(Tom Fox/Staff photographer)

From left, former Dallas mayors Tom Leppert, Laura Miller and Ron Kirk joined Mayor Mike Rawlings for the dedication ceremony of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on March 4, 2012

Add former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller to the growing list of former Trinity River toll road champions opposing six lanes of high-speed concrete between the levees.

Says Miller, “the reason the road should go away” is because it has become “just an airplane runway instead of a park.”

In an email sent to to Dallas City Council member (and toll road opponent) Scott Griggs, and in a follow-up interview with The Dallas Morning News Friday morning, Miller says she wishes the city had built the low-speed, four-lane parkway envisioned by planners responsible for the Balanced Vision Plan adopted by the Dallas City Council in the fall of 2003. But that proposal has been parked by the city’s beloved Alternative 3C, a nearly nine-mile-long, six-lane-wide, $1.5-billion high-speed toll road along the east levee of the Trinity.

Says Miller in her letter to Griggs, “if the road cannot be built as originally envisioned by those of us who fought for a landscaped, low-impact, four-lane solution, the road should not be built at all. Over these past 11 years, the lakes have gotten much smaller, and the road has become much bigger. The result is not a good one.”

(File photo)

Then-Mayor Laura Miller at a January 2004 panel with Alex Krieger, at right, discussing the future of the Trinity River

This is the first time Miller, who served as mayor from 2002 through ’07, has publicly spoken about the road since the 2007 referendum, when then-council member Angela Hunt led the charge to kill the high-speed slab of highway planned along the river. It’s certainly not the first time she’s been asked about the project. But with the Trinity River toll road once again a daily headline, and with Mayor Mike Rawlings’ so-called dream team of nationally renowned urban designers and transportation planners due to give the road another look in coming days, Miller felt it was time to dip her toe into the Trinity again.

“A number of people have asked me in the last couple of months, and I really didn’t want to get into the fray,” she says. “But as more people asked me, I think it’s reasonable I have a response.” She laughs. “I do feel that since Mayor Rawlings is taking a fresh look at it that everybody who’s had a hand in trying to develop the river give him their opinions, and this is my opinion.” Continue reading →

The ever-divisive Trinity Parkway toll road will be the subject of a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Chris Semos Campus of Rosemont Elementary School, 1919 Stevens Forest Drive in Dallas. It’s open to the public and doesn’t require an RSVP. Here are the top things you need to know before officials and civic leaders square off about the project, not-so-lovingly dubbed the “zombie toll road.”

(Michael Hogue / Staff Artist)

Trinity Parkway is planned to run parallel to Interstate 35E, past downtown, then connect to U.S. Highway 175. Near downtown it will abut planned recreation areas. A plan to connect directly to I-35E south of downtown is unfunded and would require replacing the Jefferson Boulevard Viaduct.

1. It Would Connect Irving and Northwest Dallas with Southeast Dallas

Trinity Parkway is planned as a 9-mile road whose western terminus connects to the intersection of Interstate 35E and State Highway 183 and whose eastern terminus connects to U.S. Highway 175 southwest of downtown. It will run roughly parallel to I-35E from Irving to downtown and then will run roughly perpendicular to I-30 as it moves south of downtown.

The road does not have a direct connection to I-30. It won’t connect to I-35E near downtown unless the state builds a connection. That $165 million project is unfunded, but calls for demolishing the current Jefferson Boulevard bridge and replacing it with a viaduct that runs directly from I-35E into downtown. The bridge would intersect with the toll road along the way.

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(Louis DeLuca / The Dallas Morning News )

Former Dallas mayor and U.S. trade ambassador Ron Kirk was among several people who spoke at the 2013 farewell party for former Dallas city manager Mary Suhm.

Texas Central Railway is turning to a familiar and influential North Texas figure in its bid to connect Dallas and Houston with a high-speed rail line.

Former U.S trade ambassador and Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk joined the private firm Monday as a senior adviser. The move comes almost two years after Kirk left President Obama’s cabinet and returned to practicing law.

“I have seen just about all of the high-speed rail systems throughout Europe and Asia, and the competitive part of me feels that if the rest of the world can do this, why can’t we right here in the United States?” Kirk said in a statement on Texas Central’s website.

The company plans to operate a bullet train that would get people between the state’s two largest metropolitan areas in 90 minutes. Texas Central is currently seeking public input on the project. At a meeting in Dallas last month, attendants and local officials praised the project. They also said the only Dallas station that should be considered is one downtown.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit, meanwhile, has unveiled an ambitious plan to increase light rail and streetcar services downtown in hopes of tying its system into the high-speed rail line.

Texas Central officials say that they believe trains could begin running in 2021. Between now and then, it must secure all the land needed, get federal approval and secure private investments of about $10 billion, if not more.

Kirk said the line will help the state’s economy, create jobs and free up gate capacity at Love Field. He said:

“For the business traveler in particular, high-speed rail is a more efficient means of transport for those of us who travel regularly between these two dynamic communities. A high-speed rail corridor would allow us to conduct our business better and do so in an environment that has proven to be safe, efficient, reliable and much more accommodating to getting work done while you are being transported.

Recognizing that the benefits are vast, I want to make this dream of high-speed rail in Texas and the United States a reality. I will be devoting my time and attention to helping that happen in every way I can.”

Key chains given away at Friday's event promote the campaign's slogan. (Jehadu Abshiro/Staff)

“If we save just one life -- just one -- it’s worth it," said DART President Gary Thomas (left).

Staff writer Jehadu Abshiro reports:

Dallas Area Rapid Transit announced an education and safety program Friday aimed at preventing deadly accidents on the tracks.

After a series of accidents, DART hopes to raise awareness using Operation Lifesaver’s national “See Tracks? Think Train” campaign, DART spokesman Morgan Lyons said.

“This is a tough problem, and it’s going to take all of us to succeed,” Gary Thomas, DART’s president and executive director, said Friday at Union Station downtown.

Continue reading →

From the most recent time-lapse captured by DART videographer Lupe Hernandez

Dallas Area Rapid Transit crews have spent the last few weekends replacing worn-out train tracks that date back to the halcyon days of the Macarena, which has necessitated parking its light-rail service — a necessary inconvenience, in other words. The work’s scheduled to wrap November 30 — though that’s a bit up in the air at the moment, given a forecast calling for 1-2 inches of rain on Saturday.

Anyway. DART’s been documenting these rail replacements, posting the results to YouTube and dispatching them to media. I didn’t pay much mind till I noted that the most recent entry found its way to Reddit, where it was enthusiastically greeted with reviews hailing it as “seriously cool” and “fantastic work” (if, that is, you turn down the sound, which is recommended with 94 percent of all YouTube videos). And, yes, by all means. Hail, hail the work of DART videographer Lupe Hernandez.

I asked DART spokesman Morgan Lyons for a little background on the time-lapse videos that were shot without the use of drones. (A camera was mounted on the Crowne Plaza on Elm Street.)

“This is a very important and complex project, and we wanted to document it,” he responded via email. “We like doing the videos because they help us make our story more accessible. Using the time-lapse approach helps us present to full scale of the effort without asking viewers to commit a whole lot of time.”

Not sure you’re going to need all 24 minutes. But worth most of ‘em. Lyons says at least one more’s on the way, because everyone knows you ain’t a franchise till you hit the trilogy mark. Continue reading →

(Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

A 'Turkey for Toll Roads' hands fliers out to attendants of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings' breakfast announcement about a possible new vision for the Trinity toll road at Babb Bros BBQ & Blues in Dallas..

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings this morning asked people packed into a West Dallas barbecue joint to support an effort in which the “best design minds in the world” will rethink unspecified elements of the divisive Trinity toll road.

But what remains unclear is how much the panel of urban planners and transportation experts who meet next month will be able to change the road. Local officials have already submitted detailed specifications to federal authorities, who will decide next year whether or not Trinity Parkway can be built.

Rawlings said federal officials’ ongoing review of the plans is the perfect time to “pivot” and make sure the road’s design is “right for the city.”

“I’ve said I only want to be a part of something that is significant and truly additive, not only for mobility but for aesthetics and economic development,” he told more than 100 people at Babbs Bros BBQ & Blues.

Much of the opposition to the road centers the shelf it will have to sit on, its width within Trinity River levees and its wall meant to minimize flooding. Critics say those elements are essentially hostile to the grand park city leaders want to build within the levees. Many of the city’s hoped-for recreational amenities will fall between the road’s flood wall and the river itself.

Three people dressed as turkeys stood outside Wednesday’s breakfast, mocking the mayor’s support for the controversial road and handing out fliers that said the road would hinder downtown developed.

Rawlings said after his speech that he doesn’t know what flexibility the city has at this point in making design changes. He wants the panel that will spend a few days rethinking the plan to have leeway in their vision.

“Why not treat this project with an optimistic sense of the possible?” he said.

Almost none of the funding for the $1.5 billion project (as its currently designed) has been determined yet. The North Texas Tollway Authority won’t determine whether it is financially feasible until after federal authorities give clearance to build it.

But Rawlings said he wants to put those factors aside. He said there are a lot of projects in Dallas that would have ended up being mediocre if financing details preceded overarching vision.

“I want to stand in the Trinity, look back toward downtown and say, ‘That’s cool, that’s beautiful,’” he said. “That’s what I want.”

So what does he consider cool and beautiful?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a design person.”

Trinity toll road opponents who heard his speech called it political theater meant to squelch growing opposition to the road ahead of next year’s City Council elections. Rawlings has not yet announced if he will seek a second term.

“It’s not a popular position right now to be pro-toll road,” said Angela Hunt, a former council member who led a failed 2007 voter referendum aimed at blocking the road’s construction.

Council member Philip Kingston questioned whether anything that comes out of next month’s design summit could ever be implemented given that detailed road schematics have already been submitted for approval.

“This is a fraud,” he said of the mayor’s breakfast.

(Ron Baselice/Staff photographer)

Longtime Trinity River toll road opponent and former Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt and Alex Krieger following the Harvard professor's apology for suggesting the "parkway" that has become the massive Trinity River toll road

Alex Krieger, the urban design professor at Harvard who co-authored Dallas’ decade-old Balanced Vision Plan for the Trinity River, confirms: He will be part of Mayor Mike Rawlings’ “time-out” intended to tweak the Trinity River toll road Krieger apologized for in September. And if you’re not exactly clear what this means yet, well, you’re not alone.

“I don’t know what will come of this,” Krieger said from his Boston offices Tuesday morning. “I do not know. I am glad to come. I am pleased to be invited. I am not sure I have very high expectations. But I am eager to come. I am hopeful something will come out of it.”

In Trinity Groves tomorrow morning Rawlings will detail that Trinity Parkway plan intended to make the long-promised, long-debated road less “divisive.” It will have something to do with the maybe-could-be-who-knows redesign of the nearly nine-mile-long, six-lane-wide high-speed toll road between the levees. Rawlings and former Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm insist it’s possible to make over the path approved by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, the so-called Alternative 3C. Toll road opponents say this exercise is nothing more than more of the same — a shiny distraction intended to keep the naysayers at bay.

“I hope that it’s not a distraction,” said Krieger. “I think the whole Balanced Vision Plan was a bit of a distraction, as it turned out. Not intentionally so, given [then-Dallas Mayor] Laura Miller’s intentions at the time, and not in the mind of the city council, but to the extent the highway folks were continuing to design their highway, which is why I felt duplicitous 10 years later. We felt we were involved in a process that would be sensitive to the context of the road, but the whole time the highway builders were nodding at us: ‘Parkway, sure, fine, whatever.’”

And in the end, the highway builders got what they wanted, at least on paper. There’s still no money to pay for the road guesstimated to cost upwards of $1.5 billion, and studies have shown a toll road’s not financially viable at four lanes. But in a matter of months, federal and state agencies will OK building the massive toll road along east levee. And in his invite to tomorrow’s meeting, Rawlings wrote that “if the schedule goes as planned, work on the Trinity Parkway will begin in early 2015.” Continue reading →

(Via.)

DART's St. Paul station

Update at 1:04 p.m.: DART spokesman Morgan Lyons says light-rail service has been restored in downtown Dallas following that accident involving a pedestrian and a train at the St. Paul Station.

Update at 12:47 p.m.: Dallas Area Rapid Transit spokesman Morgan Lyons says southbound trains — that is, those that go to Westmoreland (Red) and Ledbetter (Blue) — are moving again. When asked how long he thought it would take to get the other track, serving the Green and Orange lines, back on track, Lyons said, “Should be pretty soon.” But not immediately.

“We have a mechanical problem with the incident train, so that’s why it hasn’t moved,” he says. He explains that it’s “really a function of it being shut down for a while, not the incident.” Either way, shuttle buses will keep running as crews work to restore service to that track.

Original item posted at 12:37 p.m.: Light rail in downtown Dallas came to a halt around 12:10 Monday afternoon after an accident involving a pedestrian near the St. Paul Station.

At the moment, says Dallas Area Rapid Transit spokesman Morgan Lyons, DART light-rail passengers are having to use buses to shuttle between the Victory, Union, West End, Akard, St. Paul, Pearl and Deep Ellum stations. Says Lyons, rail service will likely start running again shortly.

Lyons says a man transported to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas with face and knee injuries.

“The track’s clear,” says Lyons. “Initial indications are he was standing a little close to the train, and then came in contact with it as it came into the station.” Some have reported that the man was wearing headphones and not paying attention to the inbound train.

Details and updates to come.

The Dallas City Council’s transportation committee on Monday is slated to spend four hours discussing an overhaul of transportation-for-hire rules. The council has been wrangling for more than a year with a rewrite of its ordinances that deal with car-for-hire companies including taxis, limos and app-based services like Uber and Lyft.

The council faced public backlash after almost passing a previous rewrite that many said would have put the app-based services that are wildly popular with 20-somethings out of business. Transportation committee member Sandy Greyson then spent months working with several city officials and business leaders to hammer out a set of rules that gave the city some oversight over the companies, but also let the private entities compete against each other on an even playing ground.

The rules aim to require enough insurance to protect passengers but not make being an app-based driver cost prohibitive. They also hope to put drivers of all companies through a uniform background check.

Just as the transportation committee was poised to send its proposal to the full council, it instead halted its efforts so the North Central Texas Council of Governments could broker a regional ordinance. Greyson is working with that entity to write rules that Dallas, Fort Worth and D/FW International can all adopt.

The Transportation and Trinity River Project Committee will discuss the latest on the overhaul at 5 p.m. Monday in Room 6ES of City Hall, 1500 Marilla St. Assistant police chief Charles M. Cato is expected to spend more than three-and-a-half hours presenting the proposed new rules.