Originally Posted by mjblazin
It will be interesting to see what happens if we get to the point where the City is required to inject substantial new capital to make up for an NTTA shortfall.
He can't be serious...he just can't be. This quote is going to get us laughed at all over the world. He honestly believes this park (with a tollway in it, no less) is going to be BETTER than Central Park?
What's Mayor Tom smoking these days? :rasta:
I tell everyone...I smile just because...I've got a city love...
It will be interesting to see what happens if we get to the point where the City is required to inject substantial new capital to make up for an NTTA shortfall.
By not more forcefully pushing that point, the FOR group made it look like the finance issue was a push. In fact the AGAINST team wisely played the issue in reverse pressing the point that FOR would raise expenses. Reality is that the tollway will cost much more than estimated.
It would have been risky, probably leading to accusations of re-fighting the 1998 vote, something FOR made pains to demonstrate it was not doing. But in not pressing the point, FOR surrendered a major leverage point with N Dallas.
Do you guys actually understand how wide the Trinity River is? It's more than 500 yards wide and the road will only take up 40 yards (only about 10% of the park). This park will have about 450 yards across from the road to the other levee. You could put 4 1/2 football fields here. I'll be honest, besides having some green space I'm not sure there will be enough things that we can put in all of the empty space. It truly is a massive area that needs to be filled with trees, lakes, landscaping, ammenities etc...
And guess what? The plan that Ahunt and most of you on here supported also contains 4 lanes of concrete- or about 40 yards or about 10%. But you guys don't seem to mention that. Ahunt was not opposed to having a road- she just didn't want a toll road. She wanted a low speed parkway- but either way you get 4 lanes...
One allows direct access to the park the other doesn't....seems to me to be kind of a big point to leave out...
The stated goal of the limited-access, high-speed toll road is to provide passage for 100,000 cars per day. I heard the argument about 40 yards vs 500 yards... but the point was that high volumes of vehicular traffic, with its noise and pollution, are incompatible with a signature central park. The low speed road was styled after Turtle Creek Blvd, and was intended for park access, not as a reliever route. Although, the original MTIS only specified a medium speed parkway. There is no MTIS that even justifies the current plan. The current plan came about as a funding mechanism (a toll road), which then became subject to revenue constraints (i.e., NTTA would want to maximize traffic flows to get some revenue out of this.)
EDIT: I should say, when I say that these uses are incompatible, well of course, the balanced vision plan says that we can harmonize them. I personally feel that harmonizing these uses will prove to be prohibitively expensive and that the transportation component will be lifted in priority. That's the track that we were on before the referendum, and it seems to me, the track that we will return to now that it's all over.
Last edited by BigD5349; 08 November 2007 at 03:49 PM.
Once again, there will actually 5 access points into the park from the toll- not to mention the other access points via indirect streets and the numerous access points via walk and bike paths... Trust me, there will be plenty of places to enter the park! We don't need 20 or 30 access points here...
And let's be honest... Even if we had a slow speed Turtle Creek Blvd type road- are we gullible enough to believe that it won't be packed? I think you could actually cause more congestion by having a low speed road with stop lights, stop signs etc... Just look at Industrial Blvd... I-35 is bad enough as is, and everyone will be lookign for a way to cut an extra 5 - 10 minutes off the drive.
Maybe I'm just 'unimformed' but if you look at the NTTA site it says that the 4 lane portion will eventually be 6 lanes, eliminating the 'landscaped' median. Also the road has to be built on a huge sloping berm which cannot touch the levee -- so how wide do you think that will be?
The road would have been limited to no more than 4 lanes and 35mph. That is not intended to be a traffic reliever. It's a park access road. How do people get from Mockingbird Lane to Garland Road? Do they crawl along Lawther, or do they take Buckner Blvd?
I did, actually. Even if only for a few months.
Times weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it.
Haruki Murakami
I find it absolutely amazing that some folks would use this election and/or other backwards attitudes about Dallas as an excuse to make some type of move out of the area. That the defeat now means Dallas is headed back to the dark ages is ludicrous.
Do any of these people seriously think that if they had won that sometime within the next five years (probably more like Ten) they would be walking/hiking/biking or whatever along a tranquil Trinity River Bottom? Get real and look at what Dallas has to offer today!
Dallas is undergoing breathtaking changes now! Within a 10-year period Downtown Dallas, Uptown, East Dallas, the Cedars will have been almost completely rebuilt. Massive amounts of people are moving into these areas and this was unthinkable ten years ago. We have a world class Arts District under development. The Woodall Rogers Park “is” going to happen. Within the next two years the DART rail line will be the premier light-rail line in the United States.
The business and employment environment in Dallas is recognized as one of the strongest in the Nation. It is not unreasonable for us to believe that more Fortune 1000 companies will seriously consider making moves to the Dallas area.
If someone is going to go, just go. But don’t look down on this great city, it’s people or it’s future. Good things are happening here and that’s a fact.
Well, there you go again. Trying to come on this forum and be a positive, forward thinking contributor.
Well I can not make such a judgement about you because I have not met you and seen any comments that suggest much more about you except that you have an opinion that deserves its own air time just like anybody else. So I will reserve my quick judgement of someones personality to actually meeting that person before making such negative remarks about their morality.
Actually, I believe the ramps for Commonwealth, Sylvan, Jefferson, Corinth and MLK have been eliminated to keep the price tag low. Additionally, the ramps that are supposedly going to be at these exits are based on non-committed agreements between the city and the NTTA and TXDoT. I wouldn't hold your breath on them just yet.
On the points of access, this road will provide zero access. None. At best, it will have access ramps that lead to roads like Sylvan and Jefferson. Then, if so inclined, these streets will have places that slope down into the park. Those access points are unfunded.
Also, as SPJZ has pointed out, the 1.3 billion price tag does not include these ramps. If they are included, and you better believe we will hold their feet to the fire, the price jumps to 1.6 billion. So to actually get access, we are looking at almost 2 billion dollars.
But, since we are calling this a reliever route instead of the parkway, park access isn't the point.
I think its amusing that several people have remarked on how close this election was. The original bond election was considerably closer, yet now people refer to how "overwhelming" the support was.
By the time this is complete we will start to see the Atlantic rising into Central Park from Global Warming....sooo yes Trinity Park will be like Central Park, under water. But the good news is that the Congress overrode the Bush veto on the water projects. Wow......6 trillion in debt, but we got our tollway and waterpark!
And don't forget with sufficient spring rain, the Trinity beltway/floodway/floodplain is ideal for growing hemp ! :rasta: Perhaps we become known for wacky cultivation and dykes (barriers designed to contain water) :fish:
Last edited by BC_Club; 08 November 2007 at 09:27 PM.
I make jest but what is really exciting to me from an architectural and engineering background is this is going to be quite remarkable what is designed, engineered and built. Look at Central, we have the drive, vision and engineering to make this incredible !!! and the technology and concepts are capable of extreme design. (while thinking of the environment)
exhausting trying to appease both veiwpoints
I agree 100%!! To the people who are saying that, "get the hell outta here." Your "love" of this city is clearly and extremely conditional. And to the person that said New Orleans had more to offer...R TARD! Massve unemployment rate as well as murder rate with a population decline. Don't forget that added bonus of sitting on your roof for three days. AND THEN to re-elect the fool (mayor) who helped get them into such a mess.
OUCH!...but well said.
I'm gonna have to agree with the retard. New Orleans has better parks, a better downtown, better music, better food, better bars....and there area a shit load of bars, better shops, better and older trees....Dallas is just bigger and has more jobs. Basically more business. Which is good, but people move in and move out all the time. Most people who are born in New Orleans die in New Orleans, they would never dream of living anywhere else.
OK, good for you. NO is a dump. It has to be the single dirtiest city I have even been to, and this was before Katrina.
This is how you judge a city?better bars....and there area a shit load of bars
I have just one comment after skimming this, What the hell is wrong with all of yall?
We all know Ms. Hunt was doing the good fight. She was looking out for us, but now the citizens after a thorough review of the issues that brought us all here, have spoken. Build it!
Lets all come together, quit the schoolyard fighting and work to build the best park/parkway/bridge/whitewater/lake Downtown recreation area this country has ever seen.
Idealist whining and insults won't get us anywhere.
Last edited by Mephis Gooseberry; 09 November 2007 at 12:29 AM.
From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Viktor E. Frankl
Good vision, but do you really see the come together happening with the people that matter? Nope. The problem we are having ONCE AGAIN as with everything in the metroplex is that we can't create real things that do what they do incredibly well. Instead we want do-it-all developments. Why does this project have to solve every problem Dallas has? My sincerest hope is that in 10 years the River bottoms look exactly as they do right now and we continue the improvement of the rest of the actual city.
Piling on more negativity won't get you what you want. Leadership must have a larger vision than just another drainage ditch. If all we get is a ditch, then I want the best ditch ever built.
From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Viktor E. Frankl
Ok, now I have some questions. Now that the election is over lets talk about the park now
What is the city going to spend on security for they a park? How is the city going to clean up the trinity River itself? What how about contrlling the homeless that go to the park to panhandle or harrass park goers? What about cleanup/upkeep costs after major events, like concerts etc? How much will they have to raise tax to do all of these thing plus build the park.
If you going to have a tollway you going to have to have a cleanup crew to cleanup all the trash the idoit throw out their cars into the river and the park, of course graffeti artist wil be doing their masterpieces too.
I would Love to hear how Tom Leppert plan to answer these questions.
what answer do you have for these? we all agree it will take time but I am curious to see what is on your minds!!!
Scott Dorn
Hitting the streets with the cam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70886669@N00/
http://homepage.mac.com/sdorn/dallas_shots
http://www.myspace.com/177586541
Exactly.
Uh, by the time all of this is supposed to be built, they'll need to dig out the whole area to make a reservoir. There's only so much land north of 635 until you get to Oklahoma, it can't ALL be lakes.
Not trying to be alarmist, I just believe that water is going to get very expensive in the future.
That must be why it draws more tourist than most places in the U.S. That must be why people buy time shares to go there. That must be why the price of land, even in the hood and after Katrina is so high....cause it's a dump.
Don't worry, if we judged cities by how many Gaps, Walmarts and 7/11s they had, Dallas would be second to none. Personally, good gin and tonics and great neighborhood restaurants trump. Dallas has some of that, but they are the exception. In New Orleans they are the rule.
This is the entire problem with the tollroad. There WILL BE NO direct access from the tollroad. Everybody talks about turtle creek blvd etc blah blah blah, but the only parallel to this would be to build a hiking trail through the middle of a park....and then put up an eight foot wall on both sides...As an essential element of design, don't you usually have to put things together that accentuate each other? If the tollroad isn't going to have direct access to the park...why is it there...if you want to build a park build a park...if you want to build a high speed tollroad build a high speed tollroad road...I mean, putting this road through the park with no direct access certainly shows how important the park is. No one on the tollroad will care about it at all, they're just passing through...the lack of funding certainly shows how important the powers-that-unfortunately-be think the park is, if they don't even want to add access to increase the chances that people will go into the park...
And for everyone thinking this is a step forward...take a look around the world for goodness sake. Suburban sprawl and the infrastructure that supports it ie this toll road is a DEAD END. In my work in development, one of the things that has really started to bother me is the blanket use of words like "progress" or "development". Development can be positive, negative, or neutral. City's around the world (the ones you want to go to...) are not building this kind of infrastructure in the middle of their parks because they recognize it's an antiquated way of doing things. Making drivers more comfortable and giving them endless roads just means more people will continue to drive and create more communities that hardly qualify being labelled as such because everyone drives everywhere for everything. It's downright stupid, and I think it is a reason to consider moving...I love Dallas but "developments" around here aren't panning out like I think many would hope...Many of these new and shiny developments are at best neutral. I went to Mockingbird station last night...DEAD, on a Thursday night. Lower Greenville, DEAD on a Thursday night. The density in uptown is great but c'mon, the automobile still rules the roost. Even though we're starting to see mixed use, the climate is still such that, although people are living right you hardly see anyone walking around, enjoying life and the world. And that IS an impediment to more sustainable development. Anything, like this tollroad, that just continues to pander to the car lifestyle which we know is tremendous waste of limited resources is leading us down the wrong path. It took us in Dallas soooo long just to figure out that we should make our city about more than just cars as a means of transportation. There's rail, bus, biking, and of course the feet God or your mama gave you (depending on how religious you are.) Thought of in that perspective, this is a big step back. Oh, it's development, but it ain't positive at all.
Last edited by maccy; 09 November 2007 at 12:29 PM.
The term "direct" access is very misleading. It simply means you have to exit the toll and then take another feeder street into the park. It might take you an extra 30 seconds to get into the park. But no, the toll will not dump you right off into the park- you'll have to take a slow speed street into the park...
who cares? none of it will ever be built anyway.
Yep, that's my single biggest gripe about Big D. Sometimes, people think "too big." But that's the image this city has, of being larger than life and bigger is better, so people buy into that belief and demand that everything be the biggest, splashiest, snazziest, fanciest place around. I wish more people thought smaller. It's ok to open a cool little neighborhood bar/restaurant/store/shop. Not everything has to be "Dallas-style."The problem we are having ONCE AGAIN as with everything in the metroplex is that we can't create real things that do what they do incredibly well. Instead we want do-it-all developments. Why does this project have to solve every problem Dallas has?
"You look at Chicago, New York, San Francisco, you'll find lots of small businesses. But here in Dallas, they hold up big businesses and kick out small businesses, and that's not good."
And people will continue to be able to live and work and play where they want, instead of where some urban planner or mass transit fanatic tells them they ought to. Freedom of choice....hmmm, what an interesting concept.
Yes, freedom to sprawl all the way up to Oklahoma with faux downtowns, strip malls and walmarts. And, actually, you're right. You can choose that if you want. But that choice affects everyone. Unfortunately this kind of sprawl affects the environment and the beauty of our state among other things. I doubt Dallas will ever be as dense or vertical a city as new york, london or paris. But the line has to be drawn somewhere in regards to sprawling out. We have to plan and design our city better.
^ and the point isn't to be new york or paris or london or rome or vancover. All of those places are incredibly unique and different -- and a dense, urban Dallas could be just as unique, just as breathtaking, but also just as distinct in its character. Instead, the citizens of Dallas choose to make DFW among the largest (and to a great extent, one of the blandest) suburbs in America, because they can't get themselves to think long-term.
Times weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it.
Haruki Murakami
Sorry, to add on, in fairness I don't mean the citizens of Dallas. Dallas is doing a lot to fix the problem, and to turn itself around. Its more about the mindset of people in the Metroplex as a whole, who outnumber those in the Dallas city proper by 4:1 and probably outnumber those living within the urban core of the city, what, 50:1, 100:1 or more?
Suburbs are like leeches. The current problem with DFW, as I see it, is a huge mess of them draining the blood from a pair of infants. DFW is very young, and as such is prone to making a lot of mistakes. Just as children shouldn't be thrown out into the wild alone and fend for themselves, without taking any knowledge or wisdom from adults, so DFW shouldn't assume that we can throw away the European and northeastern models of cities as "out-of-date" or "passe." Because they aren't.
Last edited by msutton; 10 November 2007 at 05:13 AM.
Times weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it.
Haruki Murakami
It's not a zero sum game. Growing suburbs and successful (I detest that word vibrant) Dallas urban neighborhoods can co-exist and thrive. My personal fulfilled desire to own and live in an urban neighborhood should not be forced upon someone else that prefers the suburbs. Believe it or not, a million people a decade are not moving here for the urban neighborhoods. They will come here because the NE cities and the larger West Coast cities offer ZERO opportunity to accumulate net worth to individuals that don't already have it. Dallas's wealth and the opportunity to get your own for your family originate in the suburbs, not in Dallas proper.
I'm perfectly satisfied to live in a neighborhood. I don't need to live in the uber neighborhood. Many urban advocates strike me as variation on the Puritans: upset that somewhere in the suburbs someone is actually enjoying his or her life. She can enjoy her life and I'll enjoy mine.
^I agree totally...that is the beauty of this nation...so much opportunity and options to live where ever the hell you want. PEOPLE...the urban movement has already started it doesn't need overzealous die hard wanna be intellectual advocates to keep on spreading.
What? So you have to live in a suburb to build wealth? I'm tossing down the BS card on that statement.
And we do need to look at the great cities that have been around for awhile. How do they deal with their parks and sprawl. I wouldn't have that much a problem with the suburbs if they were better planned. But, most of the time, they are not. You have to ask yourself what will these developments look like 15 or 20 years from now and are they sustainable. Usually, the suburbs get rundown and most suburbanites leave for the next new development and leave the old ones to rot. You have an outer ring of exurbs that are new and shiny and an evergrowing inner circle of older run down suburbs. There has to be a better way.
Labeling us "wanna be intellectuals," while very mature, doesn't really negate the fairly obvious point that we need to look to European and older American cities as we figure out where we're going and how to get there. That people can do “whatever the hell they want to” is obvious, and while I appreciate that you made sure we're all aware of such freedom, it really isn’t what’s being debated here.
Yes, you can choose to make your home pretty much where ever you want to -- that may be the beauty of this country, but because so many Americans spend hardly anytime thinking or educating themselves about the future and are so concerned with the most immediately beneficial courses of action (again, this is a stereotype, but it's a frighteningly accurate one: look at the mortgage and credit crises we're facing right now if you need any convincing), there's a certain duty by those who do think about such "trivial" things as long-term sustainability to try and increase the awareness of those around them.
Times weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it.
Haruki Murakami
Yeah that set me off too -- the home appreciation rate inside LBJ is 3 to 4 times higher than the northern suburbs, at a minimum.
Also the people with real money are in those areas, so that would be the place to start a business.
Calm down there buddy. What's your damage? I wasn't lumping everyone who seek an urban lifestyle as wanna be intellectuals, although if you would like to take that as an attack on you, be my guest. I am talking to those few who I see post degrading messages on here attacking people for choosing a life style that is different than there's. As far as your maturity comment...gee you know I would think that on a forum with adult participants we could post messages without people criticizing the character of someone posting their opinion. Maturity would entail keeping an open mind and giving proper analysis to posts instead of reading each as a specific attack toward you.
That's too bad, because the irony of doing so would have been hilarious.
The truth is, urban areas actually are centers of creativity and intellectualism. Cities are the homes of the creative class that is responsible for most of the innovation in our knowledge-based economy. Those in the creative class seek social and cultural amenities in their lifestyles, and they're choosing urban areas over suburbs in droves, for very obvious reasons.
It's silly to deny it. The signs are everywhere, and it's been going on for more than decade. As the newer creative class returns to the cities that their parents abandoned decades ago, we've witnessed the resurgence of American urbanism. We've seen our cities reshaped and reinvigorated remarkably, in less than 10 years. And there's more to come.
All this is not to say suburban areas aren't productive. They are, but in a cog-in-the-wheel sense. The monotony and uniformity of suburban culture increasingly lends itself to emphasize production and individual consumerism, while giving little thought to the arts, society, or the other subjects that spark the minds and win the hearts of the creative class. That's not a bad thing, either. Not everyone is interested in creating. Some people prefer "doing and using" over "creating and imagining."
If you want to execute an established business model with a workforce of production-minded industry veterans, you can do so in the suburbs with great success by taking advantage of lower overhead costs. You'll be sure to find a lot of great employees interested in stability and production. But if you want to launch a start-up with aspirations of changing your industry's landscape, it's best to find a city that has courted the creative class of knowledge workers you'll need to make it happen. Otherwise, you could very soon find your company accidentally doing the same thing everyone else is doing.
You misunderstand the idea. If you have wealth in NY and SF, they are great places to acquire more wealth. But if you have a middle class job, little net worth, and enter those cities, it's extremely difficult to get to that first rung on the ladder. The cost of living, especially for housing, is just too high. You are on treadmill and not making any progress. That part of the model is not working and has not worked for quite awhile.
The situation in Dallas is entirely different. Why? It's because the suburbs provide the escape valve that keeps the pressure off most housing prices. Large numbers of people move to Dallas and get a "pay raise." They acquire property, build up equity, their children go to good neighborhood schools, etc. They have gone from places with few options to one with many options. People, large numbers of them, move to Dallas for those reasons.
The beauty of our situation is that practically everyone in the Metroplex gets a choice. If you want a suburban lifestyle, you have plenty of sites within your income. If you want an urban lifestyle, for the same income, you have plenty of choices. No one is forced to live anywhere. That is not the situation in many East Coast cities.
In my opinion, many recommendations from urban advocates border on coercive measures to eliminate those choices. Dallas will nevert take that path. Let's settle for making our urban neighborhoods enjoyable and eliminate the need to denigrate someone else's neighborhood.
Wouldn't you actually be able to better build wealth in Dallas proper where property values are better and growing?
I guess the question is: would appreciation be more than the lower monthly mortgage payment of a comparably sized home in the suburbs? The assumptions are:
- A comparably sized home would cost more in Dallas proper
- A person wouldn't spend the same in the suburb to get a bigger home
- The homeowner is disciplined enough to invest the difference
I'd say that the first assumption is pretty safe. Based on my conversations with people - and the sheer sizes of homes people buy here in DFW - that the next two would not be true. Based on that, I would say that moving into an area with a higher price per sq ft and higher appreciation rates would indeed build more wealth for the average homeowner (not to mention buying a smaller home would save on utility bills - but I digress).
Brian
Good points Brian - also there is a more laid-back atmosphere in my area - not much pressure to keep up with the Joneses -- do you really need a media room and an outdoor kitchen? Nobody cares here, you can invest that money. I know many people try to eliminate the TV or have a really small one completely out of sight - they think that is cool.
Also we have a lot of old money types which are good examples to follow - they don't need a new car or the latest gadget or fashion to prove their net worth. If anything they are anti-flash and glam.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks