studied the engineering plans. I wish it wasn’t true, but at this juncture it is sadly the truth. The road that NTTA/Halff has designed is truly bad form and represents antiquated 1950’s era thinking toward transportation design.
The truth is, the voters of Dallas approved a context sensitive boulevard to run next to the lakes. Instead, they are getting a high-speed highway. Believe it or not, boulevards around the world have been shown to be extremely effective at conveying traffic. So why not a network of first class boulevards? I think we could get it done and it would be a better, more sustainable solution.
With all that said, I enjoy reading your posts and articles. Keep up the good work.
Eric, I think you make some good points but I do not agree with your conclusion, especially the ‘yes, we were lied to, but everybody lies.’
And “I think traffic relief is necessary, even if it will be very modest (or even negligible, given the other factors)”?
Negligible traffic relief a decade from now (since the toll road isn’t up for approval for two more years) isn’t worth compromised flood control.
Some great posts. Joe, yes, again without writing more than most people want to read, I’m actually for greater urban density. Just want it managed in the best way possible. And John, who said I’m voting no? I honestly STILL haven’t made up my mind, although I know where I’m leaning. Pete, yes, the floodplain issue is interesting to me, and relevant. I’ll talk a bit about that on Wednesday, probably.
I was sold a low-speed parkway in 1998 with total park access. Then the tollroad talk began and it was ‘hidden’ in the levees. Then the Corps says, no you must move it out into the park – that’s where they lost me.
We don’t need no stinkin’ tollroad to the suburbs! Vote “For” the Park.
Why does a downtown BYPASS need to go basically stright through downtown? There are overlays showing all kinds of other places to build a toll road or reliever, it just won’t be on OUR free land that the mayor seems happy to give away to people who will be AVOIDING Dallas??? WTF?
FWIW, Now that the pledge drive is finally over, KERA radio has been airing a series of stories about this this vote. They are archived at kera.org