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It's not totally barren but compared to Atlanta it seems like it. Most of the areas around Plano were cornfields or cow pastures before the suburbs came. There are a lot of old growth trees in creek bottomland, there are straight rows of trees that grew up between fields along fence lines, and there are trees in what were old homestead sites (some nice pecan groves scattered here and there) but other than that, if you want a tree, you plant it yourself. Some of the older parts of Plano and closer into Dallas will have neighborhoods that have matured to the point that they are quite leafy, but new developments are practically treeless.
The biggest difference in Atlanta and Dallas to me.
It's not totally barren but compared to Atlanta it seems like it. Most of the areas around Plano were cornfields or cow pastures before the suburbs came. There are a lot of old growth trees in creek bottomland, there are straight rows of trees that grew up between fields along fence lines, and there are trees in what were old homestead sites (some nice pecan groves scattered here and there) but other than that, if you want a tree, you plant it yourself. Some of the older parts of Plano and closer into Dallas will have neighborhoods that have matured to the point that they are quite leafy, but new developments are practically treeless.
The biggest difference in Atlanta and Dallas to me.
...Along, of course, with the willingness and ability to build new infrastructure (roads, reservoirs and even transit) where and when needed as needed and sometimes even many years and/or decades before it is needed.
That's as opposed to the Atlanta area where it seems that we can't get new infrastructure built even many years and decades AFTER it is desperately needed.
Don't get me wrong. I love Metro Atlanta and North Georgia for its heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly terrain, relatively moderate climate and great location.
But at times I really do envy cities like Dallas and states like Texas for being able to build infrastructure as needed.
Having done more than my fair share of driving throughout my career and my lifetime, I really kind of envy the Dallas-Fort Worth area for being able to have an extensive gridded network of freeways and divided multi-lane surface roads.
I also envy Dallas for having a system of locally funded manmade lakes and reservoirs for flood control and water storage. I even envy Dallas for using tolls (gasp!) to fund the construction of new highways as needed.
Of course, I'll take Atlanta's and North Georgia's beautiful heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly-to-mountainous terrain and scenery any and everyday of the week to Dallas' and North Texas' much flatter and much more sparsely wooded terrain and scenery....Even if North Georgia's beautiful heavily wooded rolling/hilly terrain does come with a severe dearth of transportation and water supply and storage infrastructure and an extreme (and often seemingly highly irrational and stubborn) reluctance to build it.
But I do greatly admire the local emphasis on building road, transit and water infrastructure in North Texas.
Just imagine....They built new roads, transit lines and reservoirs in North Texas and the modern world and universe as we know it did not come to a complete and sudden end.
The apocalypse did not come about just because a new toll road, transit line or reservoir was built....Built in some cases even decades before they were truly needed.
...Along, of course, with the willingness and ability to build new infrastructure (roads, reservoirs and even transit) where and when needed as needed and sometimes even many years and/or decades before it is needed.
That's as opposed to the Atlanta area where it seems that we can't get new infrastructure built even many years and decades AFTER it is desperately needed.
Don't get me wrong. I love Metro Atlanta and North Georgia for its heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly terrain, relatively moderate climate and great location.
But at times I really do envy cities like Dallas and states like Texas for being able to build infrastructure as needed.
Having done more than my fair share of driving throughout my career and my lifetime, I really kind of envy the Dallas-Fort Worth area for being able to have an extensive gridded network of freeways and divided multi-lane surface roads.
I also envy Dallas for having a system of locally funded manmade lakes and reservoirs for flood control and water storage. I even envy Dallas for using tolls (gasp!) to fund the construction of new highways as needed.
Of course, I'll take Atlanta's and North Georgia's beautiful heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly-to-mountainous terrain and scenery any and everyday of the week to Dallas' and North Texas' much flatter and much more sparsely wooded terrain and scenery....Even if North Georgia's beautiful heavily wooded rolling/hilly terrain does come with a severe dearth of transportation and water supply and storage infrastructure and an extreme (and often seemingly highly irrational and stubborn) reluctance to build it.
But I do greatly admire the local emphasis on building road, transit and water infrastructure in North Texas.
Just imagine....They built new roads, transit lines and reservoirs in North Texas and the modern world and universe as we know it did not come to a complete and sudden end.
The apocalypse did not come about just because a new toll road, transit line or reservoir was built....Built in some cases even decades before they were truly needed.
You have spoken my mind completely. Biggest difference topographically vs. politically/economically. As much as I prefer Atlanta on many levels, these Texans don't sit around and act like a road is the incarnation of the Antichrist. Refreshing actually.
You have spoken my mind completely. Biggest difference topographically vs. politically/economically. As much as I prefer Atlanta on many levels, these Texans don't sit around and act like a road is the incarnation of the Antichrist. Refreshing actually.
I do envy them at times. Miss a turn? No problem, just choose one of the other many freeways. It's so easy to get around the metro area. Even traffic doesn't seem as bad. At least in Dallas.
Not to mess this thread up,but..... I would classify some of Dallas traffic as moving congestion. You are in bumper to bumper traffic, but it moves around 20mph on average in spots until it opens up. There has been a HUGE influx of people. GWBush is packed from the new section in Garland all the way to 35 during rush hour. 75 is packed. 635 is a moving parking lot. BUT as said, road building is going on. 635 is becoming double decker. I read somewhere that GWBush is getting an extra lane. 75 is adding a lane between Allen and further north past McKinney. 35 is getting expanded. TONS of construction going out towards Fort Worth. Almost every single highway has some sort of construction.
The huge difference between Dallas suburbs and Atlanta is that our secondary roads are like mini-highways. You can easily be on a secondary road driving almost 60mph (speed limit is 40-50mph) They are three lanes. These secondary roads go every direction, so if traffic is on the highway, jump off and go local. It is almost as fast, but with some lights.
The negatives. Walking. It is dangerous. Cars are not used to pedestrians. Even the lights are not pedestrian friendly because with turning lanes, there is ALWAYS moving traffic in an intersection. Then again, probably 0.01% of population actually crosses a street or walks here. The car is king.
The huge difference between Dallas suburbs and Atlanta is that our secondary roads are like mini-highways. You can easily be on a secondary road driving almost 60mph (speed limit is 40-50mph) They are three lanes. These secondary roads go every direction, so if traffic is on the highway, jump off and go local. It is almost as fast, but with some lights.
Adding to this real quick, frontage roads are really popular and what I've seen a lot is they build the frontage road but not the main freeway. Then when money is available, conversion to freeway is as easy as building bridges, removing grass in the median and adding ramps. A lot of work is already done and you keep the frontage road. And the frontage roads themselves are able to handle high speeds.
Not to mess this thread up,but..... I would classify some of Dallas traffic as moving congestion. You are in bumper to bumper traffic, but it moves around 20mph on average in spots until it opens up. There has been a HUGE influx of people. GWBush is packed from the new section in Garland all the way to 35 during rush hour. 75 is packed. 635 is a moving parking lot. BUT as said, road building is going on. 635 is becoming double decker. I read somewhere that GWBush is getting an extra lane. 75 is adding a lane between Allen and further north past McKinney. 35 is getting expanded. TONS of construction going out towards Fort Worth. Almost every single highway has some sort of construction.
The huge difference between Dallas suburbs and Atlanta is that our secondary roads are like mini-highways. You can easily be on a secondary road driving almost 60mph (speed limit is 40-50mph) They are three lanes. These secondary roads go every direction, so if traffic is on the highway, jump off and go local. It is almost as fast, but with some lights.
The negatives. Walking. It is dangerous. Cars are not used to pedestrians. Even the lights are not pedestrian friendly because with turning lanes, there is ALWAYS moving traffic in an intersection. Then again, probably 0.01% of population actually crosses a street or walks here. The car is king.
The car may be king in the Dallas area, but at least the Dallas area seems to attempt to build enough infrastructure to handle their increasing amount of automobile traffic. The Dallas area also seems to build sidewalks everywhere along both major multi-lane roads and residential streets, even if they may not be all that heavily used.
On the other hand, the Atlanta area is comparatively extremely limited in the amount of transportation infrastructure (roads, transit lines and even sidewalks) it can build because of a unique political, cultural and social climate that is can be extremely averse to the concept of constructing new transportation infrastructure.
Instead of having multiple 4-6 lane surface alternatives to major freeway commuter routes, in most cases in the Atlanta area most freeways have only one 4-lane surface alternative and many winding local 2-lane roads that feed traffic into the one 4-lane alternative that are all often severely congested during peak.
There are even some cases in the Atlanta area where there are virtually NO surface alternatives, with the Top End of the I-285 Perimeter between the I-75 Northwest and I-85 Northeast interchanges being the most notable example where the nearest cross-regional surface alternative routes are 7-10 miles away in each direction from the I-285 roadway....Meaning that the I-285 Top End Perimeter is often a parking lot during peak traffic hours because of the nearly complete lack of alternatives (including surface roads and transit) between I-75 NW and I-85 NE.
For anyone who lives in the Dallas area, can you imagine the I-635 North Loop between I-35E and US 75 with no frontage/service roads and no surface alternatives within 7-10 miles in each direction?
Having almost a complete lack of alternatives is what Atlanta area residents who use the I-285 Top End Perimeter and other major commuter routes must deal with on a daily basis.
Adding to this real quick, frontage roads are really popular and what I've seen a lot is they build the frontage road but not the main freeway. Then when money is available, conversion to freeway is as easy as building bridges, removing grass in the median and adding ramps. A lot of work is already done and you keep the frontage road. And the frontage roads themselves are able to handle high speeds.
I want to see us ramp up transportation spending, but I'm really glad we only have a few frontage roads.
I hate them and think they are ugly as ever. I don't want to go to the front door of a business and see a freeway.
I like our newer way of handling things where you go one block and there is a full road and businesses can buy the parcel that backs up to the freeway. Sort of like Satellite Boulevard north and south of the Gwinnett Place Mall area.
It is done predominately in Gwinnett, but Forsyth is following suite. N. Fulton along GA 400 did this, but they left more room from the freeway and there are smaller roads in there too. Newnan and parts of Henry County are starting to do the same.
It is one of the newer ways the region was planning for regional/employment corridors, rather than single nodes (CBDs).
I want to see us ramp up transportation spending, but I'm really glad we only have a few frontage roads.
I hate them and think they are ugly as ever. I don't want to go to the front door of a business and see a freeway.
I like our newer way of handling things where you go one block and there is a full road and businesses can buy the parcel that backs up to the freeway. Sort of like Satellite Boulevard north and south of the Gwinnett Place Mall area.
It is done predominately in Gwinnett, but Forsyth is following suite. N. Fulton along GA 400 did this, but they left more room from the freeway and there are smaller roads in there too. Newnan and parts of Henry County are starting to do the same.
It is one of the newer ways the region was planning for regional/employment corridors, rather than single nodes (CBDs).
Texas is a lot better about being willing to spend on their infrastructure.
I don't really like the frontage roads because they draw development to the freeways. The freeways become a destination instead of a way to get to a destination. The Texas DOT actually voted to stop building frontage roads on new freeways about 10 years back, but that got overturned by the developers/landowners.
It's not totally barren but compared to Atlanta it seems like it. Most of the areas around Plano were cornfields or cow pastures before the suburbs came. There are a lot of old growth trees in creek bottomland, there are straight rows of trees that grew up between fields along fence lines, and there are trees in what were old homestead sites (some nice pecan groves scattered here and there) but other than that, if you want a tree, you plant it yourself. Some of the older parts of Plano and closer into Dallas will have neighborhoods that have matured to the point that they are quite leafy, but new developments are practically treeless.
The biggest difference in Atlanta and Dallas to me.
North Dallas is pretty green and hilly. Richardson, just north of Dallas, is pretty green and not flat, but not hilly. But when you get to Plano you are getting to the Great Plains.
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