Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

tanzoak

A little off topic, but it's funny that a year or two ago, we were all talking about an economic slowdown. I suppose a slowdown is inevitable and anything can happen, but I'm honestly (pleasantly) surprised at how much construction we are still seeing to this day. People been talking about a slowdo...

tanzoak

Maybe the population growth in downtown neighborhoods will allow buses to become more functional. I mean, yeah, this is the biggest issue. Downtown Dallas needs another 300k employees working there. The lack of a critical mass of employment, and job sprawl more generally, really makes effective mas...

tanzoak

^ A short comparison of farebox recovery ratios: https://metro.fandom.com/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio DART is an outlier on the low end at 13%. Keep in mind that is operating expenses only, not capital expenses. I've heard it said that the money DART gets from fares doesn't do much more than cover ...

tanzoak

It seriously is one of the worst consumer experiences ever. Bumpy, LOUD, slow as molasses, obnoxiously meandering routes (okay, this is DART's fault), inconsistent connections, and completely unreliable. Sure some of that can be helped, but nearly all of it is because the bus is subject to vehicula...

tanzoak

The ACS may not be the best tool to use to skin this cat: https://onthemap.ces.census.gov Someone can select Fort Worth and then map what counties the city's workers are employed in, and see the top 100 counties in 2017. Then they can change the search and map what other Places (Cities and Census D...

tanzoak

The latest Census Bureau statistics, and the latest Ft. Worth Star Telegram article, confirm in fact that seems to have become reality. To wit: "But a large number of Fort Worth residents — nearly 192,000 people — still leaves the city for work, Census data shows. Between 2005-14, the percenta...

tanzoak

Honestly, *nobody* has experience with operations that involve flying jets on magnetic rails inside of a vacuum-sealed tube. It's political willpower/obstruction and public perception that stalls our projects... not the ability to implement a technology. It's not a political willpower thing. We spe...

tanzoak

The US is a backwater with respect to transportation infrastructure other than highway projects. We simply do not have the experience to engender any kind of confidence that this would be a successful project here. We can build 19th century technology (i.e. subway) only at a 5-10x cost premium to We...

tanzoak

I had heard that (at the height of the boom) DFW was adding ~300-400 residents a day, I just wasn't sure how consistent that number was. Although the boom cycle has been lasting a while, I just assumed whoever first released that number just took a snapshot of some of our best months and released t...

tanzoak

From checking their website, it looks like the 1BRs start at $2400, while the 2BRs start at $4200. That makes more sense, though it's still quite a hefty price difference. And it's not my understanding that Dallas has been building a ton of 1BRs with few larger options, so that wouldn't explain it. ...

tanzoak

A quick glance at the website indicates the approx. pricing for apartments... 1 Bedroom- $2500 / 2 Bedroom- $6000 / 3 Bedroom- $12,000 I'm assuming they can find enough gullible buyers to pay these prices. I mean don't get me wrong, the finish-outs are spectacular! I am extremely confused by these ...

tanzoak

While I haven't seen the finalized plans, I saw the drafts and it's pretty comprehensive. Lane narrowing, addition of parallel parking, trees planted as buffers, decorative pavement, bumpouts, streetlights, neighborhood entry signage and some more complex work closer to 75 to clear up the congestio...

tanzoak

Driverless vehicles are being considered for the Midtown area, as well as a people-mover system being backed by NCTCOG. Sounds like a bit of cart-before-the-horse, but maybe I'll be wrong. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2018/12/22/transit-planners-using-valley-views-prolonged-demise...

tanzoak

It'll come time in Dallas City Council to allow for development without too much parking, especially residential and hotel. I mean, why not allow it now. I highly doubt there would be any interest from developers in very low- or no-parking buildings at the moment, but why wait until after the marke...

tanzoak

I've seen some talk of a potential slowdown on this forum, so I thought that now would be a good time to give some data updates. The graphs below are the number of residential units given building permits over the prior 12-month period. So the start of the graph is for Feb 2009-Jan 2010, and the las...

tanzoak

Yeah, the City's initial light touch approach of just requiring data sharing and waiting to see what issues arose before regulating was excellent. It was what allowed the service to grow here much more quickly and extensively than in other places, despite the poor fundamentals of bicycling in Dallas...

tanzoak

I’m unclear what “misconceptions” that is supposed to clear up. Dallas wanted to charge operators $275,000 per year in total, $18/bike.

The idea that the City needs to hire four new employees (two office staff and two enforcement officers) to work full-time monitoring the bikes is absurd.

tanzoak

Bus route times are notoriously variable, so even the best-timed connections can be messed up when a bus is held up in traffic. It's all connected. Buses shouldn't be held up in traffic because they should have their own lanes anywhere congestion might significantly impact service. Enforcement is a...

tanzoak

A large part of the reason dockless hasn't been as successful in the US is regulation and fees. Sure, Dallas' $21/bike was less than Seattle's $50/bike. But, spoiler alert, Seattle's program crashed and burned after that too. Saying that it's lower than another fee that helped kill a market doesn't ...

tanzoak

Late last week, D Magazine looked into the ugliness of the newer crop of apartments around the area. https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2018/12/were-still-trying-to-understand-why-new-apartments-are-so-ugly/ Basically all housing from all time periods is just a copy-paste job that contemporary a...

tanzoak

Who do they think they are fooling they will outlaw these as soon as a few taxpayers complain just like they did with the bikes. The scooters are only surviving right now because the city granted them a delay on taxing the scooter companies. As soon as city hall decides to start taxing Bird and Lim...

tanzoak

I’m not against looking at how others solve real problems to find solutions to ours. But these solutions from elsewhere will need a local Texas twist to make them valid here. Texans are capable of finding their own solutions to our problems. Hughes Tool Company, Texas Instruments, and Southwest Air...

tanzoak

Real-talk though, the unwillingness of US transit operators to look overseas for best practices (real, operational best practices, not these kind of gimmicks) is a significant part of the reason why US transit provision is so bad. What operational practices should we import from overseas? One of th...

tanzoak

I am personally tired of reading transplanted non-native Texans proposing solutions from elsewhere to problems that do not exist here. Texans are not stupid, we have developed our own traditions and solutions to problems. We do not want Texas, and specifically Dallas and Fort Worth, to turn Into Ch...

tanzoak

If you're quoting enough text to take up the entire screen, you're being annoying. Internet fighting is part of the deal, but we don't need to see the same wall of quoted text in post after post.

tanzoak

Seattle's bus system is actually useful, unlike Dallas' rail system. Number of miles or number of stations is irrelevant if you're not actually providing a competitive way to get from place to place. The way that Seattle makes their bus system useful is by prioritizing buses over cars with things li...

tanzoak

Has this link been posted already? [url]Weirsplaza.com[/url] Don’t think I’ve seen this rendering from GFF site. I like the change to parallel parking on Travis, but they really need to reduce that curb radius at the Knox/Travis corner. They'll be rebuilding it anyway, so might as well do it right ...

tanzoak

I noticed that too, but I like it. That's a big trend in NYC these days. I like it too, and I wouldn't mind a few more like that. I mean, it's just some quirky trend or anything, that's just what happens in high-demand areas when FAR is the binding zoning constraint. You have a given amount of squa...

tanzoak

On another note, it does make me sort of laugh to think Amazon is just going to land whatever tech talent they want from these feeder institutions of higher education. As if every graduate is just going to go to work for Amazon once they graduate. They will face significantly greater competition fo...

tanzoak

And that's not just some prestige game, either. There are tangible, rational reasons why ambitious young grads (or really ambitious people of any age) prefer to locate in a place like NYC. It offers a deep pool of cutting-edge companies and startups that you can switch to to advance your career or p...

tanzoak

It drives me insane that every article talking about the lack of tech talent/higher education in Dallas ignores UT, A&M, and OU grads. I understand they aren't in the metro, but all three schools are huge, high quality, feeders to the Dallas job pool in addition to SMU, TCU, UTD, and UTA. I wou...

tanzoak

We do 4>3 lane conversions (going from 2 through lanes in each direction to 1 in each direction plus a middle turn lane) on higher volume roadways than this without difficulty. In this case, I imagine they'd take it from 7 lanes to 5 (eliminating 1 through lane in each direction). That's still a ver...

tanzoak

Converting neighborhood infrastructure to the benefit of neighborhood residents rather than non-residents improves cost/benefit of city living. Tam, sometimes I wonder if you're just trolling to get attention. I think you'll find very few thoroughfares in Dallas that are more dedicated to residents...

tanzoak

Sadly developers will come in build up and be gone before the city even thinks about making the area urban/pedestrian oriented. The one decent outcome of our stupid development process out here in the Bay Area is that the city makes improving the adjacent pedestrian infrastructure a condition of ap...

tanzoak

God this building looks so cheap and gross Doesn't look cheaper than a surface lot. Nobody is going to invest 200MM developing a building in a part of town that hasn't seen any construction activity in ages. This and the rennovation of the Belo will hopefully breathe new life in to an area that des...

tanzoak

I wish we could get a nice block of 8-10 mid rise buildings throughout this side of town. I’m fairly sure they have to under the Farmers Market PD No, they don't. Zoning basically never requires a minimum density, and this is no different. Developers could build large lot single family homes if the...

tanzoak

Also it's not that big a deal that the median home price is disconnected from the median income because the median earner rents, they don't own. Dallas will share that same distinction in the next decade or so. You have it backwards. Housing prices out of line of incomes doesn’t matter to current h...

tanzoak

It's amazing that people still flock to the west coast. The desire to be there is undeniable. Great place. Eh, except they don't really. Last year LA had net negative domestic migration of -110k, SJ of -26k, and SF of -24k. The only group of people with positive migration to California are college ...

tanzoak

LA's biggest issue for some time has been the disparity between income and housing prices. Sure, much of coastal CA is expensive, but nearly all of it makes up with it to a degree with higher incomes. This is not so much the case with Los Angeles, however. Yeah, median household income in LA and Da...

tanzoak

While I'm happy to have construction go in there, it's lame that it'll be shorter than the surrounding buildings.

tanzoak

I'd be okay with delays if they expanded the sidewalks ( or created them portions of Gaston don't even have sidewalks!) Or if they added bikelanes. But this isn't advocating anything. Yeah, the obvious actual solution to the issue those residents are identifying is a road diet on Gaston, like a sta...

tanzoak

^ I know you're trying to be funny, but it's not. Perhaps you should meet some of the folks who've been assaulted, raped and robbed in Deep Ellum. It's no joke...every other news story about these incidents ends with practically the same last sentence: "The suspects were last seen headed towar...

tanzoak

Wow. Gaston gets twice the volume of Grand from Garland. And these people want to make the through movement go on Garland because maybe it'll trick drivers into taking the other route? lol Look at that vehicle delay! The 1,596 vehicles going from Garland to Gaston would see their average delay incre...

tanzoak

311 emailed me back one day and said they'd do something eventually about the whole cluster-f crosswalk from hell by Rolex. Meanwhile, there is actually basically a crossing-guard at the intersection of doom for the last year or so. > https://twitter.com/CTroyMathis/status/1000366084749393921 That'...

tanzoak

Just got this link to an update on DART projects today Buried in the description for the D2 subway is this: Although DART did not receive funding from the FTA, DART is currently reviewing potential funding sources to keep development of the D2 Subway on track. http://dartdallas.dart.org/2018/06/29/...

tanzoak

I've mentioned this a few times, but I want to describe a bit more why the CB ridership projections are likely to be overstated. Travel models work by looking at how everyone is currently traveling, developing formulas from that based on demographic characteristics (age, income) and travel character...

tanzoak

As a transit agency, it is DART's duty to move people in its service area. One of these lines moves more people than the other. Well, yeah. D2 moves way more people than CB.. Not only in terms of people using the stations, but there’s also the through-rides that CB doesn’t have. If what you’re talk...

tanzoak

The 2nd Avenue subway is a good example. The net new ridership is probably minimal (a few fewer taxi rides from Yorkville), with most of the ridership simply diverted from the 4/5/6. But the benefit is massive, with reduced crowding on the 4/5/6 (which helps with delays as well as comfort), reduced ...

tanzoak

3. Regardless, new ridership isn't so much the point of D2, whereas it is the sole reason for CB. Resilience/redundancy, operational flexibility, decreased travel times for existing riders, increased potential capacity.. D2 is pretty good at improving what it's meant to improve, while CB (with new ...

tanzoak

I wonder where all that empty acreage is in New York City. I have rarely ever seen an empty space there. Rochester, buffalo, Houston, Tampa, etc....less available space than nyc and Chicago. I have been to all theses cities, this report is highly questionable. The size of the “CBD” they’re using fo...

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