Trinity Vote: Parking is a Priority in My Life
I’ve lived in this city long enough that, when I set out for a destination, I almost never worry about how to get there. I do worry, though, about where I’m going to park once I arrive. If I have time for a happy hour tipple with friends and colleagues, I make sure I’m at the Old Monk before 6 p.m., when Henderson becomes a parking lot itself and all the Monk’s spaces are usually filled. I prefer dinner at places with easily accessible valet stations or large parking lots. It’s why on a Saturday afternoon driving down Knox Street I’d rather eat at On the Border (huge lot) than Chuy’s (tiny lot). I’ll go to the Lakewood Landing or the Inwood Lounge before trying Lee Harvey’s, as much as I love that place. It’s why I refuse to go to Blue Mesa, or anywhere in Lincoln Park. It’s why I don’t go to Victory Park, because I’m just not sure where I can park and where I can’t. It controls my life.
It was the same way when I lived near White Rock Lake. Every time we went as a family—to walk the lake, to eat, to look at people more fit than we are—it was, as my daughter puts it, a “Daddy situation.” That’s when I start getting frustrated because there’s no easy place to park in the areas I want to visit. There’s usually places to park, yes, but not EXACTLY where I want and no SIMPLE way to get there. That’s when I start to yell at parked cars for no good reason.
So, this past weekend, I started combing through my Trinity file to find some details about parking at the new park to be build along the Trinity. I couldn’t find anything substantive, so I e-mailed Angela Hunt and said, basically, “What up with the parking?” Her response, as usual, was complete and enlightening. It read, in full:
Whether or not there is a toll road in the park, the ultimate plan for the Trinity Park contemplates 6 acres of parking lots and 15 miles of park access roads. Unfortunately, none of those is paid for at this time.
More information than you asked for:
The city’s budget shows line items for access roads and parking lots: It’s from 2003, I believe. (This was the most recent budget the city had when I requested it in Feb. 2006.)
The key to understanding the budget is knowing that “Basic Phase 1” represents the part of each projects that is currently funded and can be done now, with either 1998 bond funds or outside funding. “Expanded Phase 1” is mostly unfunded and represents “wish list” projects to be paid for with future bonds or private dollars. The “Ultimate” cost represents the finished product—if we had all the money we needed/wanted, this is what we’d do and that’s how much it’d cost.
On the second page, you’ll see that the fifth row from the bottom is “Internal park roads, bridges & parking.” The estimated “Ultimate” cost for these is $49.8 million. There is no money from the 1998 bond program for these items, nor is there outside funding allocated at this time. The accompanying staff explanation under “Comments and Project Notes” is very important. It says: “Costs per 6/16/03 team session. Basic Phase 1 has none. Expanded Phase 1 has 3 miles of roads (20% of ultimate), 1.5 acres of parking(25% of ultimate), no park bridges (3 in ultimate).” So it would cost $11.8 million to do 3 miles of road and 1.5 acres of parking, if we had the funding for it.
To me, this is the greatest problem this entire project faces: that so much of it is still unfunded. You can tell me the (rather flimsy-sounding) whitewater course is unfunded. I don’t care. But you’re telling me that no one is sure how all my parking spots will be paid for? That will not stand.
But we’re off-topic as far as the Vote Yes folks are concerned, because they keep talking about how the road is the problem. As I said yesterday, I don’t agree. But, please, you still need to tell me where we’re getting the rest of the money. That’s what I want to know.
Now, I understand project inertia. Once dirt starts flying, it becomes easier to find funding through a variety of means, many of which are simply a reapportionment of tax money I’m spending anyway. I get that. But a legitimate question is the one asked by people who say, Hey, it’s taken almost 10 years just to get to this point, so how can I trust that you’ll a) move with alacrity from here on out, and b) have the political will and skill to find the monies to complete the project in a reasonable time frame?
Conversely, I also understand the cost of project delays, as the Trinity project will surely experience if the toll road is voted down. The Vote Yes folks want you to believe that getting rid of the tollway will not affect the construction of the park, and in fact will speed it along. On paper, this is plausible. As a matter of reality, to me it is not.
Just as money is drawn to development activity, so too is political capital drained from projects that lose their luster. For either side to suggest that they know what will happen after Nov. 6 is laughable. The Vote No forces don’t know where the rest of the funding is coming from, and the Vote Yes people are greatly underplaying what may happen to committed monies to the project if it appears that the citizens of Dallas are not behind the Balanced Vision Plan as constructed in 2003. No. One. Knows. Off the record, players from both sides have admitted, in shrugs and winks, as much to me.
So, you have to ask yourself: which leap of faith are you willing to take? Which one best squares with the way in which you want your tax money spent? Do you want to believe, as I really do, that a consortium of suits and pols and urban planners can come up find a way to make a big public beautification project ultimately work, naysayers be damned? Or do you want to demand, as I also do, that those city officials to whom we give the responsibility of spending our money have a clearer idea of a project’s total financing picture before they start spending it?
Let’s say I decide the latter overrides my hopes of what this project could be. THEN what do I do? Because voting against the toll road doesn’t get the funding questions cleared up. It doesn’t help my parking space problem.
What I could do is vote yes (against the toll road) in hopes that it will kill the entire project. It’s something that others have suggested to me. Many people I know are simply so confused, angry, or fed up, they just hope a yes vote will scuttle the entire Trinity project.
Again, I understand that thinking. But it’s shortsighted. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you why.
Tomorrow: Never give up. Never surrender.
19 Comments to “Trinity Vote: Parking is a Priority in My Life”
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So, we take the $85 million of the city’s share of the tollroad and use it to fund the access roads and parking lots..
Eric, I spend a lot of time in New Orleans where I have family. Upon arrival the Texan in me can’t stand the small parking lots (if any) that restaurants, bars and shops keep. After a few trips I adjust and find the change to be quite refreshing. New Orleans is a car oriented city where the trolleys are for tourists and the buses are for poor people. Everyone else drives and happily parks on the street.
Most of Dallas’ nicer neighborhoods are similar. Do we need more development like Bishop Arts, Knox Henderson, Greenville (all short on parking) or do we need more Costco’s and Walmarts and what ever else people build near freeways?
Perhaps next time you’re living near White Rock, you might lose the car and find a bike? The lake is much nicer that way, I promise. Ask the people who were in better shape than you.
I am a ‘regular’ Lee Harvey’s devotee and never once have ever had anything but effortless parking since it is a huge area of street curbs. Which also translates to ‘no door dings’ vs. (say) The Monk where it’s a demolition derby of sanwiched automotive macrame’ by the time you leave.
PS: LH now has EZ in/ EZ out cheap thrill valet on weekends. (And $2 wells on Sunday dog night). Everybody sing together that Toby Keith song: “I Love This Bar”.
JKR, I agree. Why don’t we take our bond allowance and build an actual “parkway.” Although, I think the city has already spent about $20 of the $85 million on design and consultant fees.
[Hurt by Nathan's word arrows. Leaving for gym now.]
Or, how about a third option of using the money to build denser inner city neighborhoods, with mixed use developments, and maybe even those parisian styled parks that are so un-dallas. I realize that we tell ourselves that we’re dallas, and it’s too hot, and everyone loves their cars, but we haven’t been given an option. Those same arguments existed when people were trying to get the katy trail built. now, you can head to the trail on the hottest day in August, and it’s still packed, PLUS developers are falling all over themselves to build along its sides. when you build giant roads, quite simply, you get sprawl, and more giant box stores to drive to, with those massively beautiful parking lots you appear to pine over. i would rather sale my house, and move closer to somewhere that gave me a multitude of viable transit options, that included bike paths, light rails, pedestrian only streets, et cetera. With that would come the local pubs, theaters, and family owned stores/restaurants. we need to get over thinking that things can’t be done here because it’s not dallas…that is a defeatist mindset, and we’ll never pull out of this jungle of concrete. No one thought we could pull off having three arthouse movie theaters in the same general proximity, because the inwood was barely breaking even at the time, and dallas doesn’t do art filmis…but what happened? the angelika, the magnolia, and the inwood are all alive and well, and have brought more awareness to independent films in the area. If we followed your model, we would stick with building only giant Tinseltowns.
Dallas keeps building these larger, and larger rings around itself, starting with Loop 12, then 635, then George Bush, and now Loop 9 which is a giant ring planned around all of dallas and fort worth. what happens then? we get development filling out the rings, and lack of density, which makes public transit impossible. building a sufficient light rail system to connect to all of the new sprawling outer developments would cost billions, and the distance makes the commutes unbearable. we’ve got to eventually say, “stop pouring the friggin’ concrete, and start building like smart cities do!” we got rated one of the lowest rankings in Travel and Leisure magazine for public transit/ease of transportation for a reason. someone argued to me that the cities that won were all older and developed in a pre-automobile era, but that doesn’t explain why Portland hit the top of the list. What they had was a community that said, “stop building giant roads, and rings around the city, and start building up the center!”. That is EXACTLY what Dallas needs to do.
I love you Eric, in a manly way.
If we build the toll road between the levees, the entire project will become window dressing for a toll road. In between the levees will be a Sickly Trail O’Smog (A-Fest’rin’ in the Noonday Heat). (ASCAP)
It will kill our city’s soul — worse: It will bear permanent testament to our city’s soullessness.
Jason,
Three quick points:
1) Nice that you figured out in your second graf that Dallas starts with a capital letter.
2) Portland (and Seattle) tried to force people to use public transportation via government fiat and now have horrendous traffic and pissed off residents. As a tourist, the downtown areas of Portland and Seattle are great because I don’t have to live there.
3) Try to find something with a little more substance than the Travel & Leisure poll to backstop your views. This is the same poll that rated Dallas 24th of 25 cities in gay friendliness.
Note: Like many people, I’m still not sure whether to go Y or N, but either way “urban sprawl is bad” is a silly argument. Those of us who like an urban environment live closer to downtown. Those who don’t live in McKinney. Neither group of people is wrong.
Eric,
Re: “What I could do is vote yes (against the toll road) in hopes that it will kill the entire project.”
Please don’t go throwing more down on cyber-paper than exists in actuality. “It will kill the whole thing” is the straw dog continually tossed out by Leppert and Co. Those of us voting “yes,” and more correctly “for” the proposition, are doing it for many reasons. Least of which is to kill the whole thing.
You have done some fine, thoughtful writing on this topic, both here and in the mag. The devil is in the details and the details are being continually, thoughtfully and forthrightly misrepresented by the pro-tollroad side.
You may want to read some more devilish details at Sam Merten’s latest diggings here:
http://www.dallasblog.com/2007.....ption.html
For those reasons, plus the fact that I think it’s INSANITY to trust the Corp to design and build a road inside a floodway, the voters in our family are voting “yes.”
mark,
a) save the lecture on punctuation for your children…this is a blog, not a term paper.
b) please cite the statistics on portland’s pissed off residents. unless you’ve lived there, i’m not buying the hearsay.
c) okay, don’t take travel&leisures word for it…take boeings.
newsflash: urban sprawl IS bad. and if we build like gas is always going to be $3 a gallon, then we’re going to all learn a pretty hard lesson, and your kids are going to remember your generation as being moronic, and self-serving. remember, studies have shown that the tollroad is being built for suburbanites to go through the city, and not to it. why don’t we just pump our local tax dollars into building up mckinney’s chamber ofcommerce? it would save us all a lot of time and energy.
The irony of Mark’s post is that the ‘98 propaganda resembled a city like Seattle, Portland or San Francisco. Seems like we are getting L.A. or Houston as a result.
Understood, Bill. But it’s not just Leppert, etc. who say that. One of the people I’m using as an example is Jim Schutze, who told me he believes the entire project is so fouled up, he hopes a “yes” vote moves us closer to scrapping the entire thing: roads, park, the whole magilla.
p.s. to Bill: the lovely voter in my family, Mrs. Celeste, is also voting Yes. So I might just vote no to irritate her.
Jason,
Actually, only 60% of the traffic on the toll road will be people that don’t live and work in Dallas. What that means to the rest of us, however, is that those people won’t be clogging up the mix master so those of us that DO live and work in Dallas will have a more pleasant commute.
so from downtown, we’ll be able to quickly get to the soon-to-be vacant cowboys stadium.
p.s. to Eric: If you want to use Jim as an example of the whole ‘magilla gorilla scrap-it argument’ so be it. But, since Belo’s Rodrigue claims he’s a ranting polemicist, please mind the company you will be keeping.
And I’m happy to see that you, too, married smart!
mark,
more facts on portland vs. dallas:
check out sustainlane.com’s quality of life ratings for 50 major u.s. cities (http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/). their methodology is very thorough, and combines a ton of data, which is linked on each cities page. portland ranks number 1, while dallas ranks 24. this, by the way, is the quality of life ranking for the residents, and not the visitors. the worst rating portland receives is in housing affordability, and dallas still ranks higher in that category. check out the “metro congestion” ratings for both cities. dallas is the one that’s graph is almost off the chart. i have many friends who live in portland, and not one of them would trade places for dallas. the best anecdote they relayed was that congestion in portland means you’re having to drive on the highway at 30mph, instead of 50mph. obviously, congestion for dallas means stop and go traffic.
the 2007 texas transit institute mobility survey for u.s. cities ranks dallas as fifth for overall highest congestion rates, while portland ranks 33rd (a number which has gone down from previous years). New York City’s numbers continue to go down as well. LA is at the top…the way we are currently building is exactly the way LA does. it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that major changes need to be researched.
and in regards to subsidization of transit modes, U.S. current tax and fee payments to the government by motor-vehicle users fall short of government expenditures related to motor-vehicle use by approximately 20-70 cents per gallon of all motor fuel, says the Institute of Transporation Studies from UC (http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/download_pdf.php?id=1088%20). This means, on a dollar basis, U.S. drivers are underpaying local, state and national governments by $40 to $105 billion a year.
I’m not saying that we should abandon cars, and everyone needs to ride a bike, but I do believe a responsible transit plan is comprehensive, and multi-modal. right now, we are heavily skewed to the automobile (i know, i know, because everyone owns one), but we haven’t been given many other choices. we will continue to grow by a million in a short time, so we need to be looking at what other massive cities do (ie. Tokyo, London, New York)…all of which have an array of transit options, and not just highways.
oh yeah, and sprawl is bad.
How about finding a parking place at the south end of the Katy Trail. I like to walk the Katy, but the only free parking is out of the Victory Development by the Centex building or a short street with 2 hour parking that is always full with construction workers cars. I live south of downtown, and have to drive to Oak Lawn to walk the trail. I could buy a ticket for an event at the Arena, but that is a little expensive 3 times a week.