Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

tanzoak

Arguments based upon getting federal funds, and by what percentages, is slightly jumping the gun because neither project is guaranteed matching federal transit funding or low cost federal loans. And projects can change to get them, like the Green Line Love Field subway station being dropped during ...

tanzoak

I don't want to get into the weeds with this recurring argument, but a few points: 1. While overall project costs between the two are similar, the feds will likely be picking up the tab for half of D2 v less than 10% for Cotton Belt (though the rest is financed by very low interest loans from the fe...

tanzoak

Any news on D2? Is construction starting soon? They got full funding for both the D2 and Cotton Belt, so i'm guessing they are going to be built at the same time No they didn't. They submitted an LPA for D2 but still need to do environmental review. DART is anticipating a decision on D2 in Sep 2019...

tanzoak

What the hell. To be honest, I wouldn't have enough recognized that as a bike rack. If no one at the City has ever locked a bike before, it's not that tough to just ask someone if this makes any sense. I have some hot-off-the-presses FREE CONSULTING ADVICE: just do u-racks. They don't take up much r...

tanzoak

1. This is probably why the city of Dallas does not require a flat 1.5 parking spaces per unit. I believe the Code requires one space per bedroom, with a one space per apartment minimum. My only point has been that according to your stats, the regulations look to be very much on target and do not i...

tanzoak

All very interesting, but it has little to do with your original inquiry of how closely the parking requirements align with demand. Using your numbers (which only counts the number of vehicles kept at home by the residents, does not count parking spaces used by visitors, etc. and therefore falls sh...

tanzoak

This is exactly what I am referring to. We have these bits and pieces, but unlike most metros, none of them are connected. You should be able to take a train from Downtown Fort Worth up to Frisco... or Denton to City Line, or Downtown Dallas to Legacy West. And with a consolidated regional commuter...

tanzoak

Nearly every major city has a decent commuter rail network. DFW does not, and it really should. Building the Cotton Belt on it's own wouldn't accomplish much. But, if done as a greater, regional commuter network, reaching up to Frisco, Denton, down through TRE corridor, plus downtown fortworth and ...

tanzoak

Also, just a reminder that projections for new lines in heavily auto-oriented contexts tend to significantly overestimate ridership. We're good at forecasting the ridership of things like the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan. We're bad at forecasting the ridership of things like the Cotton Belt, an...

tanzoak

Whether ridership is high or low, it gives far more people more options than they have now. "More options" is basically tautological. Unless a line is built that exactly duplicates an existing line, it will provide more options. The question is whether the new options are useful options, ...

tanzoak

DPatel304 wrote:I've only been to this area once before, so maybe I'm wrong, but isn't this a bad thing? Seems like a way to prioritize cars over pedestrians in an urban part of town.

Yeah, what a weird thing to do.

tanzoak

I was curious about parking demand in these places, so I checked out some census data on the number of vehicles kept at home. Uptown currently averages 1.42 cars per household. So the code requires providing more parking (1.5/unit) than Uptown residents actually use. Wasteful. Old East Dallas curren...

tanzoak

They have also implemented paid parking at the Market. Can anyone else think of a retail center in Dallas that has paid parking?? The people in charge just keep shooting themselves in the foot. Where's the paid parking? Is that in the tiny lot between the market and Mudhen? I typically expect to pa...

tanzoak

NIMBY's in Uptown are trying to destroy the neighborhood's vibrancy. I completely understand the issues regarding the party scene; however, chasing away visitors and traffic isn't good for ANY business, including the good establishments. There's simply not enough people living in the neighborhood t...

tanzoak

ULI/PwC’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate report has placed Dallas in the top five most promising real estate markets in the United States for the last four years. The report highlights massive job and population growth, relatively low cost of living/business , access to space and access to talent a...

tanzoak

Uptown isn't really dense enough to guarantee a lot of activity. It's still going to be reliant on drawing people from outside the neighborhood to create a decent level of street activity, regardless of how auto-oriented it is or isn't. Uptown is decently dense in terms of buildings and height, but ...

tanzoak

Nobody is interested in jumping on some ghetto public transit in 100 degree heat just to go eat at Olive Garden. The restaurants aren't even open yet and gang bangers have already tagged the retaining walls with graffiti. I'm sure it would be pretty awesome for developers to bring a high end develo...

tanzoak

Who cares about airport access? Residents of Plano & Richardson can hop on the GBush and have a 25 minute drive to DFW, 45 at rush hour. I'm sure it won't be more than 60 by 2040; most likely the exact same. Richardson residents get DART, not bus access, E/W and N/S which means they will at mos...

tanzoak

(4) 12th Street Too close to Cityline/Bush Station. It's not needed for a Red Line transfer. It's too far away from downtown Plano to attract much ridership. I believe 12th Street is in there because that's where the tracks have to go if you want to go down to CityLine. Preston Road is clearly the ...

tanzoak

It's half a mile radius. If people aren't willing to walk that far, then a transit system is never going to work and the money shouldn't be spent. 20 years is plenty of time to rework the street grid in that area to make it conducive to walking that far. And if you want to call '2000 rides a day' 2...

tanzoak

Also this line has constantly been sold as allowing the residents of Plano to get to the airport, but then they don't actually expect anyone to ride it for that purpose, and one of the busiest Plano-adjacent sites (Coit) is considering being scrapped until later. I just wish they would be more hone...

tanzoak

Maybe but it's not correlated to that either. Otherwise, downtown Carrollton (#1 in ridership) would be #8. I guess they are basically counting cannibalization of the existing line to be added to Carrollton's numbers. Knoll Trail has almost as many jobs & residents as Addison, but it's got 1/3 ...

tanzoak

That’s not that surprising, really. First, network distance is a lot farther than spatial distance, particularly in suburban settings like these. So what you have within 1/2 mile walking (network) distance is just a couple of apartment complexes and an office building. Ridership at these stations is...

tanzoak

^this is the correct take

tanzoak

At least in the financial district, they were everywhere the first few days until the city confiscated them. And they were being left in places where people could easily trip over them. Glad the city is passing rules to get them regulated. Would not want to happen here with these what I saw in Dall...

tanzoak

$996 million out of the $1.14 billion would ultimately come from local sources, though mostly through utilizing very low interest loans.

tanzoak

http://i65.tinypic.com/28smyjb.png Ah, apparently they're just anticipating that no one uses those stations. Though the lowest ridership station is actually 12th street, with a whopping 370. And this is with the 20-min peak headways, which is a long-term aspirational goal, rather than the planned 3...

tanzoak

Omg lol and even if we were to forget that we were in the north Dallas suburbs, the transit connections at these stations are basically non-existent. A single line with 30/60 min headways at Knoll Trail, and two lines to Preston road--two 30/60 headways (with one proposed to be upgraded to all-day 3...

tanzoak

The Knoll Trail and Preston Road stations will have neither pick-up/drop-off areas nor dedicated parking. Riders could access the station on foot, by bicycle, or via connecting transit services.

Um.. what

tanzoak

The DEIS is up: http://www.dart.org/ShareRoot/about/exp ... il2018.pdf

tanzoak

To bring us back to the main discussion here is the last submitted plan for removing the bus lane as is now and relocating it one lane over. Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 9.43.03 AM.pngScreen Shot 2018-04-10 at 9.42.43 AM.png I mean, I know what image they have in their minds, but these changes don't g...

tanzoak

Those numbers are driven by the American Airlines Arena contract requirements. The operator of the arena is not here to argue urban redevelopment and reduced parking for transit use. They care more about having enough parking that they don't scare off tickets sales and events from booking the venue...

tanzoak

Those parking numbers are depressing. They mean that the huge garages are developer/banker-driven, not due to city requirements. And to be honest, the developers are probably correct about the demand for those spaces. I had been hoping that developers had been building to the minimum requirements se...

tanzoak

Those are great renderings, but none of that is going to happen. You need to start with the "current condition" being like the 1600 (Thanksgiving Tower) block where the sidewalk has already been bumped out. That's what cowboyeagle was talking about. Just checked it out on streetview. Wow....

tanzoak

My question is dedicated lanes, in this case, the right solution? We see dedicated lanes for buses in other cities where the lane is better marked so I am simply asking should DART and the City maintain the concept here in this iteration along Elm? Is it appropriate to have a dedicated bus lane in ...

tanzoak

Electric scooters and electric assist bicycles are the invaders in SF, currently. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/5/17202690/electric-scooters-san-francisco-facts-info-how-to Lol this encapsulates SF’s freak out over everything and nothing. Are there electric scooters? Umm, they exist, I suppose. A co...

tanzoak

Oh thank god. When you wrote “taking the bus lane away” I thought you meant remove rather than move. Do you know if they’re taking out a travel lane or the parking lane, or just narrowing all the remaining lanes? Just because DART/the City is bad about enforcement, that doesn’t mean the dedicated tr...

tanzoak

I was down in San Antonio last weekend and had a similar thought. I don't remember what it was called, but they too have a docked bike rental system. It was way too expensive and cumbersome. Oh, how I missed the plethora of cheap, dockless bikes of Dallas... lol Dallas is legitimately a national le...

tanzoak

Also, I believe they got approval for taking the bus lane away with plans for a patio on Elm with wider sidewalks with trees. Taking out the bus lane? Wth.. God forbid we take out the 7 metered parking spaces on the other side instead. Dedicated transit lanes? Nahhhhh, all hail the parking god! The...

tanzoak

And you need a lot less 3rd track if it is installed along the stations that are 'skipped', since passing a stopped train is a lot easier than passing a train at speed. I'm sure some numbers people can work out exactly how many trains you can 'leap' during a given express run. I highly doubt it wou...

tanzoak

I still don’t really know what you’re talking about. Why would an Amazon relocation/expansion to Dallas be bad? Was the Toyota relocation bad? If not, what’s the difference? Because Amazon decided to be a little more public than usual about seeking incentives?

tanzoak

The potential to pay more in incentives than getting HQ2 is worth is a very real concern. And since there's no real national interest in where HQ2 is located, ideally cities/states would band together and commit to no incentives. Unfortunately, there are local optimums that include paying incentives...

tanzoak

I45Tex I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

I think you're trying to argue that Amazon coming to Dallas will be bad for Dallas because young people won't want to come here anymore? Which, uh..

tanzoak

The easiest solution is to install a third track so the express train can see clear ahead lights the entire length of the corridor - so that it can actually go fast! Great to have an ops perspective on express service as well! I just want to point out that you wouldn't have to have a third track al...

tanzoak

A few considerations: 1. Frequency -- Express trains cut frequency at non-express stations, so you need a decent level of overall service to avoid making those stations terrible. The Orange/Red line runs 8 trains per hour during peak hours, which sits comfortably in the 6-12 tph range where express ...

tanzoak

You do know how laughable this is, right? Michael Carroll has taken over as head of the UNT "Economics Research Group" from Bernard Weinstein. They're notorious for reaching whatever conclusion is desired by whoever is paying for the study. In this case DART takes responsibility for every...

tanzoak

When will Dallas proper census information be available? September (as well as demographic info for counties/metros). Then tracts and block groups in December. Cool. I wonder Dallas finally will get to 4K in pop. density. Definitely would like to what downtown looks like. Well, since it has to add ...

tanzoak

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:When will Dallas proper census information be available?

September (as well as demographic info for counties/metros). Then tracts and block groups in December.

tanzoak

And be honest, its more than a couple of buildings. Area south of market has been completely transformed in spite of all the anti development forces in play. I live next to Salesforce tower and the area has become almost unlivable with all the development noise, barricades and traffic. And how much...

tanzoak

So I live in a suburb of San Francisco and there is essential no change noticeable here. Actually most people you talk to are saying how bad traffic is with all the new residents. Yes the housing is expensive, but people are still buying and selling home like nothing has changed. Tech companies are...

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