A Remedy For I-345: Rehabilitate It And Rename It

Those of you readers in North Texas have heard about or read about what the city of Dallas and the Texas Department of Transportation need to consider doing with the Interstate 345 elevated roadway in Downtown Dallas. The big question: Should it be demolished altogether and incorporated with city streets or should a new elevated be built?

This is Part 2 of my latest pondering of regional infrastructure as it pertains to my area and spheres of influence. You've got North Texas travelers who need to use the fastest road to get to Houston and the Gulf Coast. You've got Houston travelers who might want to go up to Oklahoma to Lake Texoma or Choctaw Bingo or Tulsa or other points nearby. I-345 (or, as I prefer to call it, I-45, as it is an extension of that highway) offers just that. Why would people want to jump over to I-35E or I-635 to get to those aforementioned places? You would not want to, as those highways are under an extensive reconstruction. Plus, they're out of the way and won't help travelers in the immediate area. It's not just the casual traveler, either; you have to also think about the shipment of goods and the truck drivers who use that critical link through Downtown Dallas.

In a recent blog, I mentioned Houston's stretch of Interstate 45 called the Pierce Elevated and why it should be left alone, save for any rehabilitation or rebuilding it will need because of the aging structure which was built in the 1960s. While Houston might have the luxury of actually being able to put new I-45 lanes alongside Interstates 10 and 69, Dallas does not have that luxury of trying to channel any of I-45's or U.S. 75's cars, trucks, and motorcycles onto I-35E and I-30 and Woodall Rodgers Freeway, which can't even be widened, thanks in no small part to that new Klyde Warren Park that the people built on top of it. And the reconstruction of the Mixmaster was not with funneling I-45 traffic in mind. It was about improving the existing highways at that interchange and updating the outdated.

What is Dallas to do with I-345? They can't move the freeway eastward past Deep Ellum. Too complicated and too costly. Here's my suggestion: Build a new elevated structure. Be creative. Incorporate train lines and pedestrian crossings as part of the new structure. Make new mainlanes. Build a bridge structure that will last longer than the current one. Dallas has to have vehicles moving, and they must move seamlessly and freely. What good is tearing it down, as the folks at D Magazine and five other people in the Metroplex desire to do? The rest of us need to be able to move.

Hey, TXDOT, I hope you take my advice. Give us a new 345. And, while we're at it, let's call it Interstate 45. And let's rename the U.S. 75 freeway I-45. Oh, we'll multiplex the numbers for a while until certain stretches in Oklahoma can actually be built and opened, necessitating the truncation of U.S. 75 south of Atoka, Oklahoma. All this from the last two posts to tell you this: A new corridor is needed from Dallas to Tulsa. What I've suggested can become a potential 550-mile artery connecting the Gulf Coast with Tulsa and Interstate 44. It's worth considering.