Continuing the Debate on the Trinity Parkway

Imagine my surprise when I checked the stats this morning and found the Transportation Blog was a referring site to my post. After clicking on it, the Transportation Writer for the Dallas Morning News, Michael Lindenberger, checked the anti-tollroad Facebook Group and saw a link to my post. In it, he looked at the six points I made in the first Trinity Parkway post and made counterpoints of his own.

At the beginning, he notes that the Kill the Trinity group only has 400 members, indicating a lack of support for or against.

The road has been in the news a lot lately, and with some significant doubts raised by Hunt and two of her colleagues. But that hasn’t done much to mobilize the troops. Over on Facebook’s Kill the Trinity Toll Road, just 404 members had ‘liked’ the page. That’s not many.

Maybe most voters have accepted the road, or just feel like it will never be built no matter what anyone says — not an entirely unreasonable response given the years in regulatory roadblocks. Or maybe the opponents just don’t think Facebook is the best forum to express their views.

I would caution against using Facebook as a metric for gaging support. I purposely do not have a Facebook page, as does another 20% of my age range. Also, some people don't use Facebook for anything other than social uses. For some, voting in 2007 was a civic duty and made an opinion on what was presented, and joining a Facebrook Group about the Parkway isn't on the radar. There might be many more reasons, but whichever it is, I just don't think Facebook makes for an accurate polling sample.

On my first point about building a high-speed road in a park, Lindenberger says there isn't a problem because parks are just one aspect of the plan.

I think the answer the city would give, incidentally, is that building the park is just one part of the plan for making use of the massively underutilized acreage that makes up the Trinity River floodway. Indeed, NTTA cites an argument — and I think you’d forgiven if the adjective cynical appeared in your mind about now — that because the road was part of the plan for the use of the land for as long as the parks were part of the plan, it’s not possible to say that the road interferes with the parks. Indeed, since the park doesn’t exist, how can the toll road be charged with interfering with a plan that is no more realized than the plan for the road itself.

Thankfully, he attributes this to the city and not himself, because I think this answer misses the forest for the trees. This answer is almost like this is how we've always done it, so there is nothing wrong. My point is that as far as parks go, it should be an either/or deal. Parks and high speed roads are not complimentary.

Also missing was that this road has morphed from a park access road with speed limits under 45 and no freeway design. It would have been similar to any street. However, over time it turned into what we know. I did extensive research and this is an old idea. The idea of turning the Trinity Floodway into a high-speed roadway has been around since the 1960's. This just reeks of bait-and-switch.

Freeway revolts were really a major concern not just locally, but across the country. A popular tactic was to include parks in the project, whether to win a vote or to gain community support, because it was widely believed the public would get behind these proposals for the parks. Largely, it worked. To me, this seems exactly the same tactic, only with the road being sold as something else to voters.

Lindenberger then takes me to task (partially) on the freeway dividing the urban areas point.

That’s a hard one to swallow if you ask me. I mean, the north and south fo the city are divided alright — but it’s the river and the vast, vacant floodway that does the dividing, not a new six-lane highway within that natural barrier.

Of course, the if his point is that the road will divide downtown from the recreational areas planned for the floodway, or from the river itself, he may be on firmer ground. (Turns out, that’s exactly the point he is making, as he makes clear in a more recent post. You can read it here to decide whether you buy it.)

This is the hardest of his points for me to understand. Walk along Main from Downtown to Deep Ellum and tell me that section between the two urban areas isn't divided, isn't clearly delineated and, sadly, isolated from each other. What urban features are here between the two? No office, no residential, no retail, no restaurant, no park, etc. On top of that, high-speed freeway entrance/exit ramps aren't exactly pedestrian amenities, and neither is the high-speed-designed streets linking the two.

Even moving to a place like Akard and Woodall Rogers, which has no direct entrance/exit ramps, the lack of a continuous urban environment makes either side of the freeway an edge of both their respective urban areas. Indeed, both of their edges require several blocks before the urban area picks up activity. Now, shift the focus to Main and Akard. That area, the center of downtown, draws activity in all directions. The mix of uses encourages activity at all hours of the day. Areas near freeways can not say the same.

Now make that comparison to any street intersection with a freeway. Why is there no activity at any of them? Even Dealey Plaza, with its tourist attractions allowing all-hours activity, there is zero spillover to the other side.

Yes, as he says, the river is a divider, as is any river. But, go to established cities without freeways ruining the waterfront, and see that city activity can go right to the edge. It is a contributing asset to the local neighborhood, much like the other mixed uses mentioned two paragraphs ago. Freeways not only do not encourage pedestrian activity, they suppress it.

I made the point above to also illustrate the point that it will divide downtown from the park. If he agrees with me on the second paragraph, then there has to be at least some recognition that freeways are dividers. What is the difference between Downtown being divided from the park and Downtown being divided from Deep Ellum?

Unsurprisingly, the idea of congestion is harder to digest.

Here’s one I’m hoping to hear some feedback on. He writes that a new road won’t ease congestion in downtown. His point, interestingly, isn’t that the road, as designed, won’t reach the right people and therefore offer only limited relief — an argument others have made, including Hunt, and council members Sandy Greyson and Scott Griggs.

His point is bolder. He writes, “There has not been a single case anywhere in the world where new roadways solved congestion.”

That’s a subtle enough rhetorical switch that I almost missed it, but his prediction that it won’t “solve” congestion is probably inarguable. But will it ease it? Wil it make it better, and if so by how much and for how long?

Those the questions that need to be asked, and answered. Then we can turn to asking whether those benefits are worth the costs.

I take this stance because it is true, not because it is politically palpable. Hunt, Griggs and Greyson have to say the road is a bad route because in this part of the country, saying freeways are bad is not a popular way to win majority support (I don't want to put words in their mouth, a couple of them may truly believe that only the routing is wrong). Instead, more people can relate to the argument that design is bad, but freeways themselves are useful. And they are. It is just that we have designed them wrong and put them in the wrong place.

Interstate highways were originally planned only to go to the cities edge, leaving the cities themselves intact. Whether this was for cost considerations or actual urban concern, I don't know. However, the cities themselves wanted the freeways. Some, like some that I profiled, have seen their mistakes after the fact.

But back to my point. How will six lanes have any meaningful impact, not only in congestion relief, but in the smaller idea of congestion reduction? Of course, without an understanding of Induced Traffic, it is easy to make the case that traffic is based on a linear supply-and demand relationship, rather than one based on a more complex idea of human behavior.

The thought on the surface is this: adding the Trinity Parkway will increase capacity in downtown by six percent. But much of that capacity will be absorbed right away, just by the addition alone. Some of that will be blunted by being a tolled facility, but as long as the region primarily isn't, the Induced Traffic Principle will apply.

My offer still stands. If anyone can find one example of a freeway construction/expansion that provided long-term traffic relief, I will rescind the point and never oppose the Parkway again. However, I know that won't be the case , so the point is moot.

The flood control point is agreeable to both sides. Lindenberger also added that the Corps and NTTA agree with me.

Environmental was glossed over, but that is hard to argue too. Autos pollute. There is a river there. The Trinity will get polluted.

He does take me to task on the cost, and wins, but only because I was sloppy.

Truth is, we published the cost estimate of $1.29 billion as far back as 2007, including in the page one piece I wrote about the outcome of the election. And the current estimate isn’t a range between $1.4 billion and $1.8 billion. The estimate is $1.4 billion in today’s dollars, but $1.8 billion if you allow for inflation between now and when the construction would begin, sometime in 2016 at the earliest.

Also, the 28-mile Green Line cost $1.8 billion, not $700 million. (And incidentally, it carries on an average about 10,000 people back and forth to work, or wherever, each weekday.)

But these quibbles aside, I don’t think any one will argue with his prediction that the real cost would be $2 billion or more by the time the project gets underway — despite the fact project after project has come in under estimate in recent years as the economic slowdown has made competition for big projects especially fierce.

In my defense, (EXCUSE ALERT) I originally published the post in title form without a body, it wasn't typed yet. I did this late at night. Post like this can take a few hours to write, fact check, proofread and polish. Since I made that blunder, I couldn't do what I usually do and finish it up the next day after time runs out (right now, it is getting late and I will only type a few more sentences, then resume tomorrow). So, the numbers I quoted were from memory, some right, some wrong, and some not in the right context.

Here's what I wrote.

When first proposed in the ’90′s, the price tag was less than $400 million. When it was redesigned into a limited-access freeway, it was less than $700 million. During the Trinity Vote Campaign, it had just eclipsed $1 billion. As it stands right now, the conservative estimate is $1.4 billion and the maximum range is $1.8 billion.

Taking my Trinity Project folder off the shelf, here's what my notes say.

1998 - $398 million (Trinityrivercorridor.org)

2005 - Total transportation component of project, $908 million (D Magazine Special Report, 2005). This was one of the problems the Trinity Vote Campaign raised. The cost of the road was never truly known, at least publicly. How much of the transportation project was for the Calatrava Bridges, Industrial Blvd (now Riverfront), miscellaneous street improvements and the tollroad? Also frustrating for some folks was the allocation of the costs. Phase 1 was to include flood protection (13.93% of the total budget), environmental restoration (4.74%), parks (7.22%) and community development (.09%), the transportation component took the most, by far (74.03%). Getting an itemized breakdown was near impossible. If the Trinity Vote Campaign accomplished anything, it was the unburying of the tollroad's cost.

2007 - According to a handout by Michael Morris, Transportation Director at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, at an October 29, 2007 Town Hall Meeting at Park in the Woods Recreation Center, the Parkway was on the ledger for $937.6 million.

Using the numbers Lindenberger provided (1.29 billion), in the span from one of the last community meetings listed above until shortly after the election, the cost had already risen by $300 million. If we account for inflation, the 1998 total would be $561.8 million. Yes some projects have gone down during the recession, but this one is still nowhere near close, so saying that it could go under in unlikely. Also given the fact that a high-speed roadway in a floodway has never been done, I just have my suspicions that under-budget won't be an adjective if this project were to ever get off the ground.

As for the Green Line, he is correct on the total costs. I recalled the amount the Federal Government pledged, $700 million. Using a cost per mile, the Green Line comes out to a little over $60 million a mile. The Parkway is still, using current estimates, $222 million a mile. I have no doubt that will not stay that low.
The last point he made, and the last I want to touch on is quite a bit more esoteric. Who is pushing for the road? When the Stemmons family donated the land that the current Trinity River runs when the levees were built and the channel moved and straightened, one condition was to make the channel usable for transportation. At the time, it was intended for barge shipping down to Houston. Stemmons built up the entire Industrial corridor and helped with the freeway through the area, known as...Stemmons Freeway. They are still the major property owner in that area.

As a member of the influential Citizens Council, who is a main player in campaigning for the road, Stemmons certainly has play and push. Now there is no smoking gun, but why does the Citizens Council keep itself at the forefront as the primary proponent of this particular aspect of the project?

It also doesn't help that Lindenberger's paper is owned by a family who are members of the Citizens Council. I generally believe that the editorial board is independent of the owners whims. But, all this seems too coincidental for many folks opposed to the road. Especially when many of the things the editorial board pushed as fact and reasons of support of the tollroad have proven to be false. This is no longer a reliever road for Project Pegasus, the Corps has not endorsed or approved the road and funding for the entire project is not dependent upon the tollway. But, unlike their stance on the death penalty, they haven't changed their stance.

Now, certainly all of this is conjecture, but it sure is easy to start connecting those dots.

We both agree that contractors play a role, but he wonders about the property owners.

That doesn’t gel with me, and never has — partly for the same reasons that the blogger makes above. Who is going to make money off a toll road that glides through an otherwise deserted floodway? Sure there will be some exits over on the other side of the river and all, but is the prospect of limited property schemes at a handful of exists really enough to drive this train?

Lindenberger himself may have gotten past the '50's thinking, I just don't someone who made a fortune in that era has. Developers, particularly suburban-style one that Stemmons is known for, still view the freeway exit ramp, not the road itself, as the ticket for increased property values. Also when viewed with the mistaken belief that I-35 will be more free flowing, it is entirely plausible to see why they are for it.

In another irony about this road, research is emerging challenging the belief that congestion is bad the the local economy.

What I said at the beginning of the last post still stands. There is nothing positive about this road, at least for the urban core. And I think it is that point that causes the problem and debate. Dallas is not an urban city and certainly the region is far from being one. Where you stand depends on where you sit. If one isn't concerned with making Dallas a better urban area, then the road has far fewer flaws. If North Park is their idea of a great public space, then of course the freeway makes sense. If transit, walking and cycling are foreign transportation concepts, then is it a surprise that this road is favored.

The only urban area that radically supported the tollroad in 2007 was Uptown. Parts of Oak Cliff did too, but it was much closer. Every other urban area voted it down. But, since the suburban areas within the principle city far outnumber the urban ones, it came down to them. And it was still 54% to 46%. As Dallas urbanizes, as more of the facts come out against the pro-road side and as North Dallas delves further into tea party ideals (I wonder what they would say to a government project that has ballooned in cost), I think the outcome would be much different today.

I Finally Tread There or Why the Trinity Tollroad is a Bad Idea

I have been asked by some readers in person why I haven't written about the proposed Trinity Parkway within the Trinity River Floodway (on the link, I purposely put a proponents website up and will reference that in a minute). I have avoided it because it is a sensitive, highly political subject. One the could effect me personally and/or professionally. But, for reasons that are my own and because reading my posts will allow anyone to see between the lines where I stand, I will discuss them here.

Bottom line, there is nothing right about this project. Nothing. When deciding how I would approach this topic here, I thought the best presentation would be a point-by-point discussion of the major flaws.

For full disclosure, I was a volunteer in the Trinity Vote campaign working to remove this road from the Trinity Park Project. My ideal situation would have been to kill the road altogether, but that was thought to be politically unlikely.

The opening point I want to make is simple and has a wide range of appeal. Why on earth, if you are trying to build a premier recreational park, would you run a high speed road through it? Can you imagine a limited-access highway through Central Park or Prospect Park in New York? Millennium Park in Chicago? Olympic Park in Atlanta? Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming?Or even White Rock Lake here in Dallas? No, of course not. This would ruin the ambient atmosphere that large parks are supposed to generate and provide to the public. When was the last time you specifically can recall going anywhere near a high-speed highway with cars rushing by, without indoor barriers, to relax. The only thing I can think of personally are the firework watchers on July 4th and going to Hurricane Harbor for summer break. Both examples are extreme, because they aren't truly relaxation opportunities. I think the point is made.

The second point features an urban design perspective, and a mistake Dallas is rectifying elsewhere in the city. There are no counterpoints, no rebuttals, no yeah buts, freeways divide the urban landscape. There is a clear delineation between Downtown and Deep Ellum, Downtown and Uptown, Downtown and The Cedars, Downtown and the Industrial/Riverfront Blvd area. Even Knox-Henderson, a singularly defined neighborhood, is clearly divided between east (Henderson St) and west (Knox St). The Trinity Project was supposed to unify, or at least blur the division, between Downtown and the City's only real natural feature. I-35 and the rail lines make a clear division there. In some ways, the Trinity Project is a recognition that freeways divide. Yet, after the bond vote, this project slowly morphed into the one we know today, from a low-speed park access road to a high-speed, limited-access tolled freeway.

Ironically, just a mile away, the city has acknowledged the scar that freeways cause to the urban environment. Klyde Warren Park is a deck park covering Woodall Rogers Freeway with the sole purpose of reuniting that portion of Downtown and Uptown. Yet, the powers-that-be see nothing wrong with running one through a project they call Dallas' Central Park.

Third, this will not relieve Downtown's congestion problem. I have dissected the point before. Paradoxically, this is also the point that likely won the 2007 vote for the folks that wanted the tollroad. Last week, at a DDI membership luncheon, Mayor Mike Rawlings spoke. Recently, he came out for the first time on the issue in support of the road. The day of the luncheon, a Metro section article wrote that some council members who opposed the road brought some things to his attention and he would ask for more information. In referencing that article, he said his stance hadn't changed and asked the audience a question. Earlier that morning, a cattle car turned over, unleashing dozens of cows upon I-35, forcing its closure. He said the only reason he is for the road is for traffic relief and said if the road had been there, the congestion would be lessened. That is a straw mans argument.

First, the direction that was closed would not have been near a point to allow traffic to divert to this road. Second, we know from real world experience that the Induced Traffic Principle will increase traffic on a new road just by being there. The traffic will come just by the increase in the new capacity, causing a temporary, minuscule reduction in congestion on the existing facilities. However, equilibrium will soon be reached on the network where the previous reduction occurred and the existing roadway will just be as crowded as before and the new one will reach a similar point. There are over 40 lanes of freeway surrounding downtown. How can an additional six solve our congestion problem? There has not been a single case anywhere in the world where new roadways solved congestion.

Speaking of never being done before, the fourth point centers around the idea of building in a floodway as virgin territory on this planet. I want to make a distinction on two flood control terms. The Trinity River as is right now is a floodway. It is where a large amount of water is designed to go through in a short amount of time. A floodplain is what most natural rivers are, a place where the banks rise and continue on, going at its own pace, which can be fast or slow. You can build in a floodplain with minimal problems. Many roads do just that. However, a floodway is a much different animal.

Imagine a garden hose. The hose in this case is the floodway. Depending on the pressure, it can be a trickle or a stream. What happens when you put a finger over the opening of the hose, partially reducing the area for the water to vacate the hose? It comes out much faster. That is exactly what is going to happen with this road and exactly the difference between a floodway and floodplain. The road will displace millions upon millions of gallons of water. The only direction for it to go is up and out.

With a floodplain, an obstruction will just cause the water to reroute to another part of the plain. In a floodway, there is no rerouting. It is the finger. The levees will have to be built higher to accommodate the displaced water, but the opening will be narrower. Best practices should be to not reduce flood control capability, right New Orleans?

The fifth point piggybacks off the third and fourth. If we know that congestion is coming, the resulting emissions will have a negative effect in the air and being in the floodway, the water too. I'm not saying engineering can't done to avoid getting most of the runoff into the Trinity River Basin, but anyone who thinks it will be 100% successful in preventing brake dust, oil droppings, tire rubber, etc., from entering the river is naive at best. Our air already violates one of the EPA's benchmarks (ozone). The Trinity is already notorious for its pollution. Is it really in our best interest to make both worse? I would say so, especially if we are trying to make this area a recreational amenity.

Some proponents will say that the reduction in congestion will clean our air, as less cars are idling. I propose this. I can point to any major city on the map and show an example of new roadways failing to relieve congestion. I can point to Vancouver and Toronto as city's that never built a large scale freeway network and therefore who have far fewer congestion problems. I can point to city's like Milwaukee, Portland or San Francisco that tore down freeways and didn't see any increase in congestion. If they can name one city that saw lasting effects of congestion relief from a new or even an expanded freeway corridor, I'll cede that it is possible the Trinity Parkway will accomplish what they say. Until then, I know of no such case study.

The final major point I want to make is how this thing just keeps ballooning in cost. When first proposed in the '90's, the price tag was less than $400 million. When it was redesigned into a limited-access freeway, it was less than $700 million. During the Trinity Vote Campaign, it had just eclipsed $1 billion. As it stands right now, the conservative estimate is $1.4 billion and the maximum range is $1.8 billion. A statistical research paper (I can't remember the author, but can look it up if I am requested) showed that most public works projects, roughly three-quarters, come in over budget. Design isn't finalized, federal approvals haven't come, construction won't happen within a year or two at best. I don't think it is a stretch to conclude this road will exceed two billion.

At $222 million a mile, this would be the highest cost per mile of roadway in the country. What could be built with that money instead? The 27-mile Green Line cost $700 million. Those funds could complete the long sought after Cotton Belt rail line. It could complete the 2030 DART transit plan. Add that to the fact that Dallas is still facing budget issues, it seems that the money is better spent somewhere else. Maybe raise the library's funding to pre-recession levels or restore the street maintenance budget. Now, admittedly, this too is a straw mans argument. The money for this road doesn't exist. It can't be exchanged for something else. But by saying this, I do want to illustrate the priorities of the road backers. "Who cares if a few staffers from each department are fired, we can build a road that will benefit me."

Since roughly only $100 million can be accounted for towards construction, there is a huge funding gap. At the federal level, congress keeps punting the transportation bill down the road because they can't agree what funding is adequate enough to go where. The state just cut $4 billion from schools, I doubt they will find an extra billion laying around. The city just gave their employees a cost of living raise for the first time in four years, I don't think they can finance a huge amount right now.

So how does this thing keep hanging around. If you dig , you'll see the backers are also the ones that would benefit financial, whether real or perceived. Real estate interests along the route want the road. I believe they still cling to a 1960's mode of thinking in that the road will increase the value of their land. It works in a pastoral setting, where a new road allows access. But in the urban core, no new road can increase access. In fact, it can actually decrease the value of the land. Downtown highest land values are the ones furthest away from the freeways. Same thing in Uptown.

Also, there is a lot of money to be made by road builders, designers and engineers. Money that A) they won't get without it and B) money that won't be spent at all. Those folks are the ones pushing for the road. Incidentally, those are also the ones behind the shadowy Citizens Council. Our Mayor also happens to be their representative in the previous Mayor's election. Coincidence?

Now, when looking at proponents arguments, see the first link from road designer HNTB, they almost always include raising the quality of life. If you go by each argument above, how can it do anything but decrease quality of life? If it ruins the appeal of a park, separates the park from the city, adds to the congestion problems, weakens flood control, deteriorates the natural environment and is so costly, where is the upside?