A Tollway in Dallas and the Absurdity of Building Duplicative Infrastructure

[M II A II R II K]

A Tollway in Dallas and the Absurdity of Building Duplicative Infrastructure


May 16th, 2012

By Yonah Freemark

Read More: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2012/05/16/a-tollway-in-dallas-and-the-absurdity-of-building-duplicative-infrastructure/

This summer, Dallas’ Orange Line will be extended five stations northwest of downtown. The light rail service will expand what is already the United States’ longest such network and improve connections between central Dallas, the suburb of Irving, and — in 2014 — Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Yet billions of dollars in new construction have barely increased transit use; just 4.2% of the city’s commuters use public transportation to get to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. If there is one city that proves that simply building transit does not attract people to transit, this is it.

Investments in Dallas’ road infrastructure might provide some explanation for the situation. An astonishing seven grade-separated highways extend radially out from the city center in all directions.* This is a city designed for the automobile. At least some of the city’s residents apparently have not had enough of those roads. Early this month, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlins announced his support for a new toll road along the Trinity River whose alignment would not only parallel existing highways and the Orange Line, but it would significantly reduce the value of a new park proposed for the area. If public funds can be found to cover at least part of its $1.4 to $1.8 billion cost, the project appears likely to be built over the next decade. This is transportation planning at its worst. Public dollars are being spent on two separate transportation projects that offer similar benefits and serve the same corridors.

The advantages of the investments made in rail — namely, the ability to avoid congestion — are being marginalized by the construction of a huge new road that will, at least for a few years (until the congestion returns), make choosing the train a poor choice. At the cost of billions and in the name of congestion relief, transit’s role is being minimized. And the result is that all this investment will again produce low ridership. Unlike most American cities, Dallas has room for a new highway, or rather, “room” that doesn’t require the bulldozing of dozens of homes to make way for a multi-lane corridor. The space comes in the form of the 2000-foot wide Trinity River park, which extends on a northwest-to-southeast diagonal through the center city. Since the late 1990s, local leaders have been pushing for a new, 8.5-mile toll road along the alignment from U.S. 175 to Interstate 35E to counter the congestion along existing center city roads. In 2007, a referendum to stop the project before it could be built lost by a 53-47 vote. Part of the appeal was the fact that the project would include major improvements for the river basin, including the creation of new parks, sports fields, and two lakes. All in the shadow of the highway.

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http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Trinity-River-Tollway.png

[electricron]

You can't make that argument both ways! It's an absurdity to take the attitude that a city must build only one mode of transportation over all the others in any individual corridor.

Multimodal modal means using more than one mode in a corridor, and just about every city in the world uses multimodal concepts in every corridor.

Yet, this author doesn't believe in multimodal concepts at all. If a train is chosen as one of the modes, then only the train should be funded. What hogwash!

Whether Dallas' turnpike authority ever builds this tollway or not can be debated in earnest, but the idea it shouldn't be built because there's a train nearby is taking absurdities to new heights! That same argument could have been used against the trains, because highways existed in this corridor before the train.

[mhays]

I don't mean to rag on Texas, but that's Texas for you. What incredibly backward thinking.

As for "multimodal," I believe there are already roads.

[J. Will]

You can't make that argument both ways! It's an absurdity to take the attitude that a city must build only one mode of transportation over all the others in any individual corridor.

Multimodal modal means using more than one mode in a corridor, and just about every city in the world uses multimodal concepts in every corridor.

Other cities have learnt to stop building new freeways through downtowns and dense inner-city areas. Some cities have even torn down parts of existing freeways. Here in Toronto the Gardiner Expressway east of the Don Valley Parkway was torn down a number of years ago. Some of the support columns (it was an elevated section) still stand as a sort of form of "art".

That any large city would build a new freeway in/near its downtown in this day and age is unconscionable. All the mistakes that Dallas and other cities have made in building these highways (even one through a river valley that will presumably displace no residents) is being ignored. Not only that, but the ridership on the new transit extension will be lower than if they didn't build the highway. It's a waste of money and resources all around.

Yet, this author doesn't believe in multimodal concepts at all. If a train is chosen as one of the modes, then only the train should be funded. What hogwash!

But Dallas already has enough (too many, actually) highways in the city as it is. There's no reason to build more. If they do insist on building more some day, at least let the miles of rail transit catch up with the miles of highway first.


Yet billions of dollars in new construction have barely increased transit use; just 4.2% of the city’s commuters use public transportation to get to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

By metro area it's even worse. Only 1.4% of commuters used public transit as of 2010 according to the ACS. And that's actually DOWN from 1.8% in 2000. So as poor as the numbers were, they're getting even worse. Building a new highway will do nothing to improve that pitiful percentage.

[electricron]

Other cities have learnt to stop building new freeways through downtowns and dense inner-city areas. Some cities have even torn down parts of existing freeways. Here in Toronto the Gardiner Expressway east of the Don Valley Parkway was torn down a number of years ago. Some of the support columns (it was an elevated section) still stand as a sort of form of "art".

That any large city would build a new freeway in/near its downtown in this day and age is unconscionable. All the mistakes that Dallas and other cities have made in building these highways (even one through a river valley that will presumably displace no residents) is being ignored. Not only that, but the ridership on the new transit extension will be lower than if they didn't build the highway. It's a waste of money and resources all around.

But Dallas already has enough (too many, actually) highways in the city as it is. There's no reason to build more. If they do insist on building more some day, at least let the miles of rail transit catch up with the miles of highway first.

By metro area it's even worse. Only 1.4% of commuters used public transit as of 2010 according to the ACS. And that's actually DOWN from 1.8% in 2000. So as poor as the numbers were, they're getting even worse. Building a new highway will do nothing to improve that pitiful percentage.

You made far better arguments against the tollroad than the author of that blog. As I wrote before, arguments over whether to build the tollroad or not is fair, but the original author's "duplication" of efforts argument was lame.

Additionally, the North Texas Turnpike Authority exists to build and operate tollroads, DART exists to build and operate a transit system. They have their own Board of Directors, and their own taxing schemes. They don't fund the same projects, and they don't necessarily work together. Each is trying to fill a need, sometimes the same need in the same corridors. Duplication if efforts should be expected when two separate organizations are looking at the same corridor to provide their own solutions.

[bunt_q]

Belt and suspenders, buddy.

It's only duplicative if they do exactly the same thing. Yes, they both move people, but that's incredibly simplistic. How and when matter.

It'll be a scary day when the man realizes that sometimes engineers build parallel pipes too!

[min-chi-cbus]

Can other cities use Dallas' poorly-managed public funds??? There are a multitude of places that will actually use that money to benefit transportation in the area -- areas with high potential ridership and mass transit cultures!!

[min-chi-cbus]

Belt and suspenders, buddy.

It's only duplicative if they do exactly the same thing. Yes, they both move people, but that's incredibly simplistic. How and when matter.

It'll be a scary day when the man realizes that sometimes engineers build parallel pipes too!

They're completely contradictory projects! The rail uses less space and concentrates TOD near the stations and along the narrow corridor, while the freeway is going to displace a public park (I've almost never heard of a city doing this!) just so people can move FURTHER away from the city and disperse development. So while one aims to take people off the road and bring people into the city and make the city more livable, the other is competiting directly against it and doing completely the opposite -- why not build the system so that both projects alleviate the demands of different subsets of commuters?

[mhays]

Displacing a park? It's been done. A few decades ago of course, before thinking adapted due to the freeway-limiting revolutions of the 60s and 70s.

[J. Will]

If they're going to build a highway through this, there should at least be plenty of trees to shield the highway from view/shield the noise from those using that bike path. Or will trees not grow in this flood plain?

[FoUTASportscaster]

Electric Ron has never and likely will never get it, no matter what forum he is on.

In this area, there is I-35 and I-45 directly. These roads also feed out US-175, US-67, Dallas North Tollway, TX-183 and TX-114. Riverfront (formerly Industrial, with a name change to make the park more attractive) Boulevard is also a major six-seven lane parallel to the entire route. One more freeway won't make a difference.

To add to the absurdity already listed, no other freeway in the world is being planned or have been built in a floodway. If it rains, there is a possibility of flooding out the road.

[texcolo]

The Trinity Tollway is a horrendous idea. It's been a horrendous idea and will always be a horrendous idea. If you go up river 30 miles, Fort Worth has a new community college straddeling the Trinity with a giant new-urbane style development to follow.

Ft Worth is opening it's self to the river while Dallas backs further away.

As for it being in the floodplain, you bet your sweet ass it's in the floodplain.

[jtk1519]

The Trinity Tollway will likely never be built. Yeah, the new mayor threw his support behind it the other day but mayoral support was never what was blocking the road in the first place. Building a highway in between two levees inside a big flood plain is what has been blocking it and I suspect will keep blocking it. It was always a dumb idea and that hasn't changed.

But to the article's point, I don't know if I would agree that the tollway somehow serves the same purpose as the Orange line. The whole point of the Orange line is to connect downtown to major points West of downtown including Parkland, Love Field, Las Colinas and eventually DFW. The purpose of the tollroad is to completely avoid downtown and would hit none of those areas mentioned. The Trinity Tollway runs parallel to and is redundant to I-35E... not the Orange line. Which of course begs the question, if 35E congestion is the problem (and it is a big problem) then why not just improve 35E (or better yet, the entire mixmaster).