There is lots of non freeway road construction going on in the Stemmons corridor. Harry Hines, Irving Blvd, the Hampton/Inwood Bridge, Inwood and Harry Hines interchange, Singleton Blvd, Oak Lawn and the DNT interchange, The DNT reconstruction, there was a little something going on around Mockingbird and 183 recently...I suspect that once these projects are finished and the Green Line is carrying its share of the load that Stemmons traffic will be a little nicer, although if your goal is to drive around the City of Dallas (or county for that matter) during rush hour, I don't every see a particularly bright future for you, with or with out the Trinity Toll Road.Originally Posted by dizzy
How about adding tolls to all the highways into DTD and using that money to accelerate light rail? I mean, that way the users are paying for their own congestion. Meanwhile, people who live and work in Dallas and who don't have to use the highways can get around just fine through town.
Be careful what you ask for. TxDOT would love nothing more than to put tolls on existing highways all over the place, especially I-35 between DFW and Austin. There's just the little issue that we've already *paid* for the roads -- or more specifically, the Federal Government paid for the lion's share. TxDOT is actively petitioning to be allowed to "buy back" the Interstates from Washington so that it can turn around and make them into toll roads. I wouldn't object so much, if the roads weren't destined to be sold to the highest bidder, who will be guaranteed a profit By Any Means Neccesary.
However, the idea of using toll revenues to fund other mobility improvements is one I've proposed before -- in another thread a while back, I suggested that DART (and The T and DCTA, for that matter) could be merged into the NTTA. This would create a North Texas Mobility Authority, whose task would be to implement mobility solutions using all available options. Not just roads, not just buses, not just rail. And move local TxDOT planning functions to the NTMA, too. One agency that can draw up a single, unified plan. One ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. (Or maybe that's not the best parallel.)
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09
That kind of sounds like Loop 9, actually. :2lol:
Consumers are not [the same as] citizens, and when a system pretends that they are, peculiar and even perverse things happen to decision making and democracy... - Benjamin Barber
WSJ Tells Story that DMN Won’t
by Sam Merten Wed, Oct 31, 2007, 12:54 PM
The Wall Street Journal has a story about the Nov. 6 vote today titled “Down by the Riverside, Development Spurs Debate,” which is online but only available to subscribers.
What stood out to me was how writer Kris Hudson described the placement of the road in Dallas’ floodway. This is something I took The DMN to task about in a recent column.
“Cities such as Grand Forks, N.D., and some suburbs of Chicago have installed parks within flood plains as Dallas intends to do. But Dallas’ plan to build a nine-mile road along the river’s flood-prone banks is unusual,” Hudson wrote. “Establishing a major thoroughfare on the water side of a levee is rare, if not unprecedented, and could complicate flood control.”
Hudson added that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hasn’t blocked the idea outright, and instead has set high standards for the project’s engineering specifications.
I just have to ask, how can Hudson get it right and The DMN get it so wrong?
Here's the full article:
Down by the Riverside,
Development Spurs Debate
Wall Street Journal
By KRIS HUDSON
October 31, 2007; Page B1
DALLAS -- This city for decades has haggled over how to develop the banks of its Trinity River, a 20-mile long swath of water and grassland slicing right by downtown.
Now, an ambitious, $1.7 billion plan to develop the flood channel as a park, lakes and a six-lane tollway could be derailed amid a battle between a lone Dallas councilwoman and much of the rest of the city's political and business establishment.
Voters in this city of 1.2 million will decide Tuesday whether to scrap the tollway. At stake, supporters say, are billions of dollars in related highway improvements to ease traffic congestion and a boon to downtown property values and recreation. Those against the tollway say it has wrongly taken precedence over the project's public park. They also say the road will mainly benefit wealthy property owners angling to develop condos and office towers near the river.
"Do we want a world-class park in the heart of Dallas or do we want a high-speed tollway to ruin that?" said Angela Hunt, a 35-year-old commercial lawyer elected to Dallas' council in 2005 who is leading the opposition.
Cities across the country are trying to turn rivers and lakefronts into assets, but those efforts often spark big debates over whether transportation should supersede recreation. Buffalo, N.Y., residents are asking Gov. Eliot Spitzer to block an impending revamp of an elevated three-mile section of Route 5, which blocks recreational access to Lake Erie, and instead scale it back to a smaller boulevard. In 2002, Milwaukee tore down the one-mile Park East Freeway spur along the Milwaukee River to give residents and developers better access to the riverfront.
Cities such as Grand Forks, N.D., and some suburbs of Chicago have installed parks within flood plains as Dallas intends to do. But Dallas' plan to build a nine-mile road along a river's flood-prone banks is unusual. Establishing a major thoroughfare on the water side of a levee is rare, if not unprecedented, and could complicate flood-control. That said, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hasn't blocked the idea outright, and instead has set high standards for the project's engineering specifications, such as the strength of its base and its drainage system for keeping runoff from the road, including oil and antifreeze, from seeping into the river.
Dallas' stretch of the Trinity River is bracketed by 29-foot-high levees. Most of the time, the river is little more than a large stream, leaving a massive, half-mile-wide ribbon of undeveloped green space bisecting the city's core. Occasionally, heavy rains swell the Trinity into a leviathan that laps against both levees. It usually recedes within days, and it hasn't topped its levees in the more than 50 years the Army Corps of Engineers has managed the flood plain. As planned, the road will be built 19 feet above the flood corridor's floor atop an earthen base. That would put it two feet higher than the anticipated water line in a 100-year flood.
In typical Texas style, Dallas' plans to develop the swath are ambitious. They call for digging lakes, building parks and erecting bridges for cars and pedestrians. Planners envision creating bends in some stretches of the river to foster different water habitats, as well as a kayak run with man-made rapids in one section. A 120-acre tract in the corridor's forested, southern end will host the $10 million Trinity River Audubon Center, which will have exhibits promoting river-habitat conservation and discussing the river's place in Dallas history.
At the center of the campaign to block the tollway is Ms. Hunt. As a freshman councilmember, she studied the Trinity River project and saw that the tollway, which is projected to have a speed limit of 55-mph, had morphed into a much larger entity than the four-lane, 35-mph road initially envisioned a decade ago. The road's expansion had come at the expense of the project's park, the very amenity that carried the vote in 1998 when Dallas approved $246 million in bonds for the project, she says.
Ms. Hunt found allies in a band of environmentalists and conservationists who long opposed the tollway. Among them is Jim Schutze, a prominent city-hall columnist for the Dallas Observer newspaper who frequently needles city officials for alleged favoritism and short-sightedness.
Mr. Schutze and others point to a 2005 city-funded, economic-impact report that predicts the Trinity River project will produce "a positive effect on the value of real estate throughout the corridor" and estimates a 3% to 5% rise in property values for the area. Thus, Mr. Schutze and other opponents conclude, landowners with significant holdings downtown stand to reap the most benefit from the access the road brings to their properties. "They see this road as crucial to redevelop their land," says Mr. Schutze, who has relentlessly attacked the tollway in his column.
Earlier this year, Ms. Hunt and her supporters gathered more than 90,000 signatures from Dallas voters to put the issue on the city's November ballot. "Do we want to create beautiful places and attract the creative class to Dallas?" Ms. Hunt says. "Or will the city sacrifice its only natural asset in order to shave a few minutes off of a suburban commuter's trip?"
The coalition opposing Ms. Hunt is vast. Joining Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and Ms. Hunt's 13 council colleagues to fight the referendum are most of the area's local, state and federal politicians, chambers of commerce and business leaders. Even maverick former mayor Laura Miller, who rarely missed an opportunity to challenge developers seeking city subsidies, considers the six-lane tollway acceptable in light of the recreational and scenic uses that will come with it, including an estimated 30 miles of trails, and 22 soccer fields.
Among those who have donated to a political action committee opposing the referendum are apartment developer JPI Multifamily Investments LP; Harlan Crow, son of Dallas real-estate magnate Trammell Crow; and Margot Perot, wife of Electronic Data Systems Corp. founder H. Ross Perot. The Dallas Citizens Council, a group of roughly 100 of the city's business elite, provided $297,000 of the protollway committee's $1.2 million in funds raised.
Mr. Crow waves off the allegation that he and other downtown property owners are maneuvering to benefit their own properties. He characterized his downtown holdings, which include the 1,600-room Hilton Anatole hotel and the Dallas Market Center wholesale complex, as a fraction of his family's real-estate portfolio. "In terms of my personal financial benefit, it doesn't make any difference at all," he says. "If you make Dallas a better place, it will be a better place for everybody."
Some environmentalists argue that installing a tollway downtown will attract more cars and thus release more emissions in the area. But proponents, including Mayor Leppert, counter that the tollway will relieve traffic jams downtown by providing a "reliever route," and actually reduce emissions because there will be fewer cars idling in traffic.
Mayor Leppert, the chairman and chief executive of construction firm Turner Corp. prior to his election in June, describes the tollway as the linchpin of the entire Trinity River project. The mayor says that restricting or eliminating the tollway will make it challenging to gain federal money for planned expansions of highways feeding into downtown, because federal authorities won't widen roads with the result of funneling traffic into a bottleneck. Routing traffic elsewhere in lieu of building the tollway will cost an estimated $500 million more for buying properties along the alternate route, he says.
If voters reject the tollway, Mayor Leppert says, "then we are going to lose the opportunity to do the Trinity project for your generation and mine."
Write to Kris Hudson at kris.hudson@wsj.com
If this tollway is built inside the park, not only will the potential of a unique regional park be downgraded, but the regressive politics forcing the regressive mobility plan will be a blight on the reputation of the Dallas.
Dallas residents should be embarassed that so many of their municipal leaders are such willing participants in the civicly cancerous mutation of information used to rationalize the proposed Trinity River Tolled highway.
There is nothing about the tolled highway which will improve the quality of life in Central Dallas. The Trinity Tolled Highway would directly inhibit mandates of the Dallas Comprehensive Master Plan / Forward Dallas.
Get On the Bus As Some City Council Members Tour the Trinity River -- For, Um, Like, the Very First Time?
Wed Oct 31, 2007 at 02:10:33 PM
I think maybe what I should do at this point is go down by the Trinity River with a baseball bat, hit myself in the head and just fall in. How can we be 10 years into the debate on putting a toll road inside the river park downtown? How can we be a week away from a damned referendum on it? And the city council members most responsible for the toll road still know virtually nothing about it?
Earlier this week I tagged along when the council's Trinity River Committee took a bus tour of the Trinity River project. Not too far into it I figured out this was the first time most of them had actually looked at the project area.
We rode along the levee-top trail in a white city van. You may imagine how delighted they were when I showed up and asked for a seat on the bus. The tours are supposed to be open to the public, so they didn't have a lot of choice. But we had lots of good-natured joshing about opening the door at a high rate of speed and giving me the old heave-a-rooni. These guys kill me.
The tour was guided by Trinity River Project director Rebecca Dugger, whom I just accused of ethical breaches to the city attorney, so there wasn't a whole lot of eye contact going on there. I sat toward the back on the same bench with another girlfriend, assistant city manager Jill Jordan, from whom I did get a small involuntary laugh with a remark about organic guru Howard Garrett's personal knee-pain tonic -- beer. But then it was all frowns and sang-froid, which I prefer. So here we all are, bumping along on the levee-top on the city's worn-out shocks, a bunch of crabby bobbleheads.
All of the sudden veteran council member and pro-toll road cheerleader Mitchell Rasansky has a question. Pointing down below us to this little dirt two-track service road along the foot of the levee, he asks Jordan, “Is this service road down here more or less where the toll road might be?”
I keep my silence. But the proper answer is, "No, Mitchell. That is a two-track dirt path. The toll road would be a four- to six-lane limited-access highway stretching 200 to 400 feet out into park, with a big concrete flood wall all along the edge of the so-called lakes.”
But Jordan asks another staffer, “What are our thoughts on that?”
Beat.
“Yeah,” the staffer says. “It is.”
Mitchell is beaming. They’re all beaming. Oh, isn’t that great? It’s just a little tiny six-lane toll road that fits in one lane. How marvelous!
“If you all will look way westward and see that other road over there," Mitchell says, "and this road down here, picture this in here, this is the first stage. I can see the future."
Oh, my God. I love Mitchell. But they tell him the limited-access toll road will fit where the one-lane dirt track is and now he can see the future? I am seriously going to toss my cookies. Maybe it's the bad shocks on this buggy. I must bite my tongue.
Mitchell is still lost in rhapsody. "This is all going to be manicured," he says expansively. "It is just going to look fantastic."
Yikes.
On we go, hobble-bobble-gobble, on down the levee in the city's white van. Council member Carolyn Davis asks several questions, which, taken together, betray that she is confused whether the park and toll road go inside the levees or outside. Did I just say yikes?
Finally, however, we arrive at what I stupidly think will be a moment of truth for the worthy council member -- a reckoning, maybe even a small epiphany. Some earnest engineer has been out here ahead of us poking flags in the dirt to show how fat the toll road will really be, how far it will bulge out into the park.
Of course he has chosen the skinniest point in the road -- where it is only four lanes, not six, and certainly not at one of the toll booth interchanges that will double or triple this width.
But that's O.K. Engineers are human, sort of. They have deals to sell. And even this best face version of it is great for me, because even here at its skinniest point the blue flags show the toll road bloating way out into the park -- not at all the modest little strip Mitchell was jollying himself into believing.
I wait. I am silent. My breath is bated, because I just know at any moment one of them -- Elba Garcia or Dave Neumann or maybe Mitchell – somebody on this damn bus is going to explode and start screaming: "Holy shit! What in the hell is that damn blue flag doing out there in the middle of where the lake is supposed to go? You have got to be shitting us!! You said it was where the little dirt lane was. You're making big fat liars of us to our constituents."
But no.
The bus is silent except for the soft mushy sound of heads bobbling. Not a question. Not a ripple. The council members gaze at the distant blue flags and smile, as if to say, "Nice little flags."
And I must bite my tongue. It is not for me, in my role as journalist, to violate the silence and say, "What are you people, nuts? Do you not see where the road is going to be?" No. I must say nada. Until ...
Snidely, Jill Jordan remarks, sotto voce, as if to herself but audibly to the bus, "As you can see, it's not 'out in the middle of the park.'"
Yeah. O.K. That was for me. That little dig was directed at yours truly, and that hereby suspends the rules.
"No," I say, "but it's also not down on the little service road where you just told them the road would be."
Drawing herself up primly, she says, "I see a blue flag on the service road."
"Yeah," I say, "but where's the other blue flag for the far side of the road? Way out there!"
Silence. A general shrugging of the bobble-heads as if to say, "Hmmmph.” Or, “Piffle.” Or, “Pooh.”
They don’t care. They won’t even look.
I give. I am defeated. Not even the physical universe can persuade them. Or get their attention. I think I just need to go down there, whack myself in the head and float away on the great brown tide.
I am but a reed. They are a bus full of rocks. --Jim Schutze
Uh... wouldn't that encourage businesses to move out of DTD?
tehehe.... man, i love this guy...
You mean just as buisnesses have left Addison and Frisco?
I hope everyone's seen this, TrinityVote's "official" TV commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3495HY1mAw
The amazing, gorgeous photo of the Trinity is by none other than our very own ninjatune, who kicks ass. You rock, ninjatune. Thanks for making the ad so beautiful.
Big D and Tamtagon i am glad to see the coverage from the Wall Street Journal am also glad you guys are on the right page. and thanks for the information. I have many people read this and realize, how stupid it is to build a tollroad within the confines of the levee.
Oh yes Angela I have definately seen it !!! Ninja has done a nice job.
Last edited by SDORN; 31 October 2007 at 10:53 PM.
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
WFAA's take on the tv ad:
http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=188406&shu=1
Digging for Toll Road Facts
Schutze sifts through a mountain of dirt to find the truth
By Jim Schutze
Published: November 1, 2007
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-1...ffle-hunt/full
Wait a minute. Think about this. The main argument for keeping the toll road inside the park downtown is that it can't go anywhere else because of the cost.
I just looked at files in the offices of the people who would build the road. It's flat-out untrue.
This is all central to the decision we must make November 6 when we will cast votes for or against Proposition 1.
A vote FOR is for forcing the proposed Trinity River toll road out of the park downtown and onto some other alignment, probably along Industrial Boulevard, which parallels the river but is outside the flood control levees. A vote AGAINST is for keeping the toll road inside the park and inside the levees along the river.
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has been insisting that putting the road on Industrial will cost half a billion dollars more than putting it on free city land in the park because of right-of-way acquisitions. But last week when I went through boxes of files at the North Texas Tollway Authority, I found estimates for putting the toll road on Industrial Boulevard that were less—$1.606 billion—than putting it inside the park—$1.613 billion.
Leppert keeps blaming the soaring cost of the road on delays and litigation. But the files reveal a much bigger reason—problems with trying to build a highway inside a floodway, where highways don't belong.
Originally the NTTA was going to build the proposed Trinity toll road on a bench out from the side of the levees (the big earthen berms along the river that hold in the flood water). That was Laura Miller's "Balanced Vision Plan."
That all went by the wayside six months ago when the Army Corps of Engineers told the NTTA the road could not be built on or near the levees. Instead the NTTA must now go out into the floodway and build the road up on its own earthen bench.
Documents I saw in NTTA files compared the construction cost of the Balanced Vision Plan to the cost of the no-road-on-levees plan. The new version, off the levees, costs $352 million more than the one on the levees. That's a one-third increase in six months, and it has nothing to do with inflation or delays.
Let's talk about inflation. In all of its estimates the NTTA's biggest cost is construction itself. The next biggest is what it calls "agency cost"—what it charges itself as the general contractor. The smallest cost by far is "right-of-way" or land acquisition.
In its estimate for putting the toll road on Industrial Boulevard, the NTTA documents show "agency cost" going up 18.49 percent between 2003 and 2007. Understandable.
Ah, but some kind of magic happens when we get to the road inside the levees. There, agency cost inflates by 13 percent from 2003 until January 2007. Then just as the November 6 referendum campaigns get well under way, the agency cost for the inside-the-levees version plummets. Between January and June of 2007, the agency cost for that version drops by 19.34 percent.
Isn't that special?
Oh, and don't let me forget to tell you what any and all of these estimates are worth to begin with. Several documents in the boxes describe these as "Level E" estimates, accurate to within margins of plus 50 percent and minus 30 percent.
That's an 80 percent spread. Look at it this way: You ask the car salesman, "How much for the Mitsubunda Sportoski?" He says, "It's somewhere between $14,000 and $30,000. Just give me a signed check, and I'll fill in the amount when I know."
Run for the door, right? But that's the kind of number we're supposedly basing this whole decision on.
There is more. It looks as if one way they may have been holding down the cost estimates for the inside-the-park plan is by shaving off most of the access ramps. Leppert has been touting a price of $1.3 billion for the road inside the park on land the city would give the tollway authority for free.
The only estimate I found in NTTA files that corresponded with that number—$1.327 billion—was for the "all floodway ramp reduction" plan, as the NTTA document called it.
That document was quite a stunner. An accompanying graphic shows ramps up and down the toll road crossed out with little Xs, except for ramps at the Woodall Rodgers Expressway and at Interstate 45.
Eliminated from the design are access ramps at Lamar, MLK Boulevard, Corinth, Interstate 35E, Jefferson, Houston, Wycliff, Sylvan and Commonwealth.
So now, tell me again: We build this monolithic expressway all up and down the river without access ramps, and then how are we going to get into the park we voted for in 1998?
Before I leave this point, please let me share something with you. This document about the ramp reductions wasn't exactly handed to me by the NTTA. Both Jorge C. Figueredo, NTTA executive director, and Rick Herrington, the deputy, declined to take my calls when I tried to ask questions about their design for the toll road in the first place, so I filed a Public Information Act demand for related documents.
Eventually the NTTA agreed to produce some of what I asked for, but they said the Dallas Observer would have to pay $1,400 for copying. I said I didn't need no stinking copies: I would examine the originals at their offices. They said they would charge $130 to put the documents in a conference room for me to look at. They said I could occupy the room for three and a half hours. I said great.
For $130 I was tempted to throw a party in it, but then, you know, I had work to do. When I arrived, they had done what I fully expected—piled up file boxes of irrelevant computer runs, with the stuff I was looking for slipped in here and there.
How did they know I love nothing better than a good truffle hunt?
My best finds, I believed, were the ramp reduction documents. I put them in a stack with other things I wanted copies of. A lady from legal took my stack of stuff to copy.
When she brought back my stack, guess what was missing? The ramp reduction documents. I complained sternly. I warned that I had taken notes on the documents. Later that day they called and said they had found the "misplaced" documents.
Look: On all of this stuff, I wrote and made calls to the NTTA immediately for comment and clarification. They called me back at the end of the week and said they would not be able to answer any of my questions. So let me ask you: Does this sound like people who are proud of their work?
I had questions about a lot more than just the ramp reductions. Mayor Leppert insists in public appearances that the toll road is a good deal because the North Texas Tollway Authority is going to "dig our lakes for us." Seems simple enough. They need dirt in order to build a big bench to put the road on so it won't flood.
But I found notes from a meeting of the NTTA, the Corps of Engineers and Halff Associates, an engineering firm, in which the Corps reiterated a warning it apparently had made months before: the dig-it-out-and-pile-it-up scheme may not work.
Digging dirt out of one place in order to pile it up somewhere else is called borrowing in the lingo of dirt work. According to the notes, the Corps has been telling the NTTA for months that, "using the Floodway as a borrow site does not comply with Fort Worth District [Corps] policy which prohibits excavation within the floodway."
I have wondered for the last year why there was no written agreement between the NTTA and the city of Dallas for these lakes to be dug. Whenever anybody asks Leppert, he goes into his thing about "I am comfortable" that the work will be done.
Yeah, but why not have a contract? Well now I know. It's because the NTTA is not at all sure the Corps will even let them—or anybody else—dig the lakes.
In the files the Corps also tells the NTTA that it is not going to be able to dig all the dirt it needs for the road out of the floodway. So it will have to bring dirt in from somewhere else—possibly millions of cubic yards of dirt. But the Corps also effectively tells the NTTA it must comply with regulations that prohibit it from adding to the total amount of dirt in the floodway.
So, uh...how do they build the road? Can't dig the dirt out of the floodway. Have to bring the dirt in. But they can't add to the amount of dirt in the floodway. I asked both the Corps and the NTTA...wassup?
The Corps gave me the usual holding up of the index fingers in the sign of the cross go-away-vampire response: "As the project has not been submitted for a final review it would be premature to speculate how the construction of the proposed Parkway will meet the criteria," the Corps said in an e-mail.
And then, as I already told you, the NTTA said it was sorry but it just wouldn't be able to answer my questions at all.
Bottom line from my truffle hunt? They can build that road on Industrial—they can build it a lot of places—for the same money or way less than what it would cost to build it in the park. Just thought I'd mention it.
I don't understand why we are building a toll road period?? First thing's first though. We'll need to keep it out of the park but running the freeway down Industrial Blvd? Are you serious? How is that a good idea? That does almost as much harm to the urban environment as putting it in between the levees. Can you imagin any good urban developments taking place along Industrial if there was an elevated or even at grade freeway running through the neighborhood? Why are we building more freeways in the middle of the city? Haven't people learned that these structures severely damage the urban fabric? If we must relieve dt traffic why not just expand the freeway that's already there? If I could wave a wand and have my way I would expand/fix I-35/I-30 and the Mixmaster and as soon as it came over the north side levee the freeways would be run under ground all the way to I-45 for the I-30 part and I-35 would stay under ground all the way to atleast Woodall Rodgers if not all the way to Oak Lawn. Then on top of that blend the natural city grid between dt and Industrial. I guess I can dream, right?
Last edited by jsoto3; 01 November 2007 at 10:42 AM.
Drycreek and Dfw creative you have another piece of evidence that shows you why you viote yes to keep the Tollroad out of the park. The observer has done a great job convincing us of that, unlike the News.
Vote Yes and keep the tollway out of the Trnity
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
Wow... This is big! Finally someone did some investigative work on this thing... all the Dallas Morning news can do is he said she said.
Right there with you. Several of us here have been dreaming and discussing that exact dream for the last several years, as you know. I think that dream is closer to reality than ever before. When the voters pass Prop 1 the City and TxDot will be forced to be very creative and actually "think big", in a good way. There are too many interests along the Industrial Boulevard corridor to allow it to be taken as a tollway, much less the engineering challenges (interfaces with existing infrastructure). Lee Jackson himself said he thinks it won't happen along Industrial. I think we have reason to hope that Dallas will either get it's own version of the "Big Dig" (cost be damned, it's the right thing to do) or some scheme to divert through-traffic around the city will be devised.
Thanks Jsoto, you are Super Mod!!!!
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
jsoto I agree with that - I think we will get a nice park access road and an vastly improved Industrial real Boulevard out of the "FOR" votes. I still like Robert's plan to use RR right of way to loop traffic south of downtown and of course flooding the canyon with Mil Creek. Let's hope a little creativity is created when the tollroad goes away.
Good points everyone, it will be interesting to see with what happens after NOV 6.
I am willing to bet that Prop 1 will pass and NTTA and Tx Dot will have plenty of thinking to do.
GET YOUR POPCORN READY!!! Angela and All.
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
Here's Sam Merten's blurb on the Corps. Between this and Schutze's findings at NTTA, the project reeks more and more every day.
Corps Contradicts Statements Made by Leppert
by Sam Merten Thu, Nov 1, 2007, 09:41 AM
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Trinity Corridor Project Manager Gene Rice said the current toll road alignment has not been approved, according to KERA. This is the second time this week that KERA has exposed a Vote No! scare tactic.
Mayor Tom Leppert has said throughout the campaign that the Corps has approved the road. This was the quote he gave KERA.
"The Corps has signed off on the safety issues. They signed off on the environmental issues. They feel very comfortable with it."
However, Rice told a much different story.
"We've made no determination at this time on whether the project will be acceptable or not. We are still working with the transportation interests to make sure it could go in safely if it goes in. But no determination has been made or will be made for several years."
Rice also spoke about the complexity of putting a road in a floodway. This is something I touched on yesterday, citing a story from The Wall Street Journal.
“This is a very complex project. We have never dealt with people putting facilities in the floodway itself. We've never had anybody in this district want to put a major road in a floodway.”
Jsoto, I hope you're right. But I just can't see something that costly getting approved. Most people aren't big thinkers or long term planners. It takes foresight to get projects like that done and Dallas is so much of a "do it now, do it cheap, screw history, screw asthetics" kind of city. I hope the good folks on this board can start to change that way of thinking and we get the kind of project we're dreaming about.
If we remove the tollwayfrom the floodway then the Corps will not be able to oversee it - that's a huge plus to me.
I have posted on here before about an 8 year ordeal my family and others went through with the Corps at Lake Texoma - they decided their 1941 survey was wrong, started moving markers and taking people's property. They are a truly corrupt organization - they have their own kingdom off limits from Congress and the President. They will never admit mistakes (they gobbledeygooked the survey stuff) and will crush anyone with any means who goes up against them. Their actual plan to fight homeowners at Texoma was to bankrupt anyone who questioned them through various legal tactics. The tatics included going back to break Last Wills and Testaments of persons long deceased. During this fight two people also had heart attacks because of the frustration -- that didn't soften them a bit. We could actually prove that Corps members took bribes and collaborated with corrupt Grayson County Commissioners and that didn't even phase them.
After it was over, I never flew an American Flag again until 9-11. They are truly evil and unworthy of this country.
I understand and agree with the business executive's need to present a buttoned-up, best case scenerio sales pitch to a room full of clients & suppliers working out the directives and details of a massive, partenered project.
But I do not understand and I do not agree with Municipal leaders' efforts to compell a constituency to accept a proposal based on uncertainties.
After years of cost estimates trying to come up business-viable construction project, the NTTA returned to the city saying a tolled parkway must become a tolled highway otherwise they could not be a partener. LaMiller admirablly puts together the pieces which produce the Balanced Vision plan. The B-V plan would not exactly comply with the park access directives accepted by 1998 voters, but the municipal & business leader coalition agreed it's close enough, and it moves forward. But then, the agency responsible for engineering the tolled highway was told by the Army COE the plan was not safe and they would have to come up with something else.
So over the course of a several months and under pressure from organized Dallas Residents because the project was turning into a real beast, the tolled highway was re-engineered, was moved off the levees and into the park, expanded for cargo-trucks, direct park access eliminated and now a new Mayor is scrambling to convince potential voters everything is under control, everything is going to work out just fine.
Tom Leppert is in a terrible political position; he's being required to persuade voters to endorse an unfinished plan.
Alarming tactics which predict lost-forever funding and higher taxes, is pretty much par for the course. In reality, it means the local politico-business folks would have to keep themselves in line with the Feds et. al. while an acceptible alternative is worked out. That's standard politics.
But what may be the most misleading injustice to Dallas residents, it's implied that the current tolled highway will reduce traffic congestion pretty soon, you know, like in a couple years or whatever. In reality, not until Project Pegasus is completed will Mixmaster traffic congestion be addressed. To suggest things will get better for through-traffic commuters simply because the tollway is there is entirely wrong.
TLep sounds the alarm that Project Pegasus could fail without the current tolled highway proposal, but that will never happen. The motivion behind Project Pegasus is vast. Losing a highspeed tollway through the Trinity River Park would cause Project Pegasus to undergo a partial re-design, but whether or not that would push back the finish date is as uncertain as whether or not NTTA has the ability to design and construct a highway inside a floodzone.
If a through-traffic reliever route is needed, the split should occur well before that volume of commuting vehicles impacts the flow of traffic into the downtown area destinations.
Last edited by tamtagon; 01 November 2007 at 12:46 PM.
I heard the new radio spot for Vote Yes today and thought it was pretty good. Is it online anywhere?
I never thought the DMN would have an article like this one:
Seattle, Dallas face similar debate on traffic issues
11:54 PM CDT on Thursday, November 1, 2007
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...e.32e0ab8.html
SEATTLE – With mountain views and a breeze blowing in from the Puget Sound, the commute into downtown Seattle doesn't remind a driver much of Dallas. But in one important regard, the vehicles inching north along Interstate 5 might as well be in the southbound lanes on Interstate 35E, steering toward Reunion Tower.
Never mind the vibrant yellow and orange of the rain-soaked leaves clinging to the trees that are everywhere in this city; the most prominent color on the Seattle commuter's horizon is the same taillight red Dallas drivers know so well.
Chances are good, too, that commuters listening to drive-time radio will hear the argument about what's more important, highways or parks, no matter which city they're in.
In both towns, traffic – and what to do about it – is among the hottest political debates.
On Tuesday, voters in both places will decide on major transportation proposals city leaders say will have generations-long consequences. In Dallas, voters will finally end the debate over what kind of road to build between the Trinity River levees.
And in Seattle, voters will decide on a $15 billion bond package that promises to expand transit, build new roads and provide a raft of other traffic fixes. The bond proposal is bigger by far than any ever approved in Dallas.
For when it comes to stalled traffic, the cities have much in common. Roads in both cities are among America's most congested and are getting worse yearly.
Dallas, which adds more than twice as many new residents every year as Seattle, is also building far more roads.
But in Seattle, neither the bond vote nor the agonizing prospect of losing the hapless Supersonics to – imagine the horror – Oklahoma City, can compare in intensity to the debate over what to do about the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a six-lane highway running through downtown.
The viaduct is a four-story-tall wall of battered concrete that separates downtown Seattle from a sweeping view of Puget Sound.
As in Dallas, the controversial road is seen as a critical reliever route for downtown traffic, capable of handling about 110,000 vehicles a day. And transportation planners say nixing the road will only make traffic worse.
But unlike in Dallas, where the Trinity Parkway has yet to be built, the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been in use since 1952.
An earthquake damaged the double-decker road in 2001, and state and city officials began immediately drawing up plans to rebuild it bigger and better.
But six years and two failed referendums later, a growing number of voices in Seattle have switched their views and now want to tear the highway down altogether.
"The replacement of the viaduct is a fantastic opportunity to begin the creation of a 21st-century transportation system," said Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck. "The car can no longer rule all our decisions. There's got to be a better way."
Slow support
Sound familiar?
In Dallas, opponents of the high-speed Trinity toll road want the road scaled back to a four-lane scenic avenue. It began as a lonely fight for City Council member Angela Hunt, whose campaign to put the issue to the vote Tuesday has put her at odds with all her council colleagues and most of Dallas' established leaders.
The Seattle movement to scrap the viaduct began with even less support, said Cary Moon, director of People's Waterfront Coalition, which opposed rebuilding the viaduct long before supporters like Mr. Steinbrueck came aboard.
The idea still has strong critics, including Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire. In addition, the state transportation department continues to argue that the quickest, easiest fix for Seattle's traffic woes is to add more highway lanes.
That resonates with many residents, who like their Dallas counterparts are spending more time in traffic every year, according a national mobility study released recently by the Texas Transportation Institute.
To those drivers, tearing the highway down while hoping for a better transit system in the future is hopelessly naive.
"We've already made that decision as a country, haven't we?" said Dan MacFetridge, a global software sales manager for Microsoft. "People like to drive, and they want to use their cars. So our solutions had better take that into account."
Even Ms. Moon concedes the idea of reducing highway lanes is not a popular one – at least not yet.
"If this were to go to a vote, I don't think we'd win," she said. "It's just so counterintuitive, the idea of reducing [traffic] capacity."
Major teardowns
But crazy or not, the idea has gained momentum in a surprisingly large number of places.
Milwaukee, San Francisco, Louisville, Ky., Buffalo, N.Y., and even Seoul, South Korea, are all debating tearing down a major downtown highway or have already done so.
In Milwaukee, the longtime mayor persuaded the state and other local officials to remove a short stretch of highway that they saw as cluttering up downtown's prime real estate near its waterfront. In its place is a six-lane boulevard with trees and street corners.
Former Mayor John Norquist led that fight and said the predictions of traffic-oriented doom never came about.
"Of course, the highway engineers and the people who are in love with highways were opposed," said Mr. Norquist, who was mayor from 1988 to 2004. "And we had plenty of people who lived in the suburbs who said, 'I'll never come downtown again. I won't be able to get there.' But it's been a big success."
The road came down in 2003. Since then, he said, real estate values are up, and the 40,000 vehicles a day that had traveled on the road have been dispersed onto other roads without a noticeable impact.
Michael Morris, director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and an emphatic supporter of the Trinity toll road, said Milwaukee differs from Dallas in one vital aspect.
Brewtown, as the city is often called, is growing far slower than the Dallas area, and thus can afford the luxury of reducing its freeway capacity. Its traffic congestion, too, is far less severe than Dallas'.
Indeed, few places are like Dallas, which has seen its traffic get worse faster than any other major city in America over the last 25 years.
But Milwaukee is hardly alone in reversing course on highway construction. Other cities are considering or have taken similar steps. The idea is under consideration in Louisville, Buffalo, the Bronx and elsewhere. Downtown highways have been removed in other cities, including Portland and San Francisco.
Changing direction
Ms. Moon said her group's plan doesn't ignore the 110,000 cars that now use the viaduct every day.
Ms. Moon said the road would not be taken down without also building a street-level boulevard, improving transit options and fixing arterial streets.
Just as building more highways often induces more traffic, she said, other cities' experiences have shown that sometimes less highway capacity can lead people to make fewer trips by car.
Mr. Norquist, now the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said more is at stake than whether drivers prefer their cars.
Federal transportation officials are predicting that by 2008, highway trust fund revenues from gas taxes won't cover projected expenses. And that means, Mr. Norquist said, cities are going to have to rethink how they approach traffic whether they want to or not.
"Most of our roads were built out in the 1960s and 1970s, and they are coming to the end of their design life," he said. "Cities especially will be looking for cheaper, more efficient and better ways to move people around."
But asking residents to drive less is a tough sale, whether it's a pitch made in the Sun Belt or in the Pacific Northwest.
"Sure it's a quality-of-life issue," said Ben Anderson, who commutes to work in Seattle by ferry. "But we need cars. We could change all of that, but we're not going to."
Meanwhile, people on both sides of the Seattle debate worry about the safety of the quake-damaged viaduct. Ms. Moon is hoping city officials can soon persuade the state to tear it down before it falls down.
For now, Seattle residents will have to keep arguing. Two proposals to expand the viaduct have been defeated at the polls, and the state is focusing for now on rebuilding the portions of the highway outside downtown.
Back in Dallas, the arguing over whether more highways lead to more traffic isn't likely to end anytime soon. But on Tuesday, voters will bring closure to the debate over whether a highway can peacefully coexist with a park.
TRIALS FOR DRIVERS
Dallas Seattle
4.45 million 3.01 million Metro area population 2005
58 hours (5th) 45 hours (19th) Driver time wasted in traffic per year (U.S. rank)
40 34 Gallons of gas wasted per peak traveler (U.S. rank)
Last edited by dfwcre8tive; 02 November 2007 at 01:06 AM.
More ammo for the Angela Hunt campaign, oh how the tide turns. look very promising for the yes group.
A freind of mine told me 4 out of 5 in his neighborhood are jumping on the Yes Bandwagon. Munger place. I customer of mine at Wolf put her yes vote in today. I have working on selling the yes campaign to several customers during camera sales opps. How do It do it?
You tube promotion on Casio cameras . You Tube + Yes campaign video on you tube + plus You tube promo on camera = Conversation on voting yes on Trinity. Don't believe me Check the ad oin Sundays paper.
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
My focus this week has been the casio camera with the You tube promotion camera kit. Customer buys camera and for $29 extra dollars gets a You tube shirt table top tripod and an extra battery for their Casio camera. Gives me a chance to talk up the Angela Hunt You tube speechs on the Trinity Project. talk about a way of reaching out.
People are actually interested in this.
Who says you can't do two jobs at once.
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
I spoke last night with a client who said he was going to vote yes. I was surprised. Not only is he a successful, intelligent person, but he's the only person I've discussed the subject with outside of this forum who's on the "yes" side.
Like I said, he's an intelligent person, so once I explained to him that a "yes" vote was against the highway, he immediately corrected himself. :-)
You're contradicting yourself. An intelligent person wouldn't need the explanation. You're dealing with mediocrity at best, although that's exactly the target audience of this highway.
Jason
http://www.kera.org/
Think
Tuesday is Election Day and voters will decide whether a toll-road will be part of the Trinity River Project or not. Host Krys Boyd will discuss the issue with Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and Councilperson Angela Hunt.
Friday, November 2, 7:30pm
Bwaaaahahahahahaha!
Great retort!
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/ke...CLE_ID=1176375
Transportation Chairman says Toll Road "Not the Most Attractive"
Shelley Kofler
DALLAS, TX (2007-11-02) In an interview with KERA. Texas's top transportation officials says the proposed Trinity toll road is- financially - not the most attractive toll road in North Texas. On Tuesday Dallas voters will decide whether to kill or continue planning for a high-speed toll road inside the Trinity River levees. In the final part of our continuing series, The Trinity Decision, KERA's Shelley Kofler has more of her conversation with Ric Williamson, and talks about the economics of the road.
-----
When motorists pull onto a road or bridge operated by the North Texas Tollway Authority-the NTTA-, they pay an average 11-cents a mile for their drive.
Right now the NTTA operates 4 toll projects in our region and has many more in the planning stages, including the nine- mile Trinity toll road, whose fate rests with voters on Tuesday.
Trinity toll road supporters, including Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, say the NTTA has committed to building their road.
Leppert: They feel very confident that it pencils out from an investment standpoint. They believe it is a very important project, an important project for this region in total. And they're committed."
The commitment is spelled out in a 1999 agreement between the NTTA and the City of Dallas. It says unless and until the (tollway )Authority determines the Trinity Parkway as a turnpike, a toll project, is not feasible, the City shall not advance any alternative.
So, is the Trinity Toll road economically feasible? Would the tolls collected be enough to repay the bonds, the money the NTTA would have to borrow for construction? The NTTA currently estimates that amount to be $1-billion dollars.
Ric Williamson, Chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission raised questions during a recent interview with KERA.
Williamson: "The last time I revisited this particular area my conclusion and the conclusion of my staff was it is not the most attractive toll road in North Texas."
Kofler: It doesn't have enough volume? It doesn't connect with the right roads?
Williamson: Both. The volume limitations, the connecting points and the probability you can't create a high enough rate of speed on a congested toll road all suggest the cash flow wouldn't be as healthy. I don't want to say it wouldn't cash flow. I want to put it in perspective. It is not the most attractive toll road possible in North Texas.
Sam Lopez I am not sure what information he is looking at
Sam Lopez is the spokesman for the Tollway Authority. He agreed to an interview after KERA attempted for three weeks to interview agency chairman Paul Wageman. Lopez says Wageman is declining interviews until after the Nov. 6 election.
Lopez: "There could be a scenario where our board would say we cannot build this, but at this moment no one can answer that question. We just don't know. Sure it's a possibility. We have a very strong nine-member board and believe me they will be looking at those financials."
Lopez says the most recent study detailing revenue generated by a toll road within the levees dates back to 2000. The NTTA was encouraged by that information.
Lopez: "Those 2000 numbers are enough for the NTTA to say this project, there is enough feasibility for this project. We shall proceed with the environmental process."
But that study was done three years before the city adopted the current toll road route. Before the cost of construction tripled to $1.3 billion.
Although hard numbers can't be nailed down until a road is approved at many levels, the region's chief transportation planner Michael Morris wants to leave no doubt: the financing can be worked out.
Morris: "They will bond it based on anticipated revenue from users and if they need additional money which I'm not sure if they do they'll use the rest of the money from system financing within their institution."
That means tolls collected on other NTTA roads and bridges would help pay for the Trinity Toll Road.
Morris says that's the way the George Bush Freeway and the Dallas North Tollway were financed.
But all this speculation is far in the future for toll road supporters who simply want to keep their planned toll road alive, while opponents hope to make it unfeasible by killing it at the ballot box.
Shelley Kofler, KERA News
Great stuff Guys thanks for sharing ad big d
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
Dallas North Tollway's Impact on Little Mexico
by Rafael Rodriguez
Sun, Oct 28, 2007, 10:47 AM
http://www.dallasblog.com/2007102810...le-mexico.html
My parents and I grew up in a section just north of Downtown Dallas known as Little Mexico.
To the many Hispanic families who lived there as youths with my parents, Little Mexico was better known to them as Frog Town because of the frequent floods they experienced before the Trinity River levees were constructed. A more noticeable name for Frog Town among Hispanic families who lived there was El Barrio, then located where the Dallas North Tollway begins bordering the west entrance to Downtown Dallas.
Both my parents had relatives who lived in West Dallas. I remember my relatives would lament about the ungodly scenic view the Trinity River levees would provide them. They viewed those levees as an unsightly barrier dividing their community from the community my parents and I grew up in.
As a native-born resident of Dallas, I remember what happened to my neighborhood, Little Mexico, during my childhood. Little Mexico started to unravel early in the 1960s, and by 1968, the Dallas North Tollway literally destroyed my vibrant community filled with culture and life. My parents and I viewed the Dallas North Tollway as yet another barrier further dividing our community from other neighborhoods located north of us.
All of this in the name of relieving traffic congestion for those who lived just north of Downtown Dallas?
Fast forward 40 years, and we come to a place in Dallas' history where the good citizens of Dallas will have an opportunity November 6 to prevent yet another concrete 55 mph toll road, which would not only further divide our city but also exist side by side between the Trinity River levees without regard to quality of life issues for yet another segment of our city. That group will include thousands of Dallas citizens and visitors who will always wonder why in the world a high speed toll road was built right through what is supposed to be the crown jewel of the Trinity River Project. That crown jewel will consist of beautiful lakes, river meanders, hiking trails, a canoeing course, greenbelts and promenades.
Economically, you don’t generate tax revenues and build a world-class city by pouring $1.3 billion worth of concrete right through a premiere park. A more viable solution would be for the toll road to be built outside the Trinity River levees where the end result would benefit Dallas taxpayers and those who would construct quality business development to further enhance our city’s tax base.
Our city’s forefathers viewed the Trinity River as a great natural resource when they settled and developed Dallas. I am certain a daily 100,000 user, vehicular 55 mph toll road was not included in their vision plan.
Please join me in providing a much more sensible vision plan for the Trinity River Project by voting Yes on Proposition 1 on November 6.
Rafael Rodriguez is a native born Dallas
resident and community liaison at North Dallas High School. He is a member of the Dallas Scottish-Rite/Yorkrite Knight Templar Masonic Lodge and DISD Dallas Achieves Commission, and former president of the Oak Cliff Little League. His email address is mariah7256@sbcglobal.netThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
I like the style of this ad a lot.
Here's a link to the full article that appeared in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal:
http://corridornews.blogspot.com/200...-heart-of.html
Great spot. Bottom line that's what this comes down to.
LOL. How many times have we heard here in this forum about how confusing the ballot language is? If that's an indication of mediocrity, there's a lot of it around. :-)
Have you noticed that almost every successful businessperson in town is on the vote No side? They didn't get that way by being fools. Other than Hunt herself, who otherwise is a pretty smart cookie, the folks on the No side come across as a lot smarter than the Yes folks, who seem to be whiny, paranoid, and self-absorbed.
(And not to in any way infer that politicians are the pick of the liter, isn't it interesting that just about the only current officeholder on Hunt's side is underfederal indictment for bribery?)
So, in other words, what you're basically saying is that the business class in Dallas knows whats best for the masses, and the mere peasants who are creating this annoying little uprising are not smart enough. Because if we were, then we'd all be successful business people and have memberships in the various Chambers of Commerce... And the ballot language- oh the ballot language- was sooo confusing in 1998 that we didn't understand that we were actually voting for a tollroad instead of a park.. Because we apparently were also too stupid to READ. And we're not supposed to have memories apparently either.
I mean, isn't what this debate really all about after all? The peasants rising up against their wealthy keepers and revolting?
Please.
And, by-the-way, Hunt has on her side several former council people who are not under indictment, were never under indictment or suspicion of anything illegal, and who also don't have to "go along to get along".
Just sayin
Watch it here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...27464508&hl=en
Early voting indicates low Trinity turnout
08:43 AM CDT on Saturday, November 3, 2007
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
dlevinthal@dallasnews.com
Ed Housewright, Jeff Mosier and Jay Parsons contributed to this report.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...t.36a816f.html
If early results are any indication, overall voter turnout in Dallas' Trinity River toll road referendum will be decidedly underwhelming.
As of Friday afternoon, a tiny fraction of Dallas' registered voters had cast early voting ballots on Proposition 1, county voting officials said. Election Day is Tuesday.
If approved, Proposition 1 would effectively kill a toll road planned for construction within the Trinity River Corridor's earthen levees.
County officials Friday evening had not fully calculated how many Dallas voters cast ballots through early voting, which began Oct. 22 and ran through Friday. But through Thursday, 17,850 ballots have been cast at Dallas early voting locations. There are 527,273 registered voters in Dallas, according to county election officials.
There are 16 state constitutional amendment propositions before all voters in addition to various municipal items. Dallas County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet said that, of the 1.15 million registered voters in Dallas County, only 35,658 ballots had been cast through Friday afternoon. That's about 3.1 percent of the county electorate.
Such statistics don't bode well for overall turnout in the Trinity toll road vote, said Mr. Sherbet, who predicted about 10 percent of the city's registered voters would ultimately go to the polls.
"You have an issue, to some, that's confusion. Others may be indifferent," Mr. Sherbet said. "It's not turning out to be one of those issues that's a hot-button issue that gets people fired up across the board."
Mr. Sherbet's predictions aren't stopping advocates and opponents of Proposition 1 from making strong pushes in the final days of the toll road campaign.
Both TrinityVote, which supports Proposition 1, and Vote No! Save the Trinity, which opposes it, have flooded local TV stations and prospective voters' mailboxes with ads and are planning get-out-the-vote efforts on Monday and Tuesday.
Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt, who leads the TrinityVote organization, says she's not sure how low voter turnout will affect her cause.
"What's most important is that people who are for the cause get out to the polls," Ms. Hunt said. "We really have an indication that people are fired up. We keep getting requests for yard signs. We're still getting contributions."
Said Carol Reed, Vote No!'s chief campaign strategist: "We know it would be a low voter turnout – it's not a presidential year, and it's rare to get big turnouts unless it is. We're just going to do all the basics – phone calls, mail, TV, radio, yard signs – to win a campaign."
...
PREDICTED PARTICIPATION
Secretary of State Phil Wilson made a five-county swing through West Texas on Friday to encourage Texas to vote in the constitutional amendment election Tuesday.
Prediction: An overall turnout of 9.5 percent of the 12.5 million registered Texas voters.
Past turnouts: For constitutional amendment elections over the past decade, it has ranged from 7 percent to 18 percent in 2005.
Factors: Mr. Wilson said his prediction took into consideration several factors, including a lower-than-expected turnout for early voting, which ended Friday.
Early voting: As of Thursday, only about 2.2 percent of the state's registered voters had cast ballots in early voting in the state's 15 most populous counties. Those counties, which account for more than 60 percent of all registered voters in Texas, are: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Collin, El Paso, Denton, Hidalgo, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Williamson, Nueces, Galveston and Cameron counties.
Election Day: Tuesday
Polling hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Polling locations: Visit www.sos.state.tx.us
ELECTION BASICS
WHAT AM I VOTING ON?
Passage of Proposition 1 would create a Dallas ordinance prohibiting the construction of a planned high-speed toll road within the Trinity River Corridor's earthen levees. Any road built within the corridor would be limited to four total lanes with a 35-mph speed limit.
WHEN TO VOTE
Regular voting for the referendum is Tuesday. Only registered Dallas voters may participate.
WHERE TO VOTE
You can find a list of polling places on the Dallas County elections Web site (www.dalcoelections.org). A list of polling places also will be published in Tuesday's newspaper.
A 'FOR' VOTE MEANS
You want to prohibit the high-speed toll road's construction within the Trinity River Corridor's levees.
AN 'AGAINST' VOTE MEANS
You want to preserve the current Trinity River Corridor plan, which calls for construction of the high-speed toll road within the corridor's levees.
No, they got there by being corrupt and caring about the big Buck before any kind of intellectual, artistic, or simply communial concerns.
And frankly, if you truly believe the vote "No" side seems more intellegent than the vote "Yes" side, then I think I understand your heated opposition to the Proposition: You're either unaware of what's gone on in the debates (and the subsequent revelations of who has lied about what), or you have some sort of degenerative brain condition that prevents you from listening to reason.
Or maybe you're actually Tom Leppert, which would imply the latter (degenerative brain condition).
Last edited by msutton; 04 November 2007 at 09:10 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
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