Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

Most of you know about the project to widen Medical District Drive between Harry Hines and Stemmons. The road had a bottleneck at a four lane underpass at the railroad, mostly TRE. The post below popped up on my FB feed. Mammoet is a Dutch based provider of heavy hauling and lifting. A major milestone in this project was accomplished in early July with the placing of two single track bridges side by side across the much wider trench for the new underpass. The trip along the roadway is an adventure with several hundred feet of single lane traffic in each direction snaking through the construction. But it is easy to visualize a new Drive with three lanes in each direction and a median with left turn lanes if needed.

https://www.facebook.com/24871067516327 ... e=scwspnss

God they've been taking forever with this project. Based on Google Earth imagery they started work on this in late 2018, and that second bridge span they just installed has been onsite since last October.

This is the difficulty of tearing down and rebuilding active rail lines. Not only TRE but shipping routes are on these rails, and those companies do not care about the city's needs. Bike lanes, wider sidewalks for pedestrians, or wider roadways for more traffic be damned. The railroad companies are focused on moving goods with the least number of interactions with other transportation they do not have to deal with widespread PR problems if they refuse to adapt, so there is no pressure to allow cities or transit agencies to get what they want. Try to tell people on the news to care that railway company A won't allow a new roadway connection under their current tracks. I doubt any news agency would report on it cause most consumers don't care what the railways do.