Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 11:35**

Burying or depressing the freeway creates another obstacle to running a D2 subway through downtown, will cost more money than a tear down, and will further delay future infrastructure improvements in the entire city. Tear it down and re-stitch the street grid(which is a hot mess downtown) and fully utilize Cesear Chavez Blvd and Good Latimer. TxDOT can't sprinkle mini Klyde Warren's everywhere. It's an expensive solution and not a sustainable in the long-term. We should be focusing on improving the urban fabric in the best urban areas in Dallas.

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 13:21**

Suspending a park over a freeway is a gimmick anyway a pricey park nonetheless and is not a solution that can fit every lack of parkland in Dallas and the damage highways have done to cities. It's like giving a malnourished child a prime rib dinner. While he is thankful for the food a measured and appropriate response would be carrots, chicken and some rice would be cheaper and overall longterm healthier.

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 13:55**

I don't see why a regular boulevard is such a bad thing. People on here act like loop 12 doesn't move thousands of cars each day at grade level. It's 1.4 mile stretch. The world will move on if 345 is blown to smithereens.

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 14:10**

Not to mention the city is gridlocked at 6 pm no matter what you do no matter how many lanes they add. You will not all get home 15 mins after you leave work unless you love closer.

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 15:15**

Gridlock may be the answer. Force feed capacity of DART and build out an urban streetcar system in and around the urban core.

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 16:30**

Burying or depressing the freeway creates another obstacle to running a D2 subway through downtown....

Which would be a good thing. Spending $1.3 billion to add capacity -- but no new riders -- to a system with continually decreasing ridership is about as stupid as it gets.

Tear it down and re-stitch the street grid(which is a hot mess downtown)

Exactly what streets are you going to "re-stitch"? South of Commerce was railyards before the highway. North of Elm a couple streets were closed off for North Central -- 30 years before the highway. The DART Green Line screwed up the street grid much more than the highway, and the current proposal for D2 will make it even worse.

...and fully utilize Cesear Chavez Blvd and Good Latimer

Thanks in large part to DART, Good-Latimer is already a mess much of the day.

The world will move on if 345 is blown to smithereens.

What would you say if someone proposed totally getting rid of DART. Get rid of every train and bus. You'ld probably say they were crazy. How would all those people get around?

I-345 carries about the same number of people as the entire DART system every day, plus an immense amount of goods. And it doesn't cost a billion dollars a year to run. Yet you're willing to throw your neighbors under the bus (pun intended) just because you don't use it.

Sounds pretty selfish to me.

Gridlock may be the answer. Force feed capacity of DART and build out an urban streetcar system in and around the urban core.

And in 2050 wonder how Plano passed Dallas in population... :-)

I will give you credit for publically admitting the position that most mass transit advocates keep to themselves. "If the damn people won't do what we want on their own we're going to make them!"

Posted: **05 Dec 2019 17:56**

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:I don't see why a regular boulevard is such a bad thing. People on here act like loop 12 doesn't move thousands of cars each day at grade level. It's 1.4 mile stretch. The world will move on if 345 is blown to smithereens.

I get that the boulevard and existing street grid/ex by-pass options could handle the capacity but if the idea is to stitch CBD to Deep Ellum as one cohesive downtown then I'm not sure how comfortable I would be crossing a 6-lane boulevard to go between then two especially as it is basically an exit ramp from a major freeway. It would take a well engineered design that forces these cars to slow down to make this reasonable (think the DNT as it comes into Harwood, people fly through there)

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 04:49**

For the folks who go SE to the north the diagonal boulevards we have Peak/Haskell Fitzhugh/Bennett are all under capacity. If some more of the discontinuous streets were enhanced along with an at-grade boulevard people would change their commutes quickly and it would be net-net very similar. I believe there has already day been analysis showing much of what 345 caries is pass-through that should t be going through the center of the city anyway.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 06:28**

Hannibal Lecter wrote:I-345 carries about the same number of people as the entire DART system every day, plus an immense amount of goods. And it doesn't cost a billion dollars a year to run.

You're forgetting the 100s of billions dollars it costs to operate the vehicles that use I-345.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 09:38**

Hannibal Lecter wrote:
What would you say if someone proposed totally getting rid of DART. Get rid of every train and bus. You'ld probably say they were crazy. How would all those people get around?

I-345 carries about the same number of people as the entire DART system every day, plus an immense amount of goods. And it doesn't cost a billion dollars a year to run. Yet you're willing to throw your neighbors under the bus (pun intended) just because you don't use it.

Sounds pretty selfish to me.

Oh boy another ridiculous hypothetical example by Hannibal...

First, what is point of transit, especially in a Car Dependent city like Dallas? It's to provide "Traffic" relief, as in get people out of cars and off the roads.

In addition, it provides options for those who can't drive or those who elect to not sit in traffic everyday ...

If you removed DART, it would make things worse for everyone. Including those who love driving in traffic (Hey, that's you Hanni :-D

) or those who have no choice but to drive in traffic. Because there's truly no other alternative for those who rely on mass transit...

And that's the key difference.. Alternatives.

Are there alternatives if i345 were to be removed?...Yes, there are streets, different Hwy routes, or perhaps something entirely new that will proposed...

The reality is 345 is simply a pass through for people who want bypass downtown at the expense of downtown. And that's where, I think think the disagreement is between supporters and opposers of this project are at.

Drivers who want to bypass downtown view having the hulking overpass as not "selfish". Others view the gargantuan overpass as "selfish" in itself, since it literally eats a section of downtown.

This isn't even about being anti car or me using 345 or not (which I have).
The point is that right now the paradigm is shifted all the way towards "cars > people" in Downtown. Which shouldn't be the case.

A medium like a boulevard is where I think the right balance should be.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 09:53**

And in 2050 wonder how Plano passed Dallas in population...

Plano has recently reduced the land footprint of it's two potential highway-style intersections to be forever boulevards, and the excess land around Spring Creek Parkway that was sold has already been developed.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 10:45**

The_Overdog wrote:
And in 2050 wonder how Plano passed Dallas in population...

Plano has recently reduced the land footprint of it's two potential highway-style intersections to be forever boulevards, and the excess land around Spring Creek Parkway that was sold has already been developed.

Which intersections are those? I am non-sarcastically curious.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 10:54**

dch526 wrote:I get that the boulevard and existing street grid/ex by-pass options could handle the capacity but if the idea is to stitch CBD to Deep Ellum as one cohesive downtown then I'm not sure how comfortable I would be crossing a 6-lane boulevard to go between then two especially as it is basically an exit ramp from a major freeway. It would take a well engineered design that forces these cars to slow down to make this reasonable (think the DNT as it comes into Harwood, people fly through there)

I agree, it's not ideal, but I still think it's my preferred option. The difference between this area and Harwood is that this area is much more pedestrian friendly on either sides of the potential boulevard. Deep Ellum is constantly bustling with people and soon the East Quarter will have a decent amount of foot traffic as well. It won't be ideal to cross such a large boulevard, but I think people will be more likely to do it here.

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 12:17**

Just out of curiosity, how many people that favor the tear down actually live south of I-30 and utilize 345 to get to and from work?

Posted: **06 Dec 2019 17:14**

Tnexster wrote:Just out of curiosity, how many people that favor the tear down actually live south of I-30 and utilize 345 to get to and from work?

Someone should make a poll, I remember there was one for the D2 Alignment.

Selfish is crude, but it is the correct word.
People do infact use it to bypass downtown going north.
Tearing it down would significantly affect those people more than anyone
Who are those people? they are working folk who live in the south/east.
It's selfish to tear it down at their expense, so someone who doesnt live there can look at the pretty.
Also what happened to Dallas' Grow South Initiative? seems counterintuitive to tear down I345.

Feed all the traffic into good latimer and cesar chavez? good luck with that. Good latimer is already a mess.
Dart didnt help, but D2 shouldnt even be in the conversation as they are explicitly designing around I345 being torn down or tunneled or whatever.

Someone also mentioned loop 12, loop 12 was a highway first, not a street. And it is 6+ lanes, high speed traffic. It is a nightmare to try to walk across that. Try crossing Loop 12 when it is Buckner, or NW Highway.

Someone used the DNT feeding into harwood as a "good example"?
REALLY?! that's a horrible example. I would think its the opposite of what self fashioned urbanistas would want.
Everything around there is one way streets of cars speeding through Harwood.
It's unsafe for pedestrians, as a results all the development there is car oriented with poor sidewalk and general pedestrian infrastructure. Sure the highrises are cool, but its basically suburbia with towers.

What would be a result of tearing down I345 and replacing it with loop12 or DNT/Harwood equivalents?
Or feeding traffic through SE to N thru Peak/Haskell Fitzhugh/Bennett?
Fitzugh is a 2 lane street, not 2 lanes going in each direction, but 1 lane going in each direction.
It is easy to cross that street. Adding traffic would result in grid lock into what is slowly recovering and changing into a proper urban neighborhood.
It's obvious people who suggests these things have never been to these places.
Ever been to Jimmy's on Fitzugh? try it. they have good subs. Imagine the difference when you add traffic.
The result of all these ideas would be turning alot of previously 2 way streets into one way streets.
Did I mention all the school zones in this area?

It seems people forgot that among other reasons, 1 way streets designed explicitly to move traffic fast away from downtown is one of the reasons downtown slowly died, and it would be a step backward from the progress we have made into turning many of the streets in downtown into 2 way streets (like Cesar Chavez!!!)

And that is my key observation from reading everyone's posts. Everyone who keeps advocating to tear down I345 to stitch together downtown will inevitably destroy downtown again as the resulting traffic jam will not result in the induced foot traffic everyone wants and end up converting all the surrounding deepellum/downtown roads into either 1 way streets like DNT/Harwood or 6 lane street nightmares like loop 12 that are impossible to cross, creating yet another barrier for the pedestrian oriented downtown dreamland everyone wants.

I dont necessarily like just criticizing without offering something in return.
So I apologize if it is not with the usual forum civility I offer my observations.
Either leave it as it is,repaid what is needed and get rid of the weird off ramps to fix the city grid.
Or tear it down and tunnel or dig/cover. There's no need to even talk about a deck park yet.
They havent even built the other 2 they have proposed. It's at least a decade away.

Any half measures will only result in more damage than there already is.
Dart running thru deep ellum should have been tunneled, and the half measure we have today is a traffic/pedestrian mess on Good Latimer they are still trying to design around with D2

Posted: **07 Dec 2019 10:51**

exelone31 wrote:
The_Overdog wrote:
And in 2050 wonder how Plano passed Dallas in population...

Plano has recently reduced the land footprint of it's two potential highway-style intersections to be forever boulevards, and the excess land around Spring Creek Parkway that was sold has already been developed.

Which intersections are those? I am non-sarcastically curious.

* Preston/Plano Pkwy.
* Spring Creek/Independence

There are others:
* Preston/Park
(was supposed to be redone as an underpass for Preston, but the NIMBYers and their friends wanted none of it...the width on both sides of Preston was kept, though.)
* Preston/Legacy
(same as Preston/Park, but in more recent years a different arrangement was tried, with no direct left turns from Legacy; instead traffic would turn right, then after a few feet, take a U-turn to make up for the unallowed left...few if any drivers liked the tryout, and eventually TxDOT chucked everything and went back to the original way.)
* Coit/Spring Creek
(as with Spring Creek/Independence, Spring Creek was supposed to be arranged here as the dominant street, but nothing was done, so it remains wide at Coit.)

Posted: **09 Dec 2019 09:01**

I think quixomniac post above says just about everything that needs to be said on this. I couldn't have said it better...

Putting a 'Loop 12' style blvd through this area would do far more to isolate these two neighborhoods than I345 ever has. That would be dreadful.

Posted: **09 Dec 2019 09:20**

Loop 12 is not a boulevard. It's a highway. And if 'getting the poor of south Dallas' is the biggest reason it should stay, well the income differences are so dramatic that it's doing a really crappy job of it, and that tollway in the Trinity should be built to maybe help out a bit. A 'boulevard' is not a one-way, it's a 2 way, maybe divided like every other arterial in Dallas.

Posted: **09 Dec 2019 17:47**

Loop 12 is called Buckner Boulevard in some parts, Northwest Highway in other parts.
Ledbetter Drive in others, it's all just semantics.
If you replace I-345 with a 6 lane Boulevard or a 6 lane one way DNT-HarryHines/Harwood equivalent
Or if you try to feed I-345 through the grid...
The result is the same, You will end up with the same thing, barriers.

And if you try to strongarm people into living there by making traffic umbearable,
Dont be surprised if local citizens vote to change 2 ways streets into 1 way streets.
They almost always vote in their short term interest over longterm benefits.

At least with I345 being elevated, you can walk under it, even if it is dirty/intimidating.

Also anyone know how to make a poll on here? It would help tally how everyone feels.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 02:19**

quixomniac wrote:Loop 12 is called Buckner Boulevard in some parts, Northwest Highway in other parts.
Ledbetter Drive in others, it's all just semantics.
If you replace I-345 with a 6 lane Boulevard or a 6 lane one way DNT-HarryHines/Harwood equivalent
Or if you try to feed I-345 through the grid...
The result is the same, You will end up with the same thing, barriers.

At least with I345 being elevated, you can walk under it, even if it is dirty/intimidating.

I completely agree! Everyone talks about tearing down I-345 but it seems to be one of the least dividing sections of highway/freeway dividing in Dallas. There is even street art, a dog park plus a future park in planning under it. It also move all the car pollution away from ground level. I would say the only major downfall is that it's highly unattractive for small scale development near it, but this is downtown isn't it.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 10:26**

I think there's a lot of unrealistic expectations from posters here about what will happen if the highway gets torn down.

The expectation that the traffic counts would remain the same once the "boulevard" is created is unrealistic. Frankly, that traffic will disperse across different routes to wherever drivers are going. Some may use the new route when it is completed; others won't.

Furthermore, the boulevard will likely be similar to what Griffin street in downtown is now. Which is 6 lanes. I'd be willing to bet that if this new boulevard were completed 2 of those lanes would be occupied for parking and 4 lanes with traffic flow with extra wide sidewalks.

The comparison to of it being like Northwest was simply to highlight that some streets do infact move a lot traffic. But this street won't be "Northwest Highway Style".. that's a street doesn't even have sidewalks for large stretches. This will be totally different.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 10:47**

I can't get around the math... Even if only HALF of the cars that currently use I345 now take this new 4-6 lane boulevard; going 1/3rd the speed of the freeway on far fewer lanes would be an absolute nightmare. Heck... even in only 1/5th of that traffic used the road, it would still be an absolute mess. And, I'm not talking about just the drivers... The locals would pay the biggest price! Nobody would want to walk through there for a good 4-5 hours per day. This is a place that I used to routinely walk my dog through to get the dog park without issue, other than the fact that Commerce didn't have freak'n sidewalks... lol.
I honestly cannot imagine the mess this would create. I345 is ugly as hell, but simply removing it and putting in street grid to absorb the flow is a far worse solution, IMO.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 18:23**

Im sure this has been discussed somewhere on this forum, or somewhere in I345 analysis documents,
But it is always useful to look at other places where highways have been torn down and how cities have managed it.

On City Beautiful, perhaps a youtube channel of interest to other people on this forum,
There are two examples of the years long political process of tearing down 2 sets of highways.
The best example is the Alaskan Viaduct in Seattle, which went from planning tearing down, to surface street, to
dig and cover, to finally a 6 lane boulevard above and a bore tunnel below to handle traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4La-8egv1bk

The 2nd example is the Embarcadero highway in SF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSvy8jcNbU
This was ultimately torn down and replaced with a surface street, but also rail!
These two examples are however, of a highway separating a downtown from their waterfront.

The Big Dig in Boston, i think is closer since it bisects a downtown area.
A highway was torn down and replaced with a giant tunnel.
It also serves as a precautionary tale of cost overruns but also shows long term benefits.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/20 ... story.html

All of these examples show where highways were succesfully torn out in MAJOR US CITIEs, and replaced with tunnels or something equivalent to handle the traffic that was there. If anyone can point out a good example of where a highway in downtown was torn down and traffic was fed into a grid and was succesful, please post the link.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 18:40**

The Embarcadero Freeway was pretty much a glorified off ramp. It's traffic count was about 1/3 that of I-345. Removing it just meant dumping local traffic onto city streets a few blocks earlier. The local equivalent would be the Good-Latimer exit off of US-75 southbound.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 21:10**

Hannibal Lecter wrote:The Embarcadero Freeway was pretty much a glorified off ramp. It's traffic count was about 1/3 that of I-345. Removing it just meant dumping local traffic onto city streets a few blocks earlier. The local equivalent would be the Good-Latimer exit off of US-75 southbound.

Thanks for that nugget of information.
That's why it's important to know the context of comparisons.
People in favor of tearing down highways always like to point to Embarcadero or the Alaskan Viaduct.
but Traffic counts are not the same and they weren't merely torn down.
Traffic was still handled by replacement tunnels or
In the case of the Embarcadero, it has metro lines and trolley lines running alongside it now.
And this is with 1/3 of the traffic count as you say...
Tearing down I345 with 3x traffic alone will be a disaster.
It needs a tunnel or something better.

Posted: **10 Dec 2019 23:14**

quixomniac wrote:
Hannibal Lecter wrote:The Embarcadero Freeway was pretty much a glorified off ramp. It's traffic count was about 1/3 that of I-345. Removing it just meant dumping local traffic onto city streets a few blocks earlier. The local equivalent would be the Good-Latimer exit off of US-75 southbound.

Thanks for that nugget of information.
That's why it's important to know the context of comparisons.
People in favor of tearing down highways always like to point to Embarcadero or the Alaskan Viaduct.
but Traffic counts are not the same and they weren't merely torn down.
Traffic was still handled by replacement tunnels or
In the case of the Embarcadero, it has metro lines and trolley lines running alongside it now.
And this is with 1/3 of the traffic count as you say...
Tearing down I345 with 3x traffic alone will be a disaster.
It needs a tunnel or something better.

One thing I would say that we are overlooking in this comparison would be street capacity. I don't know how our street capacity compares to that of the streets surrounding the Embarcadero, but that is certainly important to note.

Posted: **11 Dec 2019 00:17**

DPatel304 wrote:
quixomniac wrote:
Hannibal Lecter wrote:The Embarcadero Freeway was pretty much a glorified off ramp. It's traffic count was about 1/3 that of I-345. Removing it just meant dumping local traffic onto city streets a few blocks earlier. The local equivalent would be the Good-Latimer exit off of US-75 southbound.

Thanks for that nugget of information.
That's why it's important to know the context of comparisons.
People in favor of tearing down highways always like to point to Embarcadero or the Alaskan Viaduct.
but Traffic counts are not the same and they weren't merely torn down.
Traffic was still handled by replacement tunnels or
In the case of the Embarcadero, it has metro lines and trolley lines running alongside it now.
And this is with 1/3 of the traffic count as you say...
Tearing down I345 with 3x traffic alone will be a disaster.
It needs a tunnel or something better.

One thing I would say that we are overlooking in this comparison would be street capacity. I don't know how our street capacity compares to that of the streets surrounding the Embarcadero, but that is certainly important to note.

I-980 may be the next Bay-area freeway to go:

https://grist.org/article/oakland-calif ... state-980/

Posted: **11 Dec 2019 17:00**

dfwcre8tive wrote:
I-980 may be the next Bay-area freeway to go:

https://grist.org/article/oakland-calif ... state-980/

Thanks.
This is closer to I-345 since it is bisecting a downtown area and not a waterfront.
I am not sure how much of it is speculative since I am not familiar with the area,
But latter parts say they want to replace the highway with underground train lines?
That's a whole other level of expensive, we can't even agree that a tunnel would be a good idea.
Elon Musk better hurry up with his Boring Company tunneling

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 09:15**

muncien wrote:I can't get around the math... Even if only HALF of the cars that currently use I345 now take this new 4-6 lane boulevard; going 1/3rd the speed of the freeway on far fewer lanes would be an absolute nightmare. Heck... even in only 1/5th of that traffic used the road, it would still be an absolute mess. And, I'm not talking about just the drivers... The locals would pay the biggest price! Nobody would want to walk through there for a good 4-5 hours per day. This is a place that I used to routinely walk my dog through to get the dog park without issue, other than the fact that Commerce didn't have freak'n sidewalks... lol.
I honestly cannot imagine the mess this would create. I345 is ugly as hell, but simply removing it and putting in street grid to absorb the flow is a far worse solution, IMO.

The intent isn't to shift the entire freeway's traffic onto just a single boulevard. Assuming the freeway were to be removed completely (as opposed to tunneling), the intent would be to shift it to the broader street grid, so the new boulevard plus all the other roads running in parallel, essentially moving from 8 lanes (the current freeway) to 18 to 30 lanes.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 09:56**

Street grids are known to handle more traffic in a distributed capacity than freeways which cram every car down one way and if a wreck or on-ramp backs things up the whole system shuts down. Street grids can alleviate this because they allow breakaway routes and detours not available in the highway system. Service roads just continue to complicate the problem but add temporary capacity and false economic prosperity.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 10:14**

I'm not saying that a developed street grid with several options can't handle the traffic volume... I'm questioning how good that is for the neighborhood. Any prominent blvd(s) developed to handle such capacity will not be done with curb bumpouts, parallel parking, crosswalks midblock, and other traffic calming measures. Those aren't the types of features that can support the traffic increase.
If we are truly fortunate, they will resemble something like Griffin. But Griffin doesn't connect hardly anything and doesn't see near the traffic these roads will need to manage. Oh, and Griffin kinda sucks... just sayin.
If this goes down, I hope desperately to be proven wrong... but, I can assure that I personally would not want to live near this thing while it's attempted.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 10:32**

muncien wrote:I personally would not want to live near this thing while it's attempted.

I-345 isn't the best, most attractive neighbor now, so the bar's been set pretty low. hahaha

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 10:45**

You haven't seen safe major blvds of the world then cause it is very possible in the world of street design to create safe streets that cater to both safe pedestrians and cars of sizable nature with serious amounts of traffic. It doesn't mean the roads has to be as wide as a freeway either but the safe design of streets is not limited to quiet small streets. Many four-lane streets like Cedar Springs Rd even are badly designed and cause more backups than streets with fewer lanes because of their design creates backups by their bad implementation of things like turn lanes. A wide blvd of 4 lanes in each direction could also include safety features that handle plenty of traffic but provide an environment for new walkable development.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 11:28**

cowboyeagle05 wrote:You haven't seen safe major blvds of the world then cause it is very possible in the world of street design to create safe streets that cater to both safe pedestrians and cars of sizable nature with serious amounts of traffic. It doesn't mean the roads has to be as wide as a freeway either but the safe design of streets is not limited to quiet small streets. Many four-lane streets like Cedar Springs Rd even are badly designed and cause more backups than streets with fewer lanes because of their design creates backups by their bad implementation of things like turn lanes. A wide blvd of 4 lanes in each direction could also include safety features that handle plenty of traffic but provide an environment for new walkable development.

All true, good design would help, but good design could also ameliorate the "problem" of the elevated freeway.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 12:20**

Your correct and some argue the best design eliminates clutter and unneeded complications related to the outdated freeway system.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 15:02**

cowboyeagle05 wrote:You haven't seen safe major blvds of the world then...

No, I haven't... That's kinda my point.
I spent years in pedestrian friendly cities like Munich, Nuremburg, and Amsterdam, and they don't have anything like that. Perhaps, there's a small chance we will conjure up a "Avenue des Champs-Élysées" out a removed freeway footprint, but I have my doubts.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 16:08**

cowboyeagle05 wrote:You haven't seen safe major blvds of the world then cause it is very possible in the world of street design to create safe streets that cater to both safe pedestrians and cars of sizable nature with serious amounts of traffic...............A wide blvd of 4 lanes in each direction could also include safety features that handle plenty of traffic but provide an environment for new walkable development.

Any examples of safe major blvds of the world?
How many are them are replacement for major highway removals?

With good design you could fix anything. Including I345.
Make it double decker, eliminate all ramps since most is thru traffic, and light up the underpass.
Or with good design, you would bury the highway, like every other major highway removal.

Posted: **12 Dec 2019 16:24**

When people say just make it a blvd. all I can think of is drunk people being hit at night or cars flying 30 mph too fast down the road. Tunnel 345. Toll it even and give people the option to use city streets for free or toll highway tunnel, but just don't make a boulevard.

Posted: **13 Dec 2019 13:34**

This all sounds like people doubting the existence of electricity or the creation of the light bulb. Removing the section of the highway will def change the nature of traffic. The idea that the traffic would be any different than any other highly trafficked Blvd in Dallas let alone the world is quite hilarious that it's insurmountable but I guess wifi was definitely witchcraft until someone explained it. I know this isn't the answer that you guys want you to want either. I am not a decade long traffic engineer and I will not be able to lay out a detailed plan for how things will perfectly handle the traffic you guys think is impossible to tackle. I just know I have studied in school about traffic engineering, traffic theory and the history of cities thinking they knew what was better with major one ways, arterial roadways and finding out decades later that they were wrong trying to make things faster wider and focused on one way to move people. The entire field is constantly studying traffic and one thing is clear the old dependency on the highway system was a failure in many ways and as many times we can try to solve things with new solutions and not prop up the bad ones we should try. All I am saying ultimately is I have seen compelling information that suggests that this is not an impossible feat we should attempt to solve.

I am sure the first planes people proposed flying over the ocean included lots of people saying a boat is just fine.

Posted: **13 Dec 2019 18:16**

cowboyeagle05 wrote:This all sounds like people doubting the existence of electricity or the creation of the light bulb. Removing the section of the highway will def change the nature of traffic. The idea that the traffic would be any different than any other highly trafficked Blvd in Dallas let alone the world is quite hilarious that it's insurmountable but I guess wifi was definitely witchcraft until someone explained it....*long rant*...
I am sure the first planes people proposed flying over the ocean included lots of people saying a boat is just fine.

What?

Posted: **17 Dec 2019 20:08**

The Public Is Hungry For Research and Data Around I-345
...The most common concern for removal is where the traffic will go. But how much traffic is there? TxDOT has said an average of 180,000 cars use I-345 each day. Where are those vehicles going?...
...Kennedy noted that design consultants Kimley-Horn found that 38 percent of the traffic on I-345 is headed north on Central. About a quarter of it stops downtown. Ten percent heads east, and 21 percent use it to get to I-35E. How much of that can be diverted to other streets? Kennedy brought up nearby Riverfront, which also shoots people to the Medical District from points south. Could another lane accommodate the traffic that’s headed there?..

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2 ... GG-EO8sxrs

There you have it, numbers
Also GOOD LUCK pushing traffic thru Riverfront

There's also more info here and Txdot survey
https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/proj ... Jn_b2PTmwM

Posted: **17 Dec 2019 22:07**

Riverfront is not an option, having been on that road at rush hour it can already be a total mess on any day 35 has issues which is frequent.

Posted: **18 Dec 2019 08:46**

If they are not careful the I-345 teardown advocates will fall into the trap of pushing for the resurrection of the Trinity River Tollroad. There are a lot of snakes laying out there in the grass for the tollroad to come back.

Posted: **18 Dec 2019 09:35**

Right now anything goes with the current mayor and council that was voted in. This mayor doesn't even have the visibility awareness by the public as Rawlings. He could easily sneak something by and it would sneak by even quieter than before.

Posted: **18 Dec 2019 15:04**

casperitl wrote:If they are not careful the I-345 teardown advocates will fall into the trap of pushing for the resurrection of the Trinity River Tollroad. There are a lot of snakes laying out there in the grass for the tollroad to come back.

Yeah...be careful what you wish for as it might come true......only not the way you thought. I could totally see them trying to do that.

Posted: **18 Dec 2019 17:35**

It's twisted is what it is.
In order to "save" one neighborhood, theyll screw another one.
They only mentioned adding a lane to Riverfront, to help with the traffic going to Medical District.
Which is why it is important for everyone to get involved, answer their surveys!

The other important thing is the statistics.
Everyone always knew the 180,000 cars per day, but the breakdowns are important.
38% bypass downtown and go north
25% feeds into downtown

The other thing I observed is that while the article cites other highway teardowns,
They don't mention traffic numbers, or how a majority of them ended up being tunneled.
The word tunnel doesn't appear anywhere in the article nor in the TxDOT meeting powerpoint.
Hopefully going forward they will mention it.
Or I figure they will just keep throwing bad options at us until we get tired and give up

Posted: **19 Dec 2019 22:51**

quixomniac wrote:The word tunnel doesn't appear anywhere in the article nor in the TxDOT meeting powerpoint.
Hopefully going forward they will mention it.
Or I figure they will just keep throwing bad options at us until we get tired and give up

TXDOT has not built a single tunnel ever!
All tunnels within the state have been built as Toll Roads.
The best TXDOT has ever done is an open ditch that's been covered by a park mostly funded by somebody else.
Why should I-345 be the first TXDOT funded tunnel?

Posted: **20 Dec 2019 08:56**

I think 'cut & cover' is what is meant by 'tunnel' in most of these references. Maybe I'm wrong. But, I don't think anyone ever seriously considered TBMs be used for this.

That said, TXDOT's 'trench' proposal seems to only be half of what is really needed. I'm curious how much the sale of land from some of the bloated footprint sections of I345 could go toward funding the 'cap' of the trench. It seems like those parcels would go for quite a bit if adjacent to a massive deck park type setup...

Maybe some sort of reinvestment zone is in order here. I'd much prefer the sale of state property and increased property taxes be used to fund the project than all the proceeds simply go to speculators that sit on property and let it waste away while waiting on the windfall.

Posted: **20 Dec 2019 10:43**

electricron wrote:TXDOT has not built a single tunnel ever!
All tunnels within the state have been built as Toll Roads.
The best TXDOT has ever done is an open ditch that's been covered by a park mostly funded by somebody else.
Why should I-345 be the first TXDOT funded tunnel?

http://www.mywisewife.com/texas-big-ben ... unnel.html

https://texashillcountry.com/longest-to ... nel-south/

Posted: **20 Dec 2019 13:57**

Maybe the compromise is a tolled tunnel. You still have access but have to pay for it and Dallas gets that land and development above it. Those that don't want to pay the toll can use the horseshoe around downtown.

Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

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