Dear Dallas: I'm sorry TXDOT is run by atavistic nitwits (Houston: neighborhoods, luxury)

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Viscerally, I love the idea of removing I-345 and turning the reclaimed land into apartments, condos, grocery stores and a school or two would be wonderful. The problem is things like that don't happen in a vacuum. The displaced cars your guys write off as a trivial factor would in fact be a huge problem - a problem so big it would be damaging to the economy.

I don't take Kennedy and some others who are against most every road project very seriously. What if instead he had years ago drawn up a plan that rerouted most I-345 traffic through an even beefier Horseshoe project, maybe double decking Woodall Rogers and portions of I-35, maybe then killing I-345 would make sense.


The best course of action now is to formulate a real top to bottom plan to get rid of 345 in 20/25 years.

I agree about the civil costs I snipped.

Figure out a funding mechanism then look at the alternatives.

Bonds, tolls, some TEA money, etc. It can all add up.

[Komeht]

"1. I-345 wasn't horribly planned. It was drawn out in the '60s and designed to handle 35/40K cars per day. It handles 4x that now and more. The ramps are sub-standard by today's guidelines but they simply were not poorly planned."

Sure it was - freeways have no business bifurcating downtowns. It was horrible placement to begin with.

"2. Claiming the untold tens of thousands of net new cars forced into downtown traffic would only add a few minutes to a cross town commute is raw fantasy. I also think it's an epic reach to claim that crossing downtown now is only a little more time consuming that using the freeway."

Good networked grids can not only handle more traffic total - they are far more resilient - the provide options when freeways do not.

"3. Patrick Kennedy is 1/2 of the problem you guys have. I'm sure he is a nice man personally but he claims tearing the freeway out would cost $80/85 million more or less, not $60 million as you mentioned earlier FWiiW. However, a good friend of mine is a civil engineer in St. Louis he texted me last night that the current expected costs for removing and properly disposing of an existing freeway that size are right at $100,000,000 per mile. With a wave of his hand he dismisses traffic dislocation and compares what Dallas should be to cities that are nothing like Dallas and have vastly worse traffic FWiiW. I'll be generous and call PK's arguments incomplete at best."

Due respect to your friend, he's talking out of his ass. It simply doesn't cost that much per mile to tear out a freeway.

"Viscerally, I love the idea of removing I-345 and turning the reclaimed land into apartments, condos, grocery stores and a school or two would be wonderful."

Good - you should get on board with this plan then.

"The problem is things like that don't happen in a vacuum. The displaced cars your guys write off as a trivial factor would in fact be a huge problem - a problem so big it would be damaging to the economy." \

Not a huge problem in many cities that are doing just this. The local traffic gets easily absorbed by the grid, the through traffic finds different routes that don't go through downtown.

"I don't take Kennedy and some others who are against most every road project very seriously. What if instead he had years ago drawn up a plan that rerouted most I-345 traffic through an even beefier Horseshoe project, maybe double decking Woodall Rogers and portions of I-35, maybe then killing I-345 would make sense."

Double decking Woodall Rogers - oh my - it would be impossible for me to overstate how awful an idea this is.

"The best course of action now is to formulate a real top to bottom plan to get rid of 345 in 20/25 years."

There is a great plan on the ground. No need to wait two generations to achieve it.

A New Dallas

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by TX75007

I was at first down on this idea. But I think it is a good one.

Dallasites should go talk to NTTA about making that a Toll Tunnel like Addison. That is the only way to get it done. Add in a DART line on it as well.

Can be done. But the money side needs some more imagination.

If I were King I'd pay for some feasibility studies:
1. Investigate burying the road with a tunnel boring machine.
2. Investigate building a much bigger deck park. If the road was built below grade covering it might not be as expensive as using a TBM.
3. Investigate rerouting traffic. While also being honest that traffic will not magically disappear.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by EDS_

If I were King I'd pay for some feasibility studies:
1. Investigate burying the road with a tunnel boring machine.
2. Investigate building a much bigger deck park. If the road was built below grade covering it might not be as expensive as using a TBM.
3. Investigate rerouting traffic. While also being honest that traffic will not magically disappear.

This is the kind of overkill that kills sensible solutions. Sometimes you just don't need a 2 billion dollar tunnel Sometimes the simplest solutions works best.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Here is a city Kennedy and others bring up as being a no freeway paradise.

Vancouver Second Most Traffic Congested City in North America | Vancity Buzz | Vancouver Events, News, Food, Lifestyle and More



Also Kennedy talks about SF tearing out the Embarcadero Freeway and how that hasn't been a problem for SF. I go there a lot and know the city fairly well.

I don't have numbers but the Embarcadero never carried close to the traffic that I-345 carries. Secondly, it's not like they tore out the freeway and left. The freeway was removed and replaced with a six lane surface street.


ETA - I found some numbers the Embarcadero Freeway carried about 1/3, probably fewer, cars daily that I-345.

I love San Francisco and would move there in a heartbeat if I could afford it/somebody would pay me enough...

but traffic throughout the Bay Area is horrid. Bloody godawful. Part of that is the geography, but let's not kid ourselves, the geography is also what draws so many people there to live. Dallas doesn't have that draw.

DFW traffic is a cakewalk compared to SF, or to NY or Chicago, for that matter.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

I love San Francisco and would move there in a heartbeat if I could afford it/somebody would pay me enough...

but traffic throughout the Bay Area is horrid. Bloody godawful. Part of that is the geography, but let's not kid ourselves, the geography is also what draws so many people there to live. Dallas doesn't have that draw.

DFW traffic is a cakewalk compared to SF, or to NY or Chicago, for that matter.

You don't need a car in those cities - transportation options a-plenty.

Good luck in Dallas with no car.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Komeht

You don't need a car in those cities - transportation options a-plenty.

Good luck in Dallas with no car.

My wife runs an IT group in DTSF. Every single one of her folks has car.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by synchronicity

I love San Francisco and would move there in a heartbeat if I could afford it/somebody would pay me enough...

but traffic throughout the Bay Area is horrid. Bloody godawful. Part of that is the geography, but let's not kid ourselves, the geography is also what draws so many people there to live. Dallas doesn't have that draw.

DFW traffic is a cakewalk compared to SF, or to NY or Chicago, for that matter.

I like it out there as well. But in many ways it's a dysfunctional city.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Komeht

This is the kind of overkill that kills sensible solutions. Sometimes you just don't need a 2 billion dollar tunnel Sometimes the simplest solutions works best.

Right. It'd be better to remove the overhead and hope. That's a great plan.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Komeht

"1. I-345 wasn't horribly planned. It was drawn out in the '60s and designed to handle 35/40K cars per day. It handles 4x that now and more. The ramps are sub-standard by today's guidelines but they simply were not poorly planned."

Sure it was - freeways have no business bifurcating downtowns. It was horrible placement to begin with.

"2. Claiming the untold tens of thousands of net new cars forced into downtown traffic would only add a few minutes to a cross town commute is raw fantasy. I also think it's an epic reach to claim that crossing downtown now is only a little more time consuming that using the freeway."

Good networked grids can not only handle more traffic total - they are far more resilient - the provide options when freeways do not.

"3. Patrick Kennedy is 1/2 of the problem you guys have. I'm sure he is a nice man personally but he claims tearing the freeway out would cost $80/85 million more or less, not $60 million as you mentioned earlier FWiiW. However, a good friend of mine is a civil engineer in St. Louis he texted me last night that the current expected costs for removing and properly disposing of an existing freeway that size are right at $100,000,000 per mile. With a wave of his hand he dismisses traffic dislocation and compares what Dallas should be to cities that are nothing like Dallas and have vastly worse traffic FWiiW. I'll be generous and call PK's arguments incomplete at best."

Due respect to your friend, he's talking out of his ass. It simply doesn't cost that much per mile to tear out a freeway.

"Viscerally, I love the idea of removing I-345 and turning the reclaimed land into apartments, condos, grocery stores and a school or two would be wonderful."

Good - you should get on board with this plan then.

"The problem is things like that don't happen in a vacuum. The displaced cars your guys write off as a trivial factor would in fact be a huge problem - a problem so big it would be damaging to the economy." \

Not a huge problem in many cities that are doing just this. The local traffic gets easily absorbed by the grid, the through traffic finds different routes that don't go through downtown.

"I don't take Kennedy and some others who are against most every road project very seriously. What if instead he had years ago drawn up a plan that rerouted most I-345 traffic through an even beefier Horseshoe project, maybe double decking Woodall Rogers and portions of I-35, maybe then killing I-345 would make sense."

Double decking Woodall Rogers - oh my - it would be impossible for me to overstate how awful an idea this is.

"The best course of action now is to formulate a real top to bottom plan to get rid of 345 in 20/25 years."

There is a great plan on the ground. No need to wait two generations to achieve it.

A New Dallas

I'm going to let the rest of that go. I disagree with most all of it and so would a vast majority of people who paid any attention to these things.


The part about my friend though I'm not going to let go. I don't know you or what you do for a living. My friend is a very experienced civil engineer. I'll give you snippets of his text plus some things I figured out blowing an hour talking to another friend who is huge in the dirt work business and looking up a few things.

PK's cost estime for just tear-out is about right, it'd be $85 or 90 million. That's the square footage in question times 55/60$ per foot to remove that type of overhead plus access roads in a top ten urban setting.

Here's the problem.......you can't just block 75 and 45.
At those figures he's totally ignoring the additional tear-out and rebuild that would be federally mandated at both ends. It would be BARE-MINIMUM $25 million to improve the tie off of 75 to Woodall Rogers and of course 75 would have to be diverted to other roadways as well. Same at the other end. And we haven't even spoken about the R&R needed on the existing surface streets and related new construction.

The $85 million dollar claim is nothing short of a false flag. Nearly double that is closer to reality.