Tear down central expressway? (Dallas, Bryan: real estate, neighborhoods, place to live)

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by Dallaz

They are only talking about the elevated portion of 75 not the renovated part. (Central not North Central) The elevated portion was built in the 70s. What's the point of maintaining something that needs to be torn down? That's like putting a band-aid on a broken water pipe.

Its the tradeoff in real and opportunity costs.

$10 million to repair and 10 days of traffic delays vs 1 billion and two years of delays to replace.

Also there is competition for both the money in the area, in the city, and the limited engineering management resources, too. You cannot rush such a project as there are huge civil challenges in managing the non-construction issues that have to be found, mitigated, and sequenced.

A tunnel for the whole route is the only alternative for the whole connector. But that would require re-routing A LOT of underground pipes and cables. Very expensive and will take years before construction could start.

[Cowboys fan in Houston]

Its not going to happen. Why talk about it?

[jbb303]

While I think this idea has some merit, it is decades away from being a possibility. Massive upgrades to the freeway corridor on the south end of downtown would be needed to make this work and, while that's in the works, it won't happen soon enough to avoid repairing what's there right now.

[ETex2]

Originally Posted by justme02

Its not going to happen. Why talk about it?

This. My office was on Central Expressway during the gigantic makeover in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. What a huge expensive mess that was. To suggest tearing it down and/or starting over again is pure folly. It doesn't cut anything off at all, as there are plenty of underpasses connecting the major east-west thoroughfares to Deep Ellum and points east of downtown. It's bad enough that the traffic "canyon" downtown will be rebuilt soon along with the Stemmons corridor. Not necessary IMHO.

[PanTerra]

This is why there are exits.

[JJG]

Basically, if the city doesn't want Central Expressway there, than it shouldn't have been built there in the first place.

But, what's done is done....

[Dallaz]

This section of Central Expressway was originally on ground level until 1973. From the old aerial pictures I've seen, it looks like the surface streets feed into US 75. I didn't realize how many buildings were demolished to make way for this elevated freeway, what a shame.

[thomas_chongruk]

Must be a slow news day, and the reporter needed to make up some type of copy ...

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by ETex2

This. My office was on Central Expressway during the gigantic makeover in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. What a huge expensive mess that was. To suggest tearing it down and/or starting over again is pure folly. It doesn't cut anything off at all, as there are plenty of underpasses connecting the major east-west thoroughfares to Deep Ellum and points east of downtown. It's bad enough that the traffic "canyon" downtown will be rebuilt soon along with the Stemmons corridor. Not necessary IMHO.

It absolutely is a physical barrier. Ever see someone other than a homeless person walk under it? Ride a bike? Underpasses are built for cars - they're remarkably hostile environments for a pedestrian.

We can build cities for cars or we can build cities for people. I think the latter is better.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by JJG

Basically, if the city doesn't want Central Expressway there, than it shouldn't have been built there in the first place.

But, what's done is done....

Bizarre bit of logic there. You assume that cities remain static, that what was once considered a good idea could subsequently be considered a bad one.

What's done can be undone.