muncien wrote:The park will be a great addition to the area, and be nice to drive by on your way through... But, pretending this will be some sort of KWP is just silly. Both Legacy, and those frontage roads are MONSTERS, and while they could technically use calming measures, I am almost certain they won't. Visiting/Utilizing this park will be quite a challenge. I'd love to see it happen, and there is a TON of $$$ being thrown around there, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen. But, when all is said and done, it will be somewhat hostile to its visitors.
My expectations are this would be more a sculpture garden than a useful park. Not that any of the planning documents say that but I equate this project to that of many Downtown Dallas 80-90's parks that were not designed for actual use but simply to look pretty and not attract too much function by the public. Many of the "parks" in the old Belo HQ part of Downtown are green spaces with sculpture and do very little for providing interaction for residents and/or office workers. They are there to look green and detur homeless unlike the new current Downtown Dallas parks are being built for: Outdoor movies, concerts, festivals, playgrounds, interactive fountains that kids will run around and play in, and of course food trucks etc.
The park I see depicted looks more like a corporate office garden that's just there so the neighborhood looks less concrete-esque. I recognize its not the final design but the scale of the park centered around the high-speed bridge is what is the current trajectory of the project is. Klyde Warren even had major public fights about closing streets so that the park would be a larger contiguous block of useable SAFE space. Here we are just talking about landscaping the bridge with a lawn and some plants so the walk is more pleasant.
Is that enough to warrant the expense? Will those lawns be big enough to hold events on? Will anyone want to stop and enjoy the park or will they just walk through as quickly and safely as possible. I am not saying we shouldn't improve the walking experience across this bridge but the scale seems too small to be a Klyde Warren success and too big/costly to do the basic job of making the walk safer for cross pedestrian traffic.