Articles about Transportation
Could Yesterday’s DART Arapaho Center Station Shooting Have Been Prevented by More Cops?
News reports, like the one from WFAA above, say that the Transportation Security Administration and Dallas Police are offering to help DART Police secure their stations, following yesterday’s shooting, the latest in what seems like a string of violent public transit incidents. This would involve having more officers posted on DART trains and at DART stations.
Would that have made a difference for Eric Johnson, who lost his life when a DART police officer exchanged gunfire with a man who’d been turned away from riding a bus for trying to board with an expired pass?
When we’re faced with tragedies like this, it’s natural that we want to do something to prevent such a senseless act from occurring again. But isn’t the plain fact that we live in a big city, with a lot of other people, some of whom are prone from time to time to commit awful acts?
Things like this are going to happen. After all, there was already an officer on the scene.
And, as WFAA reports, one of yesterday’s victims claims he was struck by a bullet fired by the officer, not the suspect.
Media Horde Descends Upon Arapaho Center Station
That is, if a “media horde” can be defined as two TV crews, a Morning News reporter, a Morning News photographer, and me. I was the only one not asking commuters how they felt about yesterday’s deadly shooting. I was just trying to commute, while wondering why someone would open fire on a cop rather than spend less than $5 on a day pass.
Meet the New Dallas Bus
This morning I mentioned in Leading Off that I think DART could help its bus ridership numbers (which have dropped) if it overhauled its bus model. Well, look-y here: it’s a new bus design that DART plans to roll out. New benefits include: better A/C and composite flooring, which promisses a smoother ride.
Righto, great, great. But this is what I’m excited about: check out those new, sexy wheelchair ramps! I know. Very exciting. Why? Well, the current way people with wheelchairs, walkers, children’s strollers, etc. get on and off the bus is by riding the lift, which moans and groans and takes about three to five minutes to get one person on or off the bus. I ride the Bus 11 up and down Jefferson Blvd. There are a lot of clinics near Jeff and many mothers with young children who ride that route. On most days, we stop at nearly every corner for a wheelchair or stroller. Often, more than one person needs to use the lift at each stop. It makes the ride nothing short of torturous.
Leading Off (2/6/12)
DART Light Rail Ridership High, But Bus Numbers Falter: Last year was the busiest year ever for Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail, but ridership on bus lines as well as the oldest light rail lines decreased by a combined 5 million trips (paywall). Why the drop? Officials say it is due to 1) DART bus passengers switching to new light rail service, and 2) the reduction in the frequency of blue and red line trains during rush hour. Both claims I believe, point again to how simple public transit really is. People will take public transit if it is fast and convenient. That’s why DART’s bus system needs an overhaul.
Horse Thieves Hit Camp For Disabled Kids: In the latest installment of crooks who are worse than crooks, two horses have been stolen form Camp El Har, a camp that offers therapy for kids with various disabilities, like autism. Now owners of two other horses on loan to the camp have removed their animals out of fear of further thefts, which has forced the camp to postpone its classes indefinitely.
Will ‘Black Atheist’ Billboard Ruffle Feathers? A group called African Americans for Humanism and the DFW Coalition of Reason will unveil a billboard today which voices support for atheists during African American history month. But while the billboard has already prompted some push-back from South Oak Cliff pastors, pre-event controversy also led to an unexpected act of community service: members of the DFW Coalition of Reason turned out at Pastor Kyev Tatum’s church garden Sunday to help harvest their greens, which will be donated to local food banks. Tatum reconciled the art of charity like this: “the devil might have picked it, but the good lord sent it.”
‘Shower of Affection’ Greets Emirates Flight
The Dallas-Fort Worth drought ended just in time to greet the first Emirates flight from Dubai. Photography by Jeanne Prejean
The Eagle, er, the Emirates, has landed. At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, at about 8:45 this morning, to great fanfare — as shown in the photo above of the so-called “shower of affection” that was accorded the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft upon touchdown. (”Shower of affection” means something else where I come from, but apparently this is an aviation ritual.) The plane had left Dubai about 16 hours earlier, becoming Emirates Airline’s first-ever daily, non-stop flight to D/FW. It was scheduled to turn around and head back to the United Arab Emirates a couple of hours later.
American Airlines on Bankruptcy: We Need Fewer Workers, More Consultants
Bankruptcy is complicated, no doubt. But when American Airlines’ parent company sought to hire four additional law firms (in addition to its lead bankruptcy counsel) and eight consulting firms to advise it on how to navigate through the Chapter 11 process, the United States Trustee overseeing the bankruptcy objected. There’s a court hearing on the matter set for Friday.
As Bloomberg notes, Tracy Hope Davis stated that “The scope of services set forth in each application is so broad that the potential for duplication with the other firms is apparent.”
I am continually astonished by the corporate consulting industry, the way that a company will insist its CEO and other top executives are worth lavishing millions of dollars upon but is just as quick to feel it must hire an outside firm for “strategic” advice that apparently none of its C-suite stars could come up with themselves. My guess is that there’s a CYA motivation to much of it.
On the other hand, bankruptcy is not part of a company’s normal operations, and it shouldn’t be surprising that AMR could use help. This is how much help they requested:
The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge: So, What Are We Actually Going to Call This Thing?
A Santiago Calatrava rendering of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.
We need to take care of this before it gets to be too late. We kept telling ourselves we’d get around to deciding how we should refer to the decade that ran from 2000 through 2009. The 2000s? The Aughts? And we never could come to an agreement.
Let’s not allow the same thing to happen to the Woodall Rodgers Extension Bridge, or, as the Hunt Petroleum Company would have us call it: the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.
Hunt contributed $12 million to the Trinity River project and therefore has the right to honor the family matriarch. I have no objection to that being the official name, for the purposes of press releases and on first reference in newspaper stories. But that’s a heck of a long eponym, compounded by the fact that the double surname makes it difficult to know the proper way to abbreviate. Should it be the Hunt Hill Bridge, or just the Hill Bridge?
Generally, we the media have punted. It’s usually either something like “the Calatrava bridge” or “the Santiago Calatrava-designed bridge” on second reference in news articles. When we just can’t avoid the issue, we’re stuck having to repeat the whole damn name, as the Dallas Morning News does here, or as our own FrontRow blog does here.
Stop the madness. Surely we’re going to come up with a generally accepted nickname anyway. You know, whatever traffic helicopters will say when they need to talk about bottlenecks on the bridge, e.g. ”Heavy backup onto Woodall this afternoon due to a three-car pileup on the Marge.”
Let’s make this happen sooner rather than later. My proposals:
A Morality Lesson on The DART Red Line
A few evenings ago, after a long day of producing Texas’ best weekly newspapers, I boarded a Red Line train. Sitting directly behind me was an obese blond woman whose phone conversation provided an entertaining ride for her fellow commuters. If you like Jerry Springer, soap operas, and Cops, then you would have wanted to be sitting next to this lady.
First of all, her beau was recently carted off to jail. She told the person on the other end of the phone that her man looked her in the eye as the cops led him out the door and said, “Baby, I left a little money in the dresser for you.” Apparently, this is not the first time my traveling companion’s lover has been behind bars, because she bragged that she has memorized both phone numbers for the Lew Sterrett Justice Center information line.
Southwest Airlines Posts Annual Profit Again
Almost put up a post yesterday about the new interiors that Southwest Airlines will be installing in most of its 737 fleet. Take the tour:
I was going to remark upon my dislike for hearing about how something is “sleeker” and “more comfortable” when the bottom line is that they’re cramming six more seats onto the plane so that they can rake in $250 million more in ticket revenue and pay $10 million less in fuel costs. I didn’t like how with all their talk about how “eco-friendly” their new cabins will be, they seemed to be glossing over the fact that the distance between seats is being reduced by an inch, and the new seats will recline back only 2 inches instead of 3.
Map of Downtown Tunnels Is Here
Downtown resident/neighbor Noah Jeppson launched a campaign on Kickstarter in June. He wanted a beautiful map that accurately plotted the downtown tunnel system. He had worked on one before, but it was a little out of date. The last printed version was done before DART was in the area. So, Jeppson saw a need.
Several months, countless hours, and $1,200 later, Jeppson has 10,000 maps to hand out. He just dropped a few off by our office. I plan on using mine to get home tonight.
Jeppson has lived downtown for 6 years. He currently lives in the beautifully renovated 400 N. Ervay (which I immediately fell in love with and wrote about here). I told him my feelings about the tunnels, and he said he’s neutral. “They’re an asset that already exists, so why close them down?” he says. “Don’t expand them, but don’t close them down.” He’s on a task force that is evaluating the tunnels. He said the group is close to releasing some recommendations. I hope one of those recommendations is to open the tunnels around lunch on Saturdays. I know it won’t happen, but I would really love to be able to get a Salata salad or a Chick-fil-A sandwich without getting in my car.
If you want one of Jeppson’s maps, check out his site here or stop by our office. I’ll have a few at the front desk.
Leading Off (1/16/11)
Bike Accident Illustrates Need For Safer Biker/Pedestrian Options: If you’ve ever ridden a bike over one of the two viaducts that span the Trinity River and connect Oak Cliff to downtown, you know how incredibly scary it is. It just got scarier: Dallas Torres, 32, was struck by a car while riding his bike on the Jefferson Boulevard viaduct Saturday, breaking his neck. He remains at Baylor University Medical Center. Too bad we can’t fund those bike paths.
‘Dallas’ Looks To Capitalize on Recessionary Escapism: A flurry of news stories about the revival of the television show “Dallas” hit the inter-webs this weekend. This is all you need to know, via Larry Hagman: “Remember when ‘Dallas’ was really big, we were in a major recession,” he said. “People couldn’t afford to hire a babysitter and go out to dinner. So they had to stay in and watch something on TV, and that was us.”
Rick Perry Continues To Self-Destruct Presidential Hopes: Rick Perry believes that calling for the prosecution of legal adults serving in the marines who made a video of themselves urinating on Taliban corpses shows “disdain for the military.” Cue Zac.
American Airlines Bankruptcy: ‘Vultures’ are Circling the Industry ‘Plum’
The news of the last day about the American Airlines bankruptcy says that three suitors are eyeing bids for the carrier: Delta Airlines, U.S. Airways, and TPG Capital (which is not itself an airline but has invested in airlines in the past). American has been called the “last plum” available for those looking to get into the industry in a big way.
Delta: It’s the second-largest airline in the country, and conventional wisdom is that the prospects of the Department of Justice giving antitrust approval to the second-largest airline and the third-largest airline (American) merging is “remote,” as an analyst told the Star-Telegram. But the Wall Street Journal today has itself a chart that says it could “maybe” happen. Combined, American and Delta would have 35% of the market. That sounds like a lot. However, “the Department of Justice has historically focused on individual routes when assessing competition effects, rather than overall concentration. So while a combined Delta-American would almost certainly have to make concessions in New York and across the Atlantic, the DoJ might not block the deal out of hand.” Some analysts told Businessweek that Delta’s interest is just meant to disrupt the AMR bankruptcy: “It’s a cynical ploy to disrupt others, to confuse the process and make it more difficult.”
Virgin’s Richard Branson Rips Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Saying It “Screws Creditors”
Sir Richard Branson
Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, a minority owner of Virgin America airlines, doesn’t think much of the legal proceeding that has the airline’s chief rival at DFW Airport, American Airlines, in bankruptcy court. Even so, the billionaire businessman doubts whether American’s Chapter 11 filing will affect Virgin America much.
“One of the problems in America is something called Chapter 11,” Branson (pictured) said today in Dallas after appearing at a fundraiser for The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He noted that airlines including United, Delta, and Continental all preceded American in seeking bankruptcy protection, enabling them to “screw their creditors” and come out with more efficient operations. “If you got rid of Chapter 11 in this country, when a company goes bust, it would be like an old tree. It would [die off] and leave room for younger airlines to come up…
“Virgin America in Dallas is a great airline,” Branson went on. He said VA has added a third daily flight from DFW to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, is running 80 percent load factors here, and “is profitable” on its Dallas routes. As for American’s difficulties, “We’ll have to see if Chapter 11 affects” Virgin America, Branson added. “I doubt it will make enough of a difference one way or the other.”
Photo credit: Jeanne Prejean
DART Train Gets Wrapped For Christmas
My 3-year-old son loves to ride DART trains. The destination is not important; he just enjoys the journey. Last Wednesday evening, I took him on a short trip to Downtown Plano Station. As we were waiting for our return ride, the train you see here pulled up to the platform. “Daddy, look!” my son said. “It’s a basketball train!” Once we boarded, he seemed genuinely disappointed that nobody was hooping inside the train.
I was as surprised as he was — by the train’s exterior, not by the lack of basketball inside it. I’ve been commuting on DART for years, and this was the first train I’d seen wrapped in an advertisement. (Such ads are common on DART buses.) When I looked for more information, I found out that DART had posted a press release about the Mavericks train just a day before my son and I spotted it.
The 5 Worst Texas License Plate Designs
There’s been national coverage over the recent decisions by the Texas state government to reject a specialized license plate sought by the group Sons of Confederate Veterans and to approve a design that supports Calvary Hill, a Christian anti-gang organization in Nacogdoches.
The Confederate Veterans’ Sons are suing the state for the right to their plates. Meanwhile some groups are complaining about the Calvary Hill plate, which features crosses and the words “One State Under God,” though the slogan is part of the official Texas state pledge, and other plates have featured crosses, like these for the University of St. Thomas.
On what grounds is it OK to approve one and not the other, especially since acquiring either is an entirely voluntary act? The Confederate flag, and the fight to preserve the horrors of slavery that it represents, is seen as a symbol of hate by many. That seems like a sensible enough disqualifier. But do some atheists find the presence of crosses on a government-issued item equally as offensive? Perhaps.
That’s not what I’m here to debate. I’m here to point out the most heinous offense perpetrated by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles: allowing so many terrible plates on our roads. The following are the five worst.
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