Central Teardown

I am ashamed to admit this, but what I am about to post was published in the Dallas Morning News in early June.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/local-voices/headlines/20130606-j-branden-helms-downtown-could-use-one-less-highway.ece

The Texas Department of Transportation has its eyes on the roughly 1.5 mile stretch of highway between Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Interstate 30. Officials have presented nine rebuild or repair options. But some of us favor a 10th option: demolition.

As an individual with a master’s in planning who isn’t actually working in the field, I certainly am not the most eloquent spokesman for this project. That more aptly belongs to Patrick Kennedy, who has written about this on his blog and been the featured crusader in this paper on the topic. He even has a website devoted to it, anew
dallas.com.

I, however, do have a unique perspective. I have lived in downtown Dallas for seven years and worked in the core almost as long. In all that time, I have used the freeway only a few times.
I have endured the long, lonely walk between downtown and Deep Ellum far more often, and almost every time have lamented the vast emptiness the freeway spawns between two important Dallas urban neighborhoods.

That is what this is about.

Some drivers do use this stretch of highway to get downtown, but most are just passing through. Why are we sacrificing our urban neighborhoods to continue to help Plano, McKinney or Lancaster grow? They are doing great and don’t need Dallas to destroy its urban fabric to help them.

Meanwhile, something the entire region is facing a shortage of — a true, urban, walkable neighborhood — is divided. Imagine if we developed the freeway area. It could be transformed from something that requires money to maintain into something that provides tax revenue.

To some degree, we in Dallas already know this. Look no further than Klyde Warren Park. It has been hailed as a wild success exactly because it un-freeways the area. Instead of dividing these neighborhoods, the park stitches them back together.

So if we can make that case that demolition can be a good thing, why is it not even an option? The answer is really twofold, but both lie in the planning process.

First, TxDOT has built highways for as long as its officials can remember. It is their first responsibility. That works in outlying areas, where there are real estate prices to consider when opening up new land for development. But that doesn’t work for Dallas. What new land will be ready for development if this freeway stub is redone?

The other reason demolition is not considered is how the planning process actually works, usually with an objective listed. With this project, as with almost all of TxDOT’s, officials start with how they can move as many cars as possible for the lowest cost.

Many of the options will require a complete teardown anyway, so the project costs for this option would be drastically lower. And certainly this option has the best return for the city of Dallas and for cash-strapped TxDOT.

Ultimately, the best way to get TxDOT to consider this option is local pressure. The city of Dallas has to care enough. Otherwise it would be a long and bruising battle. There are those who are skeptical that a city that thinks with its car would actually pursue freeway demolition as an answer to some of its urban problems. I think it is possible, but those who are its advocate have to be loud and convincing.

As I alluded to in the article, there are better spokespeople than I. I leave you with the site.

http://www.anewdallas.com/

Can a Love Affair be Forced?

Two posts ago, I discussed the battle of the neighborhood near Fair Park that is bisected by S. M. Wright Freeway versus the Texas Department of Transportation over the revamping of the freeway. To recap, the residents would like a four-lane boulevard and TxDoT would like it six lanes to move what they predict to be a still heavy amount of cars. Unsurprisingly, I sided with the neighborhood.

On Wednesday, The Dallas Morning News published an editorial that basically says they should accept what TxDoT is offering. I encourage the reading of the comments in the link. The comments are different perspectives from the same point of view.

I disagree vehemently with their point, though I am not surprised this is the DMN's view, as the entire editorial board doesn't live near here and a good portion do not even live within the city. They have a hard time understanding something that is against what their way of life is dependent upon. Without highways, they couldn't live where and how they do, and therefore do not, or maybe even can not, understand how highways are bad for inner city neighborhoods.

But here's the part they seem to base their entire point on, which in and of itself is flawed.

TxDOT officials say that a very large number of cars — as many as 40,000 — will still need daily access to S.M. Wright, even after a redesign reroutes 67,000 vehicles from U.S. Highway 175 directly to Interstate 45. TxDOT says anything narrower than a six-lane road would create traffic jams and unacceptable hazards during peak hours.

Quoting TxDoT without any context or rebuttal will lead to a flawed standing. TxDoT either totally ignores or significantly downplays the Induced Traffic Principal. They see traffic as primarily a fixed number based more on supply-and-demand rather than the actual behavioral function that it is in reality.

The reality is that this road will contain very few regional travelers. As I describe the roadway, it can be referenced in this Google Maps link. Tx-310 (S. M. Wright) runs directly parallel to I-45 (Julius Schepps). From Overton Rd., where it turns into a limited access freeway from a surface highway, to I-20, there a twelve intersections, of which three are signaled and one is a cloverleaf. Aside from the cloverleaf, the three signaled and, to a lesser extent, the eight others will slow traffic on their own. That slower traffic is the kind out-of-neighborhood drivers dislike. In fact, zoom in on the road in satellite view and notice just how empty this road is. Moving over to I-45 reveals a lot more vehicles using the roadway.

So as current conditions exist, of the 40,000 cars that TxDoT predicts will use the new roadway, few will come from the current S.M. Wright roadway. That means two things. They predict much of the traffic will come from the neighborhood and/or from drivers from C. F. Hawn Freeway (U.S. 175), which used S. M. Wright to get to I-45 prior to the reconstruction of the right-of-way. Both are flawed, I believe.

First, this is a much more transit-dependent community, so fewer neighborhood trips from within will actually use the road than TxDoT believes. Much of Texas has poor, if any, transit service or other alternatives. Therefore, a higher amount will have to use those roads. However, they use the higher amount, regardless of context. Arlington or my hometown of Midland and this neighborhood, can not be modeled the same. But they are anyway.

Second, very few folks will exit U.S. 175 to use the new S.M. Wright roadway, just to merge with I-45 eventually anyway. This is the point that TxDoT misses when it is directly related to Induced Traffic.

When the freeway portions of C. F. Hawn and Julius Schepps get full, people will figure out a new way, mode or time to travel. With TxDoT assuming a linear function for traffic counts, they assume when the capacity is reached, this overflow will go somewhere else, not change their behavior.

That is the essence of this debate. If TxDoT gets their way, they will do like the southern portion of S.M Wright and build an excessively wide, unneeded roadway that doesn't fit within the neighborhood it runs in, keeping the neighborhood needlessly divided.

This is why I will always debate those that say American love their cars. As long as state agencies like TxDoT unnecessarily focus on highways, then we will always have a lopsided choice. We love our cars because it is the only convenient option, not because they win on an even playing field.

Neighborhood needs Versus Regional Traffic

A couple of months ago, I made my first foray into any aspect of the Trinity River Project, a post about the most controversial portion. While there are many aspects of the project, conceptually, most are not so divisive (though some do become so during construction or afterward). It seems, however, anything involved with transportation in this project does. The Calatrava bridges have generated controversy and the tollroad may be the most divisive issue in the city. But a third portion shouldn't be.

Before I get into details, let me get a few generalities out of the way to set the stage for the rest of the post. Parks are generally not controversial. There aren't many people who say we don't want any parks in my neighborhood. That is a reason why some transportation planners in the sixties began to try and package their freeway plans with a parks component. Freeway revolts had swept many cities across the country and were widely seen by community activists as parasites within the neighborhood rather than a benefactor like planners had. Planners hoped that combining them would increase public support, and in the case of elections, support at the polls.

Aside from race and racial politics, there may be no bigger motivator for civic engagement in cities across the country than transportation projects. The reasons are myriad, but traditionally it has been a battle of neighborhoods versus regionalism.

I have stated before many times that out cities are shaped by the transportation systems that serve them. On a micro-scale, our neighborhoods are no different. Compare Highland Park, generally considered to contain the most desirable neighborhoods in the region, with freeways on its borders to old South Dallas near Fair Park, which is bisected by I-30, I-45, U.S. 175 and a small one-mile-freeway stub in Tx-310, also known as the S.M. Wright freeway. These divided a once functional, if not outright vibrant neighborhood. As the neighborhood ceased to function as originally built after the intrusion of the freeway, those that could move out did and were replaced by the lower class. The neighborhood started its decline. This scene I painted is specifically around the Fair Park area, but applies to countless neighborhoods in cities across this continent.

The Trinity was supposed to rectify some of this. S.M Wright freeway, which contains part of U.S. 175 as well as the freewayed portion of Tx-310, is slated for a redesign. The problem with this freeway as it exists is it runs parallel to I-45, measures a little more than three miles, contains a 90 degree turn onto the C.F. Hawn portion of U.S. 175 and is about 2,000 feet (less than 1/2 mile) at its furthest from I-45. Most freeway planners strive for around five miles between freeways.

So to recap, S. M. Wright is redundant, a neighborhood detractor and dangerous. Seems like a slam dunk for an uncontroversial transportation project within the larger Trinity Project, right. If I said the Texas Department of Transportation is involved, would that change your mind?

I'll give this link from the Dallas Observer to get the meat of the battle between TxDoT, who loves building highways for cars, and activists from the neighborhood.

In the article, I fully support Hank Lawson and the South Dallas Action Plan. Why does TxDoT want six lanes to move so many cars? Because that's what they do. They'd be more accurate if they changed their name to the Texas Department of Highways. They dabble here and there in other forms of transportation, but the vast supermajority of their work is highways. You don't go to a bakery to get deli meats and you don't expect TxDoT to do walkable, pedestrian-oriented infrastructure.

Here's my recommendation, which will sound almost exactly like Lawson's.

1) Connect the C.F. Hawn portion of U.S. 175 with I-45 with a straighter freeway. There is a floodway, parking lot and few homes between the two points. The parking lot and floodplain are easily remedied and I'll get to the homes in a minute.

From the South Dallas Action Plan. The Red Line is the proposed Trinity Tollway. I would only include the red line from C.F. Hawn on the top of the slide to the point where it meets I-45 in the middle. I would also get straighten out the curve and insist on a standard freeway intersection.

By doing this step, Dead Man's Curve and the subsequent death and injury that accompany it are removed. Those risks are still inherent in driving in general, but with a standard freeway connection, the risk is far less.

2) Demolish S. M. Wright Freeway. It is redundant and unneeded, as I detailed above.

3) Ideally, I don't think anything but cross streets need to be restored. However, realizing that step is far too drastic for the auto-centered folks at TxDoT and Dallas officials, I can at least support the concept of a four-lane street, particularly if on-street parking and a landscaped sidewalk are included. This four-lane street would connect with Ceasar Chavez Blvd. at I-45 and meet with the rest of Tx-310 at Overton Rd.

4) Connect every street that was severed by the freeways building. Some of these include, but aren't only, Warren Ave., Copper Dr. and Southland St.

5) Restore the former freeway right-or-way not needed for the street to neighborhood uses, including housing, retail, parks and any other need. For every house that was demoed in recommendation 1, a new one of equal size should be built in the old ROW, minimizing the impact to the occupants of the demoed houses.

Lawson said he thinks traffic will be bad on I-45 because of this neighborhood focus of S. M. Wright's redesign, but I'm not sure. First, I-45 is still the freeway from which U.S. 175 merges. If it passes political muster, the two lanes that are added to I-45 when it merges with U.S. 175 could be added to the freeway at its new intersection. In the end, the lane miles would not decrease, only the freeway's intrusion into the neighborhood.

Second, local traffic will be substantially better. A restored street grid will require far less miles to travel within the neighborhood, regardless if the destination is within or without. The shortest point between two points is the grid. It requires one turn. With the grid severed as is now the case, it requires many. If a driver is west of the freeway and wants to travel north, they have to go south on the frontage roads first. A restored street grid would allow them to make a left turn instead, shaving many miles off just one driver's trip. Collectively, the neighborhoods sees exponentially fewer local miles traveled within the neighborhood, thanks to the improved efficiency.

All of this should be appealing to TxDoT. They strive for efficient movement of cars. But they also can't see local needs precisely because they want to move those cars. In this case, they are saying the neighborhoods needs do not matter because residents of other neighborhoods and suburbs need this road to get where they are going faster and need to zoom through this area to do it.

I have two main frustrations with this line of thought.

I understand TxDoT isn't concerned with land use or neighborhoods. They are concerned about highways. But to ignore the link is foolish. Different land uses require different needs from the highways. Highways encourage different land uses. They are inextricably linked. You shouldn't and I dare say mustn't do one without the other, but TxDoT does.

Given this constraint, the biggest of my two frustrations lies with the City of Dallas. They should be looking out for this neighborhood. They are elected to do that. TxDoT isn't.

There are countless examples, even within Dallas, of the effect different types of streets have on surrounding land uses. Griffin St versus Main in Downtown. McKinney and Cedar Springs in Uptown. Henderson vs. Fitzhugh in Knox-Henderson. Narrower streets are more vibrant. From a financial standpoint, they produce far more revenue than their wider counterparts. They also cost less to maintain. So why the reservation on their end?

I don't have a great answer for that. The only thing I think that has validity is that the city is run by traffic engineers and most of the City Councilmembers still believe the archaic thinking of wider streets, highways and more cars bring prosperity.

In reality, they only give fuel to growth of the places on the outskirts as people are encouraged to live further out as they can easily zoom through the close-in neighborhoods. The current model of city building used in the United States encourages disinvestment of existing areas, rather than an addition of new ones to accommodate growth in the population. Conversely, their archaic line of thinking gives fuel to the decline of these closer in neighborhoods. It is not a coincidence that the most vibrant urban neighborhoods in Dallas do not have a freeway running in the middle.

Until this thinking changes, particularly by elected officials, neighborhoods surrounding these streets and highways will continue to suffer, and that suffering will be to the benefit of the places further out.

Dallas Freeway Division, a Pictorial Tour

Prior to the posts at the beginning of the month, I just assumed (you know what that means) that it was readily accepted that freeways were a divider. Certainly, even among the highway supporters, planners know this. And if you surround yourself with similar viewpoints, there is just no way of seeing the other side.

I was taken aback when Michael Lindenberger, the DMN transportation writer wrote the following on his blog page about my Trinity Parkway post:

2.  ”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 toll road, he says will divide Dallas over again.

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.)




Now he doesn't come right out and say I don't think that freeways divide Downtown from the rest of the urban core, but there is enough gray area in there that I decided to go out with my camera and snap photos of various angles and viewpoints to illuststrate why and how freeways divide urban areas.

The first batch of pictures are taken with an eye towards the macro-view. In the sky deck of Chase Tower, one can see until the horizons ends. It is a great way to see the freeways effects from the bird's eye view.

This bit of Central Expressway connects US-75 with I-45.

The wide swath of land needed for this freeway has negative effects on Deep Ellum on the left and Downtown on the right. This extended bit of land is not a pedestrian-friendly walk. Also notice how the much of the land directly next to the freeway is for parking, another attack on the comfort level of the pedestrian.

Woodall Rogers east of Pearl and north of the Arts District.

Once again, the freeway makes a clear delineation between both sides of its border. On the left is the Winspear Opera House. On the Woodall Rogers side of that building is a wall and loading dock. Next to the Winspear is the Booker T. Washington High School of the Performing Arts, where on Woodall Rogers side is another parking lot. Across the street from the school is a full block-sized parking lot, though it is in the development plan to be a tower I don't know the design or setbacks, but don't suspect it to open up to the freeway). On the Uptown side, it is more of the same.

Woodall Rogers and the new deck park.

I like this picture because it shows that at some level, someone in the City gets it. Why build such an expensive park, unless their is some extreme positive, or in this case, a positive to mitigate an negative?

I added this one to show the upclose view from above. It is hard to determine from a cursory glance that a freeway is under here. None of the other pictures can make that claim, because that is the first thing that is noticed when viewing them. Finding the freeway has been easy until this past one.

Knowing what I know, I could tell from the picture (the circular exit ramp at the lower right, the drive-through bank adjacent to the park in the middle toward the top, the blank wall of the Nasher Sculpture Center near the lower left and the garage entrance and surface devoted to the car at the DMA) that at the bare minimum, this spine was an auto-throughway of some kind. Design issues aside, this area doesn't "look" like something runs through it. Panning out a bit will reveal the end of the park and the resumption of the freeway, but at this point above, there are fewer negative spillovers.

At the pedestrian level, it is much worse. In some ways, having an identifier is human nature. One of the first places people look at in regional maps is Downtown, since it is the bullseye of the hub and spoke system or DFW airport, since it is so massive. How it is used from a personal perspective is much more important, though, while also much less identifiable. In some ways, this gets to one of my main critiques about Downtown Dallas. Is great from a distance, but once inside, there is a lot that is lacking, just a bunch of pieces shouting for attention without working with the other parts.

Under Central Expressway, just south of Elm Street looking north.

Were it not for Univision Center on the right or the Hart Furniture Building on the left, there would nothing even close to resembling an urban area from this viewpoint. All the columns, streets, overhead noise, etc. are pedestrian suppressors. Add the fact that this is only a pass through, since nothing here would actually generate any pedestrian activity, and it is no wonder pedestrians are a rare sight here.

Elm and Olive looking east.

A garage on the right, parking lots on the left and a freeway straight ahead. What is there to walk to? There are a smattering of one-two story buildings just past the garage, but nothing to compensate for the huge hole of nothing that the freeway, parking lots and garage generate. Therefore, pedestrians are not as common as they should be if this were a vibrant urban area.

Main Street just before Ceasar Chavez, looking east.

On this part of Main Street, the urban environment is a bit better than the previous picture. There are no huge swaths of open parking, the built environment goes to within a block of the freeway on both the Downtown and Deep Ellum sides and there is a good bit of on-street parking. So why is the area still devoid of human life? There is no critical mass of urban amenities like you will find further in (picture coming) on Main St. Instead, the freeway generates no pedestrian activity and the remaining sides don't have enough activity to overcome that difficiency.

Main Street just west of Central Expressway looking east.

If this picture doesn't make your feel uncomfortable, then you have nerves of steel. Both sides of Main Street have a freeway ramp, as opposed to one for both Elm and Commerce and none for Canton. I don't think I have to spend a lot of time on this topic because I don't think crossing freeway ramps is on any list of recreational activities.

Commerce and Ceasar Chavez looking east.

 Once again, there is development within a block of the freeway. But no people.

Also, have you noticed that in the last four pictures, it is hard to see the other side. That is crucial to a pedestrian experience. To the user, it is clear the end of the urban area is the freeway. To a user, it is clear that there are no people, signifying a do not enter sign to the brain.

Canton St looking east.

This one is more of the same. However, upon closer inspection, these buildings are built fairly close to the freeway. But, they aren't positive for the urban area, because...

Looking at the edge of the Camden Farmers Market, Canton and Good-Latimer looking west.

Camden Farmers Market, Canton and Good-Latimer looking southwest.

These pictures illustrate the back nature of designing by a freeway. Only one building looks inviting toward the street and from this corner. The rest are a blank walls, fences, garages or sparsely populated windows on the walls. Unless it is by car, very few would willingly approach this property from this vantage.

There was an attempt of some kind to mitigate some negatives of the freeway. A dog park was put under part of Central Expressway, hoping to help link Deep Ellum and Downtown.

Bark Park, under Central Expressway between Commerce and Canton.

If I take this one from the point of it is better than what was there and accept that this area will never be anything but a freeway, I like what was done. If I change that approach and say an urban area should be _____, then this area definately underwhelms.

Because the rest of the urban area still reflects being next to the freeway, this park is an island. The Camden apartments are right across, but as the pictures reflect, they don't open up to this area. Directly adjacent are streets on three sides and the back wall of a produce company.

Bark Park's west side.

Nothing says inviting like metal siding.

This park doesn't really link to its surroundings. Unlike what should happen in an urban area, this park and surrounding land uses feel like independent bits of their parts of the city, ignoring the other adjacent parts. This is directly attributable to the negative impacts of the freeway. Main and Market Streets are the exact opposite.

While this park is used, it is one of the lower attended dog parks in the City's park system. There are still negative aspects that freeways produce, noise, pollution and uneasiness the primary ones, that don't help boost use. The other sad fact is despite being in the middle of the Deep Ellum and Downtown border, very, very few actually walk here. Because the surrounding area is built more for the car, most drive, even those that live in the Camden property next door.

 Now take the pictures from above, showcasing the fragmented urban areas that the freeways spawned and compare them to the Main Street or Market Street corridors.

Main and St. Paul, looking west.

There is no obvious end to the Main Street District while inside it. In this picture, it seems to go on for a bit, while the end of the view corridor is bookended nicely by the Crowley/Sterrit complex at the far west side. For the first time in these pictures, we can actually see pedestrians. Here, unlike near the freeway, there is actually a reason for them to be here.

Market and Elm, looking north.

 Market Street shares many of the same pedestrian amenities as Main, which is also why they are the most walkable streets in downtown.

Now unlike the park scenario, there really is no building on either of these streets (at least the vibrant parts) that command attention. Each function well with the other, showcasing how the sun of the parts are really greater than the whole.

Now, I don't want this to sound like freeways are the only bad urban divider.

Dealey Plaza, looking west.

Here, the old rail bridge, which is currently used by DART trains, the Trinity Railway Express and Union Pacific freight trains, is clearly a divider between Downtown and the Riverfront area. I-35 is also in view in the picture, further dividing the areas. Dealey Plaza, thanks to a presidential assination, is the most visited spot in Dallas, but no spillover goes to Riverfront. The rail bridge and freeway see to that.

Ironically, it is fact that makes one of the negative aspects for the Trinity Parkway, dividing Downtown from the Trinity Park, a moot point. It is already divided. Anyone originating from Downtown going to the park is almost guaranteed to drive. Some may take transit in the form of a bus or future streetcar, but walking is all but guaranteed to be non-existent.

However, unlike freeways, other infrastructure investments, if designed right, don't have to be dividers.

West End Station at Market and Pacific, looking east.

I took this picture of West End Station because it is the most used station in the DART system. Roughly 20,000 trips are generated to and from this point. Yet, as the picture shows, both sides of the station work in concert with each other. The new residential building on the left opens up directly to the street and rail station, as well as Lamar and Ross Streets. On the right is a historic warehouse waiting to be renovated. But, unlike the transportation investments made toward freeways, this area is far from adversely affected. Instead of looking inward and putting their backs to the street, this area is the reverse.
I could have easily taken a picture of the streetcar line in Uptown and said the same thing. It helps unify both sides, which freeways by themselves can never do.

Teardown as a Freeway Mitigation

A week ago, I posted a brief tour of various cities negative freeway effects. Some of those cities have instituted a few mitigation programs to minimize or eliminate their effects. Freeway demolition is a tool that is sparingly used, but as freeways approach the end of their usable lifespan, it is receiving a lot more attention.

A construction disaster collapsed the West Side Highway in New York. By policy, Portland lost Harbor Drive and Milwaukee demoed the Park East Freeway. An earthquake helped remove the Embarcadero Freeway. New Orleans is considering demoing the Claiborne Expressway (I-10) and back in New York, the Sheridan Expressway (I-895) is facing an uncertain future about its existence.

The one common thread through these examples is the relatively short freeway lengths. These were small spurs through the urban environment. However, another city may become the greatest freeway removal example to those promoting the urban benefits.

In the fourth example I gave in the case study post above, Baltimore's I-83, the Jones Falls Expressway, as a perfect example of an urban divider, separating the city from its parks. Well, turns out there is a movement afoot to remove it.

There are two options mentioned. The first was the typical stub. Less that a mile of the roughly 10-mile long freeway would meet the wrecking ball. For the map-inclined folks like myself, that is from Fayetteville St to Chase St in Downtown Baltimore.

Since it isn't Dallas related, I likely wouldn't have posted this if it was just that portion, especially since this proposal (I even think it is too early to call it a proposal) is still in the infant stage. What I want to post is that for the first time, an entire freeway is being talked about for removal.

In a sixty-page PowerPoint entitled "Fallsway: A New Downtown Neighborhood for Baltimore, MD," Edison shows the taking down of the JFX as key to redeveloping an area that would reach east to the blighted Old Town neighborhood (and beyond that to Hopkins Hospital) and west to Mount Vernon and the Downtown business district.

Johns Hopkins Health Care Center is at the complete opposite end of the 10-mile highway. That is huge!


The before shot. Note the clear deliniation of either side of the highway. There isn't a much clearer example of a freeway dividing the urban landscape. Add the fact that it is elevated and the pedestrian sure feels the division.

There is a directly parallel light rail line (MTA's Blue Line) six miles from Downtown. It is less than a mile away for the rest of the route. The only area this rail line doesn't serve that the freeway does is the hospital, but a bus route does (poor frequency would have to be addressed) and connects to both the Blue Line and the Heavy Rail Line that is color coded green. This would help transit use soar in this area.



The after. While there is still a clear visual seperation, the addition of parks and a taming of the street, not to mention the addition of urban buildings, will make the area near-seamless to the urban user.

Downtown's built environment would be helped out by either proposal, but just the idea of tackling a freeway removal in an outer area is virgin territory. It is just in the beginning of preliminary talks, but if this were to happen, the momentum of freeway removal will be huge.

American Cities and the Waterfront Division

In response to Steve's comment in the post below this one, I want to illustrate the severing of the urban area by freeways from several other cities in our country, some who have taken steps to mitigate the problem, some who are considering ideas and others who are doing nothing.

First up is Boston, a city with perhaps the most famous and expensive mitigation project, the Big Dig. I-93 divided Downtown Boston and the Waterfront, displacing thousands of residents in the process. The Big Dig put the freeway in a tunnel, which united the two areas again. Property values have gained as a result.

This image taken during the Big Dig's construction shows how divided the city is from the waterfront.

Note that the I-93 portion through Downtown is not the only area where the freeway lays directly next to the waterfront.

New York's Robert Moses was the pioneer of not only freeway building, but placement by waterways and parks. Every single borough in the city has at least some portion of its waterfront and parkways lined with a freeway. Moses also planned a freeway to run across Midtown and the SoHo neighborhoods. One shudders to think of the devastation that these freeways would have brought to these vibrant areas.

All five boroughs in New York are divided from the waterfront.

The West Side Elevated Highway collapsed on Manhattan's West Side in the '70's. The City decided against rebuilding, reverting the corridor back to a surface street from Lower Manhattan to Midtown.

Philadelphia is another perfect example of this era of planning. I-76, I-95 and I-676 were all built next to the rivers of the area. As far as I know, there hasn't been any progress in removing or mitigating these freeways.

Staying on the East Coast, Baltimore and Washington D.C. followed the same example. Baltimore saw I-95, I-695 and I-895 built next to waterways. In addition, I-83 is the border for three major parks, severing the surrounding built environment from a potential asset.

Washington D.C. avoided the severing within its boundaries, but the region sure didn't. I-295, Anacostia Freeway and George Washington Memorial Parkway all border rivers. Also, many of the freeways border parklands, further dividing and isolating the area.

In Chicago, Lake Shore Drive divided downtown from Lake Michigan, I-94, I-90 and I-55 border the Chicago River and I-294 border a local waterway.

Portland, Oregon is often cited as a positive example of planning principles and the freeway removal from the downtown waterfront is one of the highest. Harbor Drive ran on the west side of the Willamette River. It was closed in the '70's so a new park could be built in its place, allowing for recreation along the river.

Harbor Drive was a scar on the urban landscape. Now, this area is a neighborhood recreational amenity.

Portland also killed several freeways drawn up by Robert Moses during the '70's.

The Green are highways not built. Some would have bordered the rivers. Portland instead spent the money on expanding their rail system.

Finally, San Francisco is a city that has A) built freeways bordering San Francisco Bay, B) demolished freeways bordering the Bay and C) canceled planned freeways that were to be built by the Bay.

Current freeway map of San Francisco

The route the Embarcadero freeway ran, clearly dividing the City from San Francisco Bay.

The freeway plan for San Francisco. The entire Bay side would have been cutoff as well as some of the parkland in the middle of the city.

One of the points I want to make is that the urban areas always suffer more from freeway construction. With the exception of D.C., which was able to avoid large scale construction within the urban area, these freeways divide once contiguous neighborhoods, displaced thousands upon thousands of residents and commercial structures and altered future development in an anti-urban fashion. Some cities are able to mitigate these effects, some aren't or haven't.

But the question I continually go back to is this; if we know what this does to urban areas, if we know the negative impacts and consequences, why are we trying to repeat it with the Trinity Parkway? It will not only be built next to Dallas' only body of water, but will also be built in parkland. It is repeating every 1950's era freeway building mistake our country made. Why can't City Officials learn from the mistakes of other cities?

Freeway mitigation

The Dallas Morning News published an interesting story about the efforts to mitigate the strangling effects of the ring of freeways around downtown. In essence, it acknowledges that freeways, particularly elevated ones, diminish the urban quality of life (though conversely, it is essential to the suburban quality).

It detailed the mitigation effects, like the Woodall Rogers deck park over the sunken portion of that freeway, cleanup and landscaping under the elevated that crosses Ross, landscaped rocks by the new train line and painted columns and fancy shapes painted into the elevated beams near Deep Ellum.

This elicits several reactions from me, but the first is always why must we accommodate the car as is? Several cities have removed freeways for various reasons and several more are in the planning stages of removal. Why can't Dallas join them?

I'm not advocating removing all freeways, but it makes sense to remove the stubs and subsections within the urban core. If I had it my way, Woodall Rogers and I-345 that connected U.S. 75 with I-45 would be built at-grade and require cars to slow down. If they are through traffic, they would then route on the outer loops, fulfilling their original purpose.

But back to the mitigation effects. Aside from the park, which has other issues I may delve into at some other point, none of those fulfill any urban requirement. A good urban area doesn't have places you just pass through. All components add something to where the whole functions at a much greater rate than the sum of its parts. Very few people go to an area to look at its landscaping. People do go to a restaurant to eat its food, pass by a shop to by its and purchase its wares or a park to recreate. The better the public space, the more activity it brings, the a public space it becomes, the more activity, and so on.

Jane Jacobs, in her seminal piece, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, describes the effect much better than I can, but essentially, the dead spaces magnify the dead zone, as those on the periphery of the "active" zone are performing less than optimal. A good urban area is one where boundaries are arbitrary. One urban area ends right where another begins and the definitions vary between people. Freeways are an absolute boundary. No one questions were downtown ends and the other areas begin.

So, as per usual Dallas, instead of working for optimal, they are working to maintain the status quo, only a little better. Aside from the limited deck park, the rest is purely lipstick on a pig. The freeways are still dividing the neighborhoods, still creating dead zones and still holding back cohesive urban development. Downtown will always be separated from Deep Ellum, Uptown, The Cedars and The Trinity.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it is better to do something rather than nothing. But, in my mind, this is trying to put out a house fire with a bucket. It is better than nothing, but in the end, it makes little difference.

Finally, I see a lot of ironies here. The same people who are acknowledging the boundaries the freeway makes were the same ones who said that the Trinity River tollroad would be a divider in the park. Either they have had a change of heart or this is politics as usual. I know which one I pick.