Farmer's Market Subway

[RobertB]

After staring at my own drawings for way too long, I took another look at the dfwmaps.com aerial views of downtown Dallas's Farmers Market. Scrolling down to the south, I noticed something interesting... the DART line that goes from the Trinity River bridge to the rail yards has a big ol' wye junction that points right toward downtown! I had been thinking that a Farmers Market line would have to come up to surface level in the rail yards, something I suspect DART wouldn't like for a number of reasons. But it looks like there's ROW available all the way from the abandoned spur to the I-30 canyon.

Right across the canyon, the ROW turns into the big, new apartment development right by the Market. What is empty land in the 2003 aerial photo is under massive construction now -- perfect for TOD, even if it wasn't neccesarily designed as such.

Continuing north, up Old Central Expressway, we run smack dab into a gentle curve of the Phase 2 downtown subway alignment! w00t!

It looks like we can add a Farmers Market extension to the subway much more simply than I'd thought. From Carpenter Station (under Old Central & Elm), follow Old Central south. Once we get to Farmers Market, we can route the line under Old Central or under the shallow-depth sales buildings. The routing and station placement will really depend on a broader view of the area's future development plan.

From the Farmers Market station, we go under the Canyon. I need to go to TxDOT's site and find the plans for the redevelopment of the Canyon before I can really figure out where the best routing will be. There may even be a way to visit Old City Park with this routing. Other than Old City Park, there's not much here but crumbling residential and dingy industrial -- there may not be a station here at first, but I think plans should be flexible enough to add one in the future.

Eventually, we'll end up under that old railroad ROW on the south side of I-30. Transition from subway to surface here, where there's nothing on the aerial view but truck parking and junkyards. The surface track merges into the existing "non-revenue" line (which is double-track, btw) and heads south. It could either continue across the river to 8th & Corinth, or turn back towards Cedars.

Attachments:
* The smaller aerial shot shows the wye that makes this routing possible. The branch in red is the existing surface line and rail yard -- the wye is near the bottom. Note the utter lack of anything aesthetic in the area.
* The large shot (warning: 634k jpeg) shows the entire run from Carpenter Station to south of the wye, with existing (2004) surface rail in red and existing (2020?) downtown subway in blue.

I can't wait to see what y'all come up with for routing this line! No really, I can't wait... hurry up and draw something before I do!

[texman]

I'm somwhat lost and confused..

[RobertB]

I'm somwhat lost and confused..
Sorry, my bad. Here's a diagram that shows what's going on a bit better.

On the top, outlined in yellow, is where we should be able to connect to the Phase 2 downtown subway loop (detailed in another thread). On the bottom, also outlined in yellow, is the old railroad ROW that is being used for precicely nothing, nada, a place for tall weeds and dead bodies.

I drove down this portion of Old Central, and it was very interesting. The old-style warehouses looked like Dallas' West End before there was a Marketplace, with filigrees on the corners and cool, weathered brick. Many had "for sale" signs. On the corners are an assortment of liquor stores, and stumbling along the streets are "customers" waiting for them to open.

All this just a few hundred yards (and/or worlds) away from the massive new apartment construction at Farmers Market. This area is ripe for redevelopment -- the city's already hoping for improved access and connection to downtown when the Canyon is rebuilt. I didn't see any residential along Central itself, and I don't see much on the aerial view -- that means there are few homeowners in the area, and those that *are* there will probably be happy for a chance to sell if their property values go up. If the city would chip in, you could even make a case for Farmers Market as the first downtown subway route.

I couldn't take many pictures of the area -- unfamiliar surroundings, wandering drunks (or otherwise incapacitated), narrow streets. All I was able to get on a quick drive-through were these shots of a fully functional pedestrian overpass, visible in the aerial photos, that's closed. I mean, the city has covered the entrances on both ends with chain-link fencing. Pretty sad.

[tamtagon]

I couldn't take many pictures of the area -- unfamiliar surroundings, wandering drunks

That was probably me, sorry if I scared you....

I can see my roof in that overhead shot.

[RobertB]

I finally found my .pdf's of the Canyon rebuilding project. They're available at http://www.projectpegasus.org/information.htm and they have one very, very helpful bit of information. You know that tangle of bridges intersecting Old Central Expressway and I-30 in the canyon? Those relics of an earlier time are completely gone in the Project Pegasus proposal. That makes things much simpler for routing the line.

Their maps also showed me something -- Farmers Market and Old City Park are a block away from each other. Unfortunately, that block is now occupied by the aforementioned spaghetti interchange. When that mess is removed, Project Pegasus envisions the downtown core and the near south joining together. Here's my part to help.

Farmers Market - Old City Park Station
* Under Pearl Street in Farmers Market
* Street-level exit to the north serves the nearby, rapidly expanding residential area
* Street-level exit to the south serves Old City Park via Project Pegasus' proposed surface-level streets.

To get to this station, I've routed the line a bit differently than my original proposal. The Jackson Street line branches south on Pearl, a curve made easier by the surface ROW required by the 5-way intersection of Jackson, Pearl, and Wood. Then, straight down Pearl to the station, then diagonally across the I-30/Old Central intersection (which is proposed to be just a simple bridge). As soon as we're out of the highway ROW, transition to the surface for the half-mile run to the existing DART tracks, and on to 8th & Corinth.

Alternatives considered and rejected:

* Extending the line south from Carpenter Station would have resulted in a subway bypass of the downtown core. That's not what we're trying to do here.

* A more southerly alignment south of I-30 and a station closer to Old City Park. It seemed cool, but the station entrance might be hard to fit into the park's mission. Also, the subway-surface transition would have taken place along Park Street, currently lined with empty lots. This was once a single-family residential area, and could be again -- the transition zone would make that much more difficult. Also note that the existing DART tracks cross all the streets on old, historic bridges, so moving the transition zone to somewhere near the tracks would be difficult and costly.

Comments welcome! I think I'll see if there's a suggestion box at projectpegasus.org.

[drumguy8800]

I wonder what that proposed TXU site thing is in the left picture bounded by St. Paul, St. Louis, Corsicana..and.. something else..?