Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

Didn't see a topic for this even though it's been in the works for a while, so I thought I'd post one

http://millcreektunnel.com/

Mill Creek Website wrote:The Mill Creek Drainage Relief Tunnel is a construction project that will bring needed infrastructure improvement to east Dallas.

The tunnel, which stretches from the State-Thomas District in Uptown Dallas, through Mill Creek and Peaks Branch, will be constructed mostly underground with little impact to neighborhoods. Once complete, the approximately five mile-long tunnel will sit 70 to 100 feet below ground to provide flood relief.

Construction began in March 2018 and is slated for completion in 2023.

DMN article from today by Wilonsky:

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm ... ect-begins

Dallas Morning News wrote:By the time the clock strikes 2023, City Hall will have spent more than $300 million in bond dollars to protect billions of dollars' worth of properties — some of them the city's most expensive, most essential. The tunnel will run for five miles. It will be 35 feet in diameter. It is being dug 120 feet below this city's surface.

Comment that i posted to the dmn story...

Interesting that such a large and long tunnel is only going to cost $300 million for the entire project. If it's 5 miles long this is really coming out to 60 million per mile all in. The recent 2nd ave subway in new york was something like 2 billion per mile overall (including all infrastructure, like stations and utility relocations.)

Makes you think that bypass or expressway tunnels could be a feasible solution medium term for the cities traffic congestion problems. Or, of course, an underground expansion of DART...

Just depends on what part of Dallas you are digging through, for example, half of Downtown sits on the old sand from the Trinity so tunnels become exhaustingly expensive and nearly impossible to do because DART doesn't have tunnels that stay underground they have to come back up at some point so they can't be buried as deep.

I worry that the discharge from the tunnel will have a negative impact on Lower White Rock Creek and the Great Trinity Forest.

casperitl wrote:I worry that the discharge from the tunnel will have a negative impact on Lower White Rock Creek and the Great Trinity Forest.

Where do you think that water goes now?

Hopefully the concentration, intensity and volume of the new discharge site will be used to maintain a permanent riparian meadow -- a keystone component to a managed wilderness. In a natural state, lowland forests of the Post Oak Savannah and Blackland Prairie are regularly cleared by the force of a flash flood. Perhaps the discharge from the new tunnel will come with a sizable wetland (riparian meadow) to balance the oversized forest growing downstream of the Trinity River diversion channel flanking the Design District, CBD and The Cedars.

The new drainage system should be the foundation of new water features at Fair Park, building a spring fed recreational lake, without worry that flash flood will back up into the park.

I wouldn't mind if some of that tree covered land turns into a prairie wetland.... force fed by the relief tunnel. Biodiversity increases quality of life for people and wildlife, and in the spirit of Dallas would increase the eco-tourist economy.