Podcast: Putting Dallas Back Together Again

Patrick Kennedy comes on the podcast this week to talk about what’s going on in Dallas. We discuss the highway removal campaign known as A New Dallas and the recent Texas DOT CityMap Plan to re-imagine the freeways and roads in the city’s downtown. We also discuss downtown subways, urban politics, why existing walkable neighborhoods matter to new walkable neighborhoods, and what’s going on with plans for the Trinity River.

Podcast: Live from Rail~Volution

At Rail~Volution we recorded a podcast in front of a live audience.  We talked with Catherine Cuellar of Dallas about the arts district and her love of transportation alternatives as well as Dave Unsworth about the new Portland bridge which doesn't allow cars along with a whole host of other transit projects.  Hope you enjoy it.

Most Read from November 10th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

 

Image via Lyft

- "Dallas doesn’t principally have a parking problem. It has a downtown Dallas problem"

- LA City Council will have to revote on mobility plan, critics hope it's their chance.

- Maybe Lyft only wants to be friends with rail lines, not buses?  That's what the image says to me 

Bonus Quote

"This experience has let me know that architecture can speak to and touch people and change things, regardless of what academia or what the old guard may want you to believe"

 - Germane Barnes

Bigger Thinking on Texas Stadium Site

In my post below I talked about how hard it would be to connect the two parcels over the freeway. Looks like they have thought about that.

In an article in Fast Company, the developers and city of Irving are looking to make the freeway choked property where the stadium once was into "the densest, most walkable neighborhood in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex outside of downtown Dallas." That's a pretty bold statement. But the renderings show they have some ideas about how its gonna be, and I must say, they do have a grand imagination.


Via the Irving Chamber

If they can get this done more power to them. I especially appreciate them doing it on the transit line. Now how about that transit connectivity? This type of density needs more than just one rail line.

Stadium Implosions and TOD

Well today was the day. 39 year old Texas Stadium was imploded as its functioning life was deemed over. However the death of a stadium opens up new opportunities for urbanism and some challenges.



The Loop 12 station is going to be located here when the development is finally ready for it but I question the planning of a station along a freeway or in a place where the freeway can severely hamper residential development. Part of the problem with getting cozy with the highway is that you cut off half of the walk shed from the station. In this instance, it's even more than half with the number of freeways that exist in criss cross. Below is the map of the regional transit plan and below that is the station location sourced from the environmental impact statement.




You can see Texas stadium where the main redevelopment opportunity is on city owned land. But the planned station is on the other side of a major freeway, and most of it is a private shipping company under the white blob I've drawn to show the area without a freeway barrier near the station. It's likely that this area will be best for office and some dense residential, but a grid network needs to be reintroduced on both sides for it to become a walkable urban place. It might be even better to route the transit through the center of the white blob to maximize the station area. It does move the station further away from the stadium parcel, but at the same time, it increases the probability of transit accessibility for buildings within the vicinity of the station.

It's a hard decision, but ultimately we need to stop building stations and alignments that are based on the previous freeway paradigm. Creating walkable urban places that connect to others through transit means that we need to connect opportunities, not freeway medians.

Thursday Night Notes

Here's some news I wanted to share:

I did a report on aerial ropeways once. The City Fix shows they are used for transport around the world and even in their favorite place, South America.
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The Cotton Belt rail line in Dallas might have an interesting funding mechanism.

The plan would most likely include much steeper fares for the Cotton Belt, paid parking, and the creation of special tax districts that would capture property tax increases associated with private development along the rail line.

I'm always dubious of using value capture to pay for infrastructure. There's just not that much of an increment on commuter rail I think.
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DFLers are going to start playing hardball with U of Minn. I don't really see how a mitigated train is any different than a few thousand cars and huge buses on the same road.
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Are we really going to be spending $3.7 billion or more for a subway stop in Livermore and (an overestimated) 34,300 riders? Have we learned nothing from any of the other transit lines we've built (or didn't build) in this region? If Pleasanton has 7,400 exits (14,800) on a weekday, how is Livermore going to add 30K more riders???

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Baseball and Streetcars were bff back in the late 1800s.
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One of my favorite things about the internet is all that it can do to break down international barriers. For example, this hungarian transport blog translated discusses the Salt Lake BRT line.

Free Parking Again

Another issue with free parking. Isn't there a market based way to take care of this issue around Mockingbird Station?

Monday Night Notes

Is a new business model emerging for merchants and park n ride lots?
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A drive thru in Portland apologizes after an employee refuses service to a cyclist, discusses possible cycle through lanes.
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GE is going to get some business in Africa for its locomotives
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GHG emissions in China are a quarter of the US emissions per capita.
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It's kind of annoying when cities that weren't paying into the regional transit agency want in when there is commuter rail. Cities in Texas seem to like to do this.

But most Denton County cities, including Lake Dallas, rejected membership and the sales tax requirement. When DCTA offered those cities a second chance at membership in 2006, only Shady Shores and Corinth talked seriously about buying in.

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Does the Northeast Corridor need an EIS to get ARRA funds?

Sunday Night Notes

I wish there were more time in the day. I have some land value and transportation reading to catch up on.
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Senators driving buses? Electric ones?
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If the Corridor Cities high ridership route is so circuitous, then why does the model say it will get more riders? When do we get to blow up the new starts process? And when do we get to stop wasting money on sprawling development that creates these situations?
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It's quite an intense process to secure rights of way especially in Dallas on the way to the airport.
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Richard Layman posted this about innovators. I thought it was worth the read.

Monday Night Notes

I'm wondering if Austin ever did a real alternatives analysis for the center city line. I imagine its a no, and if so, they would do well to see where the highest ridership is. I'm guessing Guadalupe.
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Lots of people are taking light rail in Phoenix. However its not the usual work trip.

Metro found that only 27 percent of the patrons ride the light rail to and from work. In many large cities, commuters make up the dominant share of riders. The survey found that sports fans, shoppers and people going to and from the airport or cultural events form the largest group.

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Folks in Dallas are worried that the light rail line will make Richardson grow so fast that traffic will be horrendous.

Lots of development is going forward in Richardson, with much of it related to DART's rail service. But there's a downside to this good fortune: increased pressure on roadways. North Central Expressway is getting the big pounding.

I'm sure its all the transits fault.
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On the Subway?

The Bush administration was notorious for hating transit. They hated it so much that at one point they wanted to use new starts money to build HOT lanes on freeways. So funny what happens now:

Southern Methodist University's proximity to DART's rail and bus lines was a key selling point in picking Dallas as home for the library, said Laura Bush, an SMU graduate. She told a Waco TV station in January that the Bush complex would be the only presidential library on a subway stop.

I didn't know being on a subway stop was so important to the Bushes. It's not really a subway stop anyway but light rail in a trench. Apparently the library really won't be on the stop, but instead across a major freeway from Mockingbird Station. They thought about building a bridge but decided against it.

It's a half mile walk from the station using the existing road bridge. If they installed the ped bridge, it would take off .3 miles but would be more exposed to the elements and car traffic on the expressway below. Ultimately it's pretty close to the light rail stop, but why transit matters to a legacy that was down on transit to begin with is beyond me.

DOC Streetcar

Dallas and Oak Cliff have decided to get together on plans for a streetcar. Previously, Oak Cliff and Fort Worth were going to go in together to seek TIGER stimulus funding for new streetcar projects. However Dallas has plans for a streetcar as well, so bringing the ideas together is smart, considering it will lower the overall costs of a system that would likely run just blocks away from the other if allowed to plan separately.

I'm going to take a wild guess and venture to say that they won't get funding for the project. Given the whole country is foaming at the mouth for only $1.5 billion dollars in funds, it would be hard to expect projects like these to get funding over those more established. The low funding with so much interest makes that extra $2 billion from cash for clunkers look silly as well, considering there are transit projects that could help guide new growth that reduces VMT versus paying for people's new cars so they can drive more.

Sunday Night Notes

The mean green of UNT have done another study looking at the economic effects of constructing light rail in the Dallas region. The study says $5.6 Billion in economic benefits just from construction, not from development near the stations.
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This seems to be an issue all around the country. State roads are under state control, so it becomes harder to get local changes on them including transit. Places that are designated as State Roads seem to add another level of bureaucracy, even if they likely get gas tax money for repairs. This issue is popping up in Ogden Utah as well as on Van Ness.
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I wish alignment decisions weren't so political. The realistic solution is to look at the numbers for the starter line as we discussed in the job center post below. Check the places with the highest bus ridership and see what major job centers need to be connected. Granted I'm not familiar with Tampa, but you wouldn't need a million dollars to do a study of where the first line should go.
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The FHA is going to start giving mortgage credit for living near transit. This is part of the ACES bill better known for its fights over cap and trade:

Similar concessions on loan applicants' incomes would be extended for properties located in areas close to employment centers or mass transit lines. No concessions would be made for homes in far-flung neighborhoods that eat into family incomes because of long commutes, which would add to carbon emissions.

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An interesting article about the folks who operate out of coffee shops and other people's houses for work by internet. The digital nomad.

Some Notes

USA Today has an article about intensifying suburbs in the Hong Kong style. Interesting they mention the tall buildings but not the massive transit infrastructure needed to move these people to where they want to go.
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Jarrett at Human transit was wondering early on what would get comments and a discussion going. I don't think he has to look anymore. In fact he's even got the ears of major newspaper reporters. Now if only they actually understood what he was saying or if newspaper reporters actually gave the public credit for knowing more than they do. This Dallas Morning News post is exactly why print media is dying. Calling your readers stupid works every time.

Further, would the public understand the dual systems? Is there a city today that has a combination of light rail and streetcars in a downtown area where there is demonstrated demand for both?

I'm tired of Texas (or from any state) transportation reporters who don't know transportation.
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The Evergreen Line gone?
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Swimo pops its head out of the water again. It's like a cute little penguin, an electric penguin that runs on rails without wires. When we all have Zed PMs we'll be golden.
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Fort Worth is hoping for Streetcars sooner than planned.

Texas Senator Wants to Secede from DOT

Imagine if all the money for transit that is provided by the federal government was gone and states had control. That's something that Kay Bailey Hutchinson thinks is a great idea. While in theory it would keep money from places like Alaska, in practice the State DOT (read road building) would likely keep it all for itself. Personally, this smells of the same secession talk that Gov Hair discussed only a week ago.

Linkfest: Quotes Edition

I wanted to try something a little different, so I'm just going to link a quote from the articles I'm posting today.

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DC: "Some residents of the District cling to a suburban mentality."
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National: "Americans travel by car twice as much per year as Germans and use transit only a sixth as much."
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Texas: "This isn’t a transportation funding crisis," said Keener, whose Austin group promotes low taxes and small government. "It’s a funding priority crisis."
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Las Vegas: "The zoning provides incentives, such as bonus density, for developers who build projects that combine residential, professional and commercial space and encourage residents to use the mass transit line."

Jerry Hoagland Gets It

A prominent Dallas area conservative is coming out in favor of greater infrastructure investment beating back on the typical calls to lower taxes and leave it to someone else. I'm amazed at the admission that Collin County's tax rate isn't that bad because he's kept it low and that taxing to invest in movement infrastructure is important to the future of the region. Finally, someone from what is usually the other team who gets it.

However, there are some people today - well intentioned people I might add, but misguided I believe - who would have you believe that the county's combined tax rate is out of control and too high. I respectfully disagree with this "Chicken Little" (the sky is falling) attitude...

...If our taxes were reduced, could we maintain the quality of life we have enjoyed in the past? The answer is, "Yes, we could - for a while." But I believe that there is something worse than paying a few dollars in taxes - and that something is sticking our collective heads in the sand and not properly planning for the future. Growth will gridlock us in the future (and therefore cost us more tomorrow) if we don't deal with it today...

... I wish we lived in a dream world where things were free, but that just isn't facing reality. These folks abhorrence to paying taxes for the convenience of being able to move around freely has tainted their thinking.

I suggest reading the whole statement in its entirety.

Saturday Night Quick Links

Had a pretty busy last few days and it's been hard to post. Here are some quick links until I get a bit more time.

Dallas officials might stop the future Orange Line short of the airport.
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Should cyclists pay a registration fee? Personally I think absolutely not!
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The Hawaii Senate wants to take from the rail fund to balance the budget. You know, all this stealing from transit to pay for budgets is not cool. Why not take from the road funding? Too much of a sacred cow for you?
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Apparently there is a locomotive buried in Cincinnati. Who knew there were locomotives buried all over the United States like treasure.
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There are a lot of high speed rail concern trolls out there. This one in the Boston Globe.

"We have tremendous distances compared with Japan or Europe," said Carlos Schwantes, a professor of transportation studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "We're just much bigger, and in so much of the country it's so low a population density that we'd have to ask the question: Is it worth spending our dollars for the infrastructure in those areas?"

How many times do we need to kill this argument. There wasn't enough population density in the Roman Empire for paved roads to the British Isles either.
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The Beltline is safe for now.

Metroplex Residents Want Rail Too

Utah residents on the Wasatch Front are looking for expansion in transit while those in the Dallas Fort Worth are as well. Fortworthology has more:

This is big news for the Rail North Texas proposal: a new survey shows that 85% of voters surveyed support the regional rail plan

Would Have Gotten Away With It...

If it weren't for those locals. These are the types of things I like to see. More local control over local decisions. Federal and State funding is good and should be available, but it's the local folks that know what they need.

The local-state show of support was far different from the 2007 lawmaking session. Some lawmakers then gave only grudging lip-service to the rail plan; others were hostile or resentful that local officials had pushed them to support the ambitious project.

Obviously there is still a vote needed, but this is a good step for local option transportation funding, hopefully more transit funding than roads.