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Dallas lights Calatrava bridge to mark Trinity signature span’s completion By MELISSA REPKO Staff Writer
Published: 10 January 2012 11:04 PM
In less of a ‘ta-da’ moment than a gradual crescendo, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge lit up the Dallas skyline for the first time on Tuesday night.
Mayor Mike Rawlings warned the crowd that the lights would take a few minutes to sparkle before he pulled the lever.
“It’s not like turning the porch lights on,” he said.
Then, as brass musicians played, benefactors and curious onlookers watched a soft light spread across the bridge’s arches.
The bridge will open March 2 with a weekend-long celebration, including a street fair, a bike tour, and a fundraiser featuring singer Lyle Lovett, the city announced Tuesday.
Designed by internationally recognized architect Santiago Calatrava, the bridge will connect Woodall Rodgers Freeway downtown with Singleton Boulevard in West Dallas.
It cost $117 million in private and public funds and is expected to carry more than 41,000 vehicles each day, according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
The lights will be turned on nightly for two weeks, then tested occasionally until the official opening.
While Tuesday’s ceremony marks the bridge’s completion, it is the start of larger plans for the Trinity River corridor and West Dallas. With it comes hope that the structure will be more than a postcard image, that it will shine a light on often overlooked parts of the city — Oak Cliff and West Dallas — and the city’s natural resource, the Trinity River.
“This bridge is not only significant for aesthetic reasons,” Rawlings told the crowd. “It’s important because it links two important parts of Dallas together.”
Despite the chilly weather, Monica Rodriguez, 20, of West Dallas brought her 1-year-old
daughter Taylor to the ceremony. For Rodriguez, the bridge represents the possibility of
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more opportunities in her neighborhood, a chance to shake off negative perceptions and attract more businesses.
“Even though it’s not open yet, I wanted her to see it get lit up,” she said, between taking photos of her daughter. “She’s going to grow up with this bridge.”
Laura Estrada, a 35-year resident of Oak Cliff and a member of the Trinity Trust, said she has grown attached to the tall structure as she’s driven past it each day.
“I’ve seen it go up,” she said. “I feel like it’s my bridge.”
Gail Thomas, president and executive officer of the Trinity Trust, called the bridge “the first sign of achievement” for the Trinity River Corridor Project — a vision for a river where residents bike and run, where they gather at ball fields and desire to live.
“We have lived almost a century with our backs turned away from the river corridor,” she said. “If you build something really beautiful in the center of the city, people will turn their heads around and look again.”
AT A GLANCE: The bridge's official debut
Highlights of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Celebration:
Friday, March 2
•Trinity Trust fundraiser with headliner Lyle Lovett. Tickets cost $200.
•Three-day Bridge-O-Rama festival begins in West Dallas
Saturday, March 3
•Trinity River Levee Run 5K and 10K
•Street fair featuring vendors, fireworks and local bands
Sunday, March 4
•Ribbon-cutting and blessing of the bridge
•Bike tour of Trinity River bridges
DART to change bus routes as rail system expands again By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER Transportation Writer
Published: 15 January 2012 11:22 PM
Another round of big changes for bus riders is in the works as Dallas Area Rapid Transit gets ready to welcome new light rail service to Irving and Rowlett this year.
DART will eliminate some routes altogether and transform others into feeder routes for the rail service.
Riders worried about the proposed changes can officially weigh in on Jan. 24, when DART holds a federally mandated public hearing to receive riders’ comments. By law, the DART board can’t adopt the proposed changes until after the staff has considered the public input.
The hearing will take place at DART headquarters at 6:30 p.m. Other community meetings will also be held in Dallas and Irving this week.
The bus changes will save DART up to about $2.6 million a year once they take effect, said vice president Todd Plesko. That follows a decision last year to cut bus spending $7.8 million to combat low sales tax revenue.
But the changes, which also include some new routes, are about more than just saving money.
Plesko said as DART grows, it wants rail to be riders’ primary method of getting to and from downtown Dallas. Increasingly, buses are seen as feeder shuttles to get passengers from their neighborhoods to the rail lines.
“We are moving to a point where our buses are seen as supplemental to the rail system,” Plesko said.
“That’s always been the case,” added spokesman Morgan Lyons. “When rail is introduced into an area, it has already been decided that it is the most cost-effective way to move as many riders as possible. So those routes do get realigned.”
DART now has the nation’s largest light rail network, and it continues to grow. On July 30, the new Orange Line will open from Dallas to the Irving Convention Center at Las
Colinas. On Dec. 3, the Blue Line will extend to downtown Rowlett and the Orange Line
will extend to Belt Line Station at State Highway 161.
Still, the rail network can’t take riders everywhere they want to go, as Plesko readily acknowledges. DART rail lines are like spokes attached to a hub in downtown Dallas and do not travel from east to west.
Riders needing to cut across town are for the most part stuck with buses.
The new bus changes include some enhancements for those riders, he added.
For instance, a new route 487 will run from downtown Garland to the west along Jupiter
Lane and Forest Lane. It will be a new kind of route for DART that will act more like a train, making only occasional stops. Riders won’t lose the local Forest Lane route, the 486, but will have a new, faster way to cut cross town.
Still, Lyons and Plesko said some bus riders will face longer commutes, and perhaps more transfers, as a result of the changes.
“Yes, some riders will find their trips take a little longer,” Lyons said. “We are very sensitive to it. But our rail line is a 75- to 100-year investment over time, and once it is on the ground it can’t be moved. We can move and adjust the bus lines.”
Plesko said the plans are still in draft form, and riders and businesses worried about the changes have already had an impact on the planning. He said the staff welcomes input from riders so it can improve the service and reduce any harm.
“This is one group that listens,” Plesko said, adding that tweaking bus routes to improve the system is always a tough balancing act between efficiency and maintaining service riders have come to rely on.
Riders can also visit a special DART web page, at bit.ly/2012DART, to register their complaints.
DART’s growing rail network means that once again, bus riders will be asked to absorb a lot of changes to their routes. Riders still have time to speak up about the changes before they take effect.
Here’s what you need to know:
Bus changes will happen in two phases, on July 30 and then in December. Several routes will be discontinued or cut back because of low ridership, including Routes 27 and 512. Route 515, for instance, would stop operating on Sundays, and Saturday service would stop on routes 553 and 574.
Other routes will be eliminated because they essentially duplicate the new rail service, and many other routes will see partial changes. For a complete list, go to www.dart.org.
Rail changes also take effect in two stages. On July 30, Orange Line service to Irving’s Convention Center begins. In December, the Orange Line will be extended west to stops at Belt Line Road and North Lake College. In addition, December marks the extension of the Blue Line to downtown Rowlett.
How to be heard: DART hosts a formal public hearing Jan. 24 at 1401 Pacific Ave. at 6:30 p.m. In addition, it is holding a series of community meetings about the changes, including meetings at local library branches on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and next Monday. For details see, www.dart.org.
Twitter chat: In addition, talk about the changes on twitter using #DART2012. Send questions now, and DART representatives will take questions and answers live through twitter on Tuesday from 1 to 2 p.m.
SOURCE: DART, Dallas Morning News research
Dallas car-bicycle crash adds urgency to call for safety measures By ROY APPLETON Staff Writer
Published: 17 January 2012 11:32 PM
Dallas Torres was out for his daily 40-mile bicycle ride, pedaling from Oak Cliff into
downtown across the Jefferson Boulevard bridge.
About 2 p.m. Saturday, the gorgeous afternoon turned painful and ugly for Torres when a braking Honda plowed into him from behind, throwing the red-helmeted rider onto the
hood and windshield of the car and then the roadway.
On Tuesday, the 32-year-old Oak Cliff resident was still at Baylor University Medical
Center with three fractured vertebrae and a stapled head, hoping he will be able to go
home this week.
And bicycling advocates are repeating their call for roadway safety measures across the city, including a dedicated bike lane on the Jefferson bridge.
“Crossing the bridge on a bicycle is terrifying,” said City Council member Scott Griggs, who began discussions at City Hall on Tuesday about ways to prevent such accidents.
With four traffic lanes, the mile-long Jefferson bridge doesn’t have the space challenges of some other Dallas streets. It also doesn’t have the clearly marked lanes of most city thoroughfares.
Adding bike lanes along the bridge, a one-way route into downtown, is among the projects proposed for early implementation in the city’s Bike Plan.
But City Council members learned last month that the city doesn’t have money budgeted to stripe any of the 840 miles of bicycle lanes laid out in the plan approved last June.
Cycling supporters, businesses and property owners along West Commerce Street and Fort Worth Avenue confronted the shortfall earlier this month, raising $25,000 to help
pay for striping that route west of downtown. City officials said the gift would put the work on a fast track for completion by this summer.
Jason Roberts, founder of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, said his group will lead a similar fund drive for the Jefferson bridge. He said ideally barriers would separate a two-way bike path from traffic, which merges onto the bridge from three streets and often exceeds the 40-mph speed limit.
How much such a project might cost is uncertain. But the city should tap into street maintenance funds if necessary, Roberts said.
“When they need to find money, they find a way,” he said.
Griggs, whose district includes the bridge’s Oak Cliff entryway, met with Assistant City Manager Forest Turner on Tuesday to discuss safety measures. He said possible moves include adding barriers or marking bike lanes with painted arrows, symbols and signs.
“I imagine a physical separation is what will be called for,” Griggs said. And with private support, paying for the project shouldn’t be a problem, he said.
“It’s all about priorities and values,” Griggs said.
Police didn’t ticket the driver who hit Torres. They also hadn’t released his name or the traffic accident report by Tuesday afternoon.
The crash destroyed Torres’ vintage red-and-blue Cannondale Track bicycle, but it hasn’t
broken his passion for cycling, his wife, Marissa Torres, said.
“As soon as the doctor clears him, he’ll be back,” she said.
She said her husband has been an avid cyclist for six years, quit his job in automotive collision repair to “ride for a living” and has had two previous, less serious run-ins with motor vehicles.
And she said her husband hopes his crash will have an impact beyond changes to the Jefferson bridge.
“It’s not just bike lanes,” she said. “It’s also about people paying attention and knowing they have to share the road. He’s just hoping for awareness by both cyclists and drivers.”
Little Elm holds title for Texas’ worst commute
By MICHAEL E. YOUNG
Published: 22 January 2012 11:07 PM
LITTLE ELM – All across the breadth of Texas, there’s not a small city anywhere whose
populace faces the sort of commutes that await the working folks of this fast-growing Denton
County town.
Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2005-2009, The
Business Journals reports that 38 percent of Little Elm commuters spend at least 45 minutes
just getting to work. Add those who took 30 to 44 minutes to get to the jobsite, and the number
jumps to 68 percent.
In terms of commutes, that puts Little Elm 171st and last among Texas cities with 10,000 to
50,000 residents, and 2,988th of 3,012 such cities in the United States. And it’s easy enough to
explain why that might be so.
Like many towns in suburban and exurban North Texas, Little Elm grew like crazy between
2000 and 2010, from 3,646 to 25,898 residents, a 610 percent increase, second-most in the
Dallas-Fort Worth region. A lot of those people, said Doug Peach, Little Elm’s interim city
manager, moved north but still work to the south. Their home address changed, but they still
work at the same old place.
“The change in residence just increased their drive time,” Peach said. “Now, as some of that
population relocates their workplace, things will change.”
As it turns out, some things already have.
Little Elm’s biggest commuting problem – and there are several – involved folks trying to get to
Interstate 35E, and then either north, south or west.
“This particular community was landlocked on the east side of Lake Lewisville,” said Michael
Morris, director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. “So to get
anywhere on the western side of the region, it was a real long drive around the lake.”
The route, following U.S. 380, would take commuters all the way to Denton to reach I-35.
But about the time final survey numbers were collected, Little Elm’s commuting landscape
changed. Sure, the Dallas North Tollway was still a crowded mess mornings and evenings, and
U.S. 380 could carry a steady stream of cars. But that long drive around the lake ended when
the Lake Lewisville Toll Bridge opened in August 2009.
“Access radically changed with the new bridge, which literally took 20 minutes off the drive,”
Morris said. “If that data was collected today, Little Elm wouldn’t be where it was, because of the
bridge.”
The $122 million project connects the Tollway and I-35E, a 13.8-mile stretch that includes
Eldorado Parkway to the east and Swisher Road in Lake Dallas to the west, with a 1.7-mile
span over Lake Lewisville.
It officially opened to traffic on Aug. 1, 2009, and by December 2010 was carrying 9,100 cars a
day. A year later, traffic had increased to 10,400, according to North Texas Tollway Authority
spokesman Michael Rea.
Still, longer commutes will be a reality for many in the far suburbs of Dallas and Fort Worth,
Morris said, because many of the jobs are still where they’ve always been: downtown.
“Because of that,” Morris said, “we’re seeing a lot of folks re-evaluating and seeing whether they
want to come back to the central cities instead.”
That’s especially true as the cost of commuting rises and little money is available to expand
existing highways or build new ones, he said.
Fortunately for Little Elm, road projects already under way should ease congestion within city
limits, even if they don’t solve long-range commuting problems. Eldorado Parkway, a key
component of the Lake Lewisville Toll Bridge corridor, is being expanded from two lanes to a
six-lane divided highway, a project that will probably take two more years to compete. And
improvements to FM 423 should be completed by this fall, Peach said.
“People are dealing with some localized congestion from the construction,” he said, “but it isn’t
too hard to get around.
“It doesn’t mean you can’t get out to lunch and back in an hour,” he said
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/20120122-little-elm-holds-title-for-texas-worst-commute.ece?action=reregister
Dallas transit returns to taxis for disabled, elderly passengers
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER Published: 25 January 2012 10:42 PM
Dallas Area Rapid Transit board members voted this week to gamble big with a service that, for
11,000 of the most vulnerable passengers, is the difference between an active life and being
stuck at home.
More than a decade after it ended the scandal-prone use of taxicabs to ferry elderly and
disabled passengers, the board voted 9-2 to give that approach another try — though this time
with important changes.
The board awarded a seven-year, $186 million contract to MV Transportation, a California firm
that says it will buy 146 vans to provide service to eligible passengers and also recruit perhaps
hundreds of specially trained cabdrivers to respond to calls as needed.
In doing so, the agency ended its 11-year relationship with Veolia Transportation, a firm that has
provided about 2,700 trips a day exclusively through the use of 350 full-time drivers who wear
DART uniforms and drive nearly 200 DART vans.
MV Transportation’s bid for the work was $12 million less than Veolia’s, and DART officials say
the agency will save an additional $48 million over the next seven years because it will no
longer have to provide facilities, vans, scheduling or dispatching for the service.
The transition, as well as training and staffing, begins immediately, but the new firm doesn’t
begin operating the service until Oct. 1.
Before Tuesday night’s vote, however, a parade of passengers pleaded with DART board
members to keep intact a service they consider essential.
“The drivers you have now are magnificent,” said Beatrice Kassees, 81, who uses paratransit
daily to get to her volunteer work with needy children. “I don’t know if I have ever been treated
so well in my life as I have been by Veolia drivers. I love being active. … They really make me
feel special every morning.”
DART executives promised that the new contract ensures that the new drivers, whether they
drive cabs or the vans bought by MV Transportation, will be well trained to help disabled and
other passengers in need.
“Change is scary,” said board member Randall Chrisman of Carrollton, who voted for the
change.
“I think Veolia did a great job. But they were very well compensated for the service they
provided. And as I always say, any time the contracts are large, they are going to bring out all
the guns. But in the end, the board listened to all the facts, and we believe this is the best way
to go forward.”
Tough standards
In addition to training, all drivers will have to pass background checks, and won’t be eligible if
they’ve been convicted of a crime or committed more than one traffic offense in the past two
years.
The new vehicles, including the cabs, also will have GPS tracking devices, so MV
Transportation and DART will be able to track drivers when they are with DART customers,
spokesman Morgan Lyons said.
Carter Pate, MV Transportation CEO, praised Veolia and promised to work closely with the
company during the transition later this year.
Pate, hired as chief executive last summer, lives in Dallas, where MV Transportation is building
a national call center. Its corporate headquarters, according to its website, remains in California.
The company operates transit operations in dozens of locations across the country.
The switch from Veolia could end up costing the jobs of many of its 350 drivers, who are
members of the same local union that represents DART workers.
DART chairman John Carter Danish of Irving, however, said the fate of the drivers was not a
factor in the board’s decision to switch contractors. The focus was on which company could do
the best service for the lowest price, he said.
“They are not actually our employees,” Danish said after the meeting. “They work for Veolia, our
contractor. We are going to expect the new company to abide by certain service standards, and
if they aren’t meeting them, then we may have some leverage to ask them why our riders aren’t
as satisfied as they were with Veolia drivers.”
Former DART board member Joyce Foreman was among more than a dozen speakers
Tuesday who said opting for the cheapest price isn’t always the best public policy.
“This is the first time in six years I have been back to speak before you, but this issue has really
touched my heart,” said Foreman, who was DART board vice chairwoman until 2007. “I know
you are looking at the bottom line, but I want to urge you to look beyond the bottom line, too.
Sometimes the people are the bottom line.”
She said DART has routinely praised Veolia for improving paratransit service since it took over
11 years ago. Lyons confirmed Wednesday that the agency had been well pleased with Veolia’s
record of customer service.
Foreman, in an interview, said DART’s history with paratransit has been a bumpy one, and
some of the worst problems occurred when taxicabs were used in the past. DART did away with
using them for regular paratransit service in 1994, after it discovered widespread fraud by
drivers who were submitting fake payment vouchers.
Lyons said that, by 1999, the use of taxicabs had stopped even for emergencies.
To Foreman, going back to that model, even in part, is risky.
“You have no idea what we went through before we hired Veolia, when we relied on taxicabs
previously,” she said. “It was terrible. I believe you are setting yourself up for some of the same
problems we faced before.”
Bye to Veolia
But not everyone who has used Veolia’s service is sad to see it go. A neighborhood activist from
Far East Dallas said she’s still rattled by her first paratransit trip, which she described as
harrowing.
“We asked him to stop and let us out, he was going so fast,” said Ellen Childress, who has
trouble seeing as a result of multiple sclerosis. “But he wouldn’t slow down or even
acknowledge that we were in the van.
“I would be more afraid of the drivers they have now than anything new they come up with.”
Even Kassees, who spoke on the company’s behalf Tuesday and says she calls regularly to
thank her drivers’ supervisors, said Veolia’s service leaves a lot to be desired. She only takes it
when she has absolutely no other choice, she said, because it often runs late.
Still, she worries about the new direction taken by DART’s board.
“They are going to really be sorry,” Kassees said Wednesday. “But they are not the ones who
are going to be hurt. And, even at almost 82, I am going to get along just fine.
“But it’s the people in wheelchairs or the mentally retarded children that I see that I am worried
about. Taxi drivers aren’t going to know how to be so sensitive.”
How they voted:
Voted for
Randall Chrisman
Mark Enoch
Scott Carlson
Robert Strauss
William Velasco
Michael Cheney
Loretta Ellerbe
Gary Slagel
John Carter Danish
Voted against
Jerry Christian
Claude R. Williams Jr.
Abstained
William Tsao
Absent
Pamela Dunlop Gates
Richard Carrizales
Faye Wilkins
New rules for drivers
The contract signed with MV Transportation requires that all drivers be trained and screened
before being allowed to pick up DART passengers. All drivers’ records on training and exams
will be kept on file for review by DART.
Under training requirements, drivers must:
Show service-area orientation, with a test to ensure knowledge of common locations requested
by passengers
Pass test on DART service standards
Complete defensive-driving course every two years
Pass test after at least eight hours of formal training to assist disabled or feeble passengers.
Pass test after at least eights hours of sensitivity training covering “all types of disabilities.”
Under screening requirements, drivers must:
Have had a Class C driver’s license for the past five years
Have had no more than one traffic ticket in the past two years, and no DUI convictions in past
five
Have had no misdemeanor or felony convictions within the past five anywhere in the U.S.
Have no outstanding warrants
Speak and write English
Pass drug screen and physical
Have a diploma or GED
Have no more than three verified complaints in any one year, or face suspension
Source: DART http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20120125-dallas-transit-returns-to-taxis-for-disabled-elderly-passengers.ece?action=reregister
Denton’s new A-train cars may help expand regional rail
Al Key/Denton Record Chronicle The next-generation A-line trains "bridge the gap" for communities that want commuter rail but can't have light rail, one official said.
By WENDY HUNDLEY Staff Writer
Published: 29 January 2012 10:17 PM
The Denton County Transportation Authority has received its first shipment of a new generation of rail cars that officials say could help expand public transit throughout North Texas.
The agency has received four of the 11 Swiss-made diesel cars for the A-train commuter line that runs from Denton to Carrollton. The remaining vehicles are expected
to be delivered this summer.
The cars, made by Stadler Bussnang AG, offer greater fuel efficiency, more seating and are quieter than older diesel vehicles.
Officials say they are the kind of vehicles that could be used to expand commuter rail on almost 300 miles of existing freight lines. They include the Cotton Belt, Frisco and Ellis
County rail lines.
Light-rail electric vehicles, such as those used by Dallas Area Rapid Transit, aren’t
suitable on railroad lines designed for freight trains.
And traditional diesel-powered commuter rail cars are often criticized for creating too much noise and pollution as they travel through urban areas.
The new rail cars “bridge the gap for communities that cannot have light rail but want commuter rail,” said Dee Leggett, DCTA spokeswoman.
She said the cars can run on freight lines but are lighter, burn cleaner fuel and operate at 70 to 73 decibels, instead of the 80 decibels of typical commuter rail cars.
“It could be a great platform to change regional rail service in North Texas,” Leggett said.
Tom Shelton, a senior program manager for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, agreed.
He said the vehicles have been designed to comply with rigorous federal crashworthiness standards.
“They’ve been designed and constructed to withstand a collision with a freight train,” Shelton said. “We’ll need more of these for our planned extensive commuter network.”
DART possibilities DART officials also are looking at this type of new technology for future development.
“We have a commitment to look at diesel hybrid electric vehicles,” DART spokesman Morgan Lyons said.
He said such vehicles might be suitable for the planned 62-mile Cotton Belt commuter line from Tarrant County to Collin County.
Lyons said hybrid vehicles could run on electric power in urban areas and switch to diesel in less populated areas.
That may allay some of the long-standing concerns of North Dallas residents who have
opposed the project because it would increase noise and emissions in residential areas.
“You look at a particular corridor and find the vehicle to fit it,” Lyons said.
Waiting on waiver
While DCTA has received some of the Stadler vehicles, they may not hit the rails for a few months.
That’s because the agency is waiting for an alternative vehicle technology crashworthiness waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration, which the rail cars are
expected to receive.
The agency has been working with the manufacturer for the past two years to modify the fuel tanks, emergency exits, passenger seats, braking systems and other features to meet federal safety requirements.
While the waiver is not required, officials say it will pave the way for Stadler rail cars to be used on other regional rail lines.
“We don’t need the waiver to run on the current A-train corridor,” Leggett said. “But as a regional partner, we are pursuing the waiver so this vehicle could run on other corridors.”
House Republicans to introduce transportation bill relaxing truck weights, other federal policies
Posted Monday, Jan. 30, 2012
BY JOAN LOWY
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are proposing to spend about $260 billion over the next 41/2 years on transportation programs, as well as substantially increase the size of trucks permitted on highways, according to a draft bill being introduced this week.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and other GOP leaders are expected to introduce the bill today.
Significant policy changes in the bill include giving states far greater power -- and the U.S. Transportation Department far less say -- over how federal transportation aid is spent.
The bill also consolidates many transportation programs and makes it easier and quicker for transportation projects to meet the requirements of federal environmental laws.
States could permit trucks weighing up to 97,000 pounds -- and in some cases as much as 126,000 pounds -- on interstate highways under the bill. The limit now is 80,000 pounds in most states. Increased weight limits are supported by the trucking industry but opposed by safety advocates.
The bill would maintain spending on transportation despite declining gasoline and diesel fuel tax revenue.
Dallas, Fort Worth mayors discuss regionalism
Dallas Business Journal by Matt Joyce
Friday, January 27, 2012, 3:31pm CST
The cities that make up North Texas should celebrate their diversity while working together to solve its greatest challenges like water supply, transportation and education, the mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth said Friday.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price discussed regionalism at a North Texas Commission lunch event.
The mayors agreed that the region needs to work on branding itself for the world.
Rawlings noted that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is fourth-largest region in the United States, while Dallas is the ninth-largest city.
“Because of history and how all these governments were put together, we’re in an odd situation that we all have vested interests that are together. We are pretty much like-minded individuals, but we’re artificially divided,” Rawlings said. “I think the biggest challenge we have is defining ourselves, because once I think we define ourselves well, we can make it happen.”
Price gave Rawlings a T-shirt reading “Life is Too Short to Live in Dallas,” but she also dismissed the notion as old thinking.
“We can brand this region so that worldwide everybody knows who we are and what we do,” Price said. “What’s good for Fort Worth is good for Dallas, and what’s good for Dallas is good for Fort Worth.”
When discussion veered to the possible arrival of high-speed rail in the region, Rawlings said that’s the type of issue that can challenge regional cooperation.
“That’s when the elbows get sharp, and that’s when constituents say, ‘I’ve got a piece of property; I’ve got a city council person,’ and the politics get started,” he said.
But Rawlings said all parties win when the cities cooperate.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2012/01/27/Dallas-Fort-Worth-mayors.html
GOP goes on offense with $260B highway bill
By Keith Laing - 01/31/12 06:50 PM ET
House Republicans teed up an election-year battle over jobs Tuesday, unveiling a $260 billion transportation bill designed to put Democrats on the defensive.
The package from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) would spend $260 billion over five years on road and transit projects — funding that Democrats and President Obama have long championed as stimulus for the economy.
But the GOP bill would pay for some of the transportation work with an expansion of oil and gas drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a nonstarter for many Democrats and their supporters in the environmental movement.
Sensing an advantage, Mica on Tuesday warned Democrats the bill is the only vehicle for highway funding that Republicans would support.
"This is the only piece of legislation" that can pass the House, Mica said at a press conference in front of the Capitol.
"This is a major start," he said. "Look where we've been, and look where we are today."
Republicans also touted the bill as a job creator as they make the case that obstruction by Senate Democrats is standing in the way of legislation that would help the economy.
"This bill will put Americans back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges and developing new sources of low-cost energy," Mica said in a statement. "This legislation may be the most important jobs measure to pass Congress this year."
Transportation and business groups have been pushing Congress for years to approve a multi-year appropriations bill for transportation and infrastructure. The last funding bill expired in 2009.
But advocates on Tuesday expressed reservations with Mica’s revised proposal.
"Certainly we are happy the House and Senate are opening a discussion, but there's a lot of work to be done," said Edward Wytkind, the president of the AFL-CIO’s transportation trades department.
Wytkind lamented the vast differences between the version of the highway bill that was unveiled by Mica on Thursday and the proposal that has begun moving in the Senate.
In the past, "they have always moved these bills as a 'Big Four' authorizations," he said, referring to the chairman and ranking members of the respective transportation committees in the Senate.
"They moved them as impenetrable, avoided ideological fights and increased the funding so that the next authorization would always be higher than the last one," Wytkind said.
The Senate's version of the transportation bill is shorter, but it appropriates more money for road projects annually. The upper chamber has proposed spending $109 billion per year on
the new highway bill, and its version of the legislation relies more on traditional sources of funding, such as the gas tax.
Mica defended the highway bill as a team effort and told reporters to pack a lunch Thursday because he plans to allow amendments during the markup of the bill — a process that could drag on for days.
"Everybody needs to find a way to fund these things," Mica said.
The plan to pay for highways with drilling has riled up environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The New York-based group argued Tuesday that not only is linking highway spending to oil drilling bad for the environment, it also imperils the bill's prospects for being approved by the Democratically controlled Senate.
“Instead of going the bipartisan route taken by the Senate, House Republican leaders have loaded the bill with environmental protection rollbacks, extreme measures that mandate oil drilling just about everywhere and a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline," NRDC President Frances Beinecke said in a statement.
"The American people need a transportation bill; this bill will prevent them from getting one.”
Another provision of the GOP proposal that drew criticism Tuesday was a provision that would increase the weight of trucks allowed on highways from 80,000 to 97,000 pounds.
"Americans don't want 97,000-pound trucks or huge multi-trailers up to 120 feet long on our nation's highways," the lobbying group for a competing method of shipping, the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement. "Nor is it fair that even more of the public's tax dollars will be used to pay for the road and bridge damage inflicted by massive trucks."
The Coalition for Transportation Productivity, which argues the other side of the truck weight issue, was more enthusiastic about the House highway bill proposal.
“The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act recognizes that states need the ability to create safer, greener, more efficient shipping on their interstate highways,” CTP Executive Director John Runyan said in a statement.
“Truck capacity has dropped by 16 percent since the recession started, and the 30-year-old federal vehicle weight limit compounds the problem by forcing many trucks to travel when they are only partially full," he continued.
For his part, Mica stressed Tuesday that the bill he unveiled "wasn't final.”
"I tried to do everything I could … to work with everyone," he said
Transportation in Hunt County moving forward BY SCOTT HARVEY
COMMERCE - After nearly two years of research and meetings, the Hunt County
Transportation Planning Committee is ready for the next leg of their draft plan after
presentations before the public.
Monday evening’s meeting at the A&M-Commerce Alumni Center marked the second of two
gatherings which sought public feedback. During the month of February, the committee will
present their draft plan at city council briefings before a vote is scheduled to adopt the plan
by Hunt County Commissioners in March.
“This [project] is the foundation, like the foundation of your house. The better the
foundation is, the better it is to do the add-ons and everything else,” said Hunt County
Judge John Horn.
The Hunt County Transportation Plan provides specific and strategic direction for meeting
the multi-modal transportation needs during the next two decades of a growing and diverse
population for safe, efficient and affordable transportation.
A&M-Commerce President and Committee Co-Chair Dr. Jones said, “This will impact all of
us in this room and all of our descendants.”
As part of the plan’s vision statement, by integrating the development of Hunt County’s
transportation infrastructure with the regional transportation system for North Texas, the
Transportation Plan supports economic development and improves quality of life not only
for Hunt County, but for the North Central Texas Region.
“The battles we fight out here aren’t really Republican vs. Democrat, it’s rural vs. Urban,”
Judge Horn added. “Hunt County is not going to dictate how the Metroplex grows. The
Metroplex is going to dictate how we grow. So we have to be in a position to understand that
growth, pass that growth on to our plan and see how we want to adapt. How we’re going to
connect to Collin County. How we’re going to connect with Rockwall, how we’re going to
connect with Kaufman County. All of these things are all integral parts of how this plan is
going to work.”
Approximately two dozen civic leaders and community members comprise the Hunt County
Transportation Committee. The group held its first meeting in February 2010, soon after the
county was incorporated into the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), led by
officials within the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
According to Judge Horn, “It’s been an evolution. From where we started two years ago with
no plan, with getting the support of the public and getting the support of the Regional
Transportation Council (RTC) to vote us into the MPO to give us the opportunities to work
with their engineering staff... This plan has saved us hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of dollars by being able to utilize the engineering department, the expertise that the
Transportation Director Michael Morris and his staff at COG have been working on for years
since the inception of the RTC in the region.”
One of the highlights of the plan is a proposal for an extension of FM 1570 from State
Highway 66 to U.S. Highway 380, which will help to enhance the Walton Development
Municipal Utility District just to the west.
Numerous bicycle lanes are also key components to the plan, as all areas of transportation
have been taken into account.
Officials Monday stressed the need to generate funding through a variety of means, since
that will be the single biggest hurdle in establishing these projects.
President Dan Jones stressed the need to have a vision about future transportation needs,
without letting funding concerns muddy the waters.
“In any kind of plan like this we are constrained by funding,” Dr. Jones stated. “However,
need that not be a deterrent to planning.”
You can learn more about the draft Hunt County Transportation Plan here.
Point Person: Our Q&A with Michael Morris on shaking up the transportation debate
North Central Texas Council of Governments Photo taken in spring 2010 of Michael Morris, P.E., Director, NCTCOG Transportation Department. Photo provided Aug. 19, 2010 by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. Published: 13 January 2012 09:22 PM
As transportation director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Michael
Morris heads the staff of the Regional Transportation Council. The RTC guides where
and how public money is spent on transportation — and has been increasing its emphasis on guiding development. Morris offers perspective on the novel strategy.
You say you’ll be talking more about schools, tax breaks to business and other things I don’t associate with transportation. Can you explain?
For the last 20 or 30 years, transportation woke up every day and was dealt a land-use system that produced a lot of inefficiencies — long trips, single-occupancy users, very spread out, auto-dependent. You had a lot of clusters of homes being built, and you could go two or three or four miles, and there’s no drugstore or 7-Eleven or anything else
that would create an ability to do some of your transportation needs by walking or some other way.
So this last year, we talked to the RTC and said: We in transportation, in order to help reduce the magnitude of the cost in the future, we need to get involved in the land-use
side. Why don’t we work on creating partnerships with local government, with school districts, with developers, with people who create entertainment districts, sports venues, and respond on the transportation side in ways that reduce the costs and taxes that citizens have to pay?
How does that involve schools?
If you look at this historically, you had huge suburban flight. The quality of our schools went down in our central cities and our older suburban school districts. The school districts will tell you, we need families. The key, No. 1 indicator for them to have a successful school is a parent who comes and participates in their child’s education. To create an opportunity to reverse this trend is to find exemplary schools, create some pilot programs, give people a housing choice, have people with or without families to come back, find out what schools still have the opportunity to put more students in there so we don’t trigger the construction of even more schools. We have a lot of excess roadway capacity in those parts of town. Improve the signal systems, intersections, sidewalks, create a more safe and walkable community, then it creates an opportunity for retail to go back in.
If we can get 50,000 residents to come live in downtown Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth and Irving — just those four cities — it may cost us very little in transportation dollars,
vs. 50,000 who located in the northern part of Denton County or western part of Parker County, that triggers huge amounts of sewage treatment facilities, water facilities, transportation facilities and schools.
Some cities use sales taxes, their 4a and 4b taxes, for economic development to attract businesses, and you’re talking about restricting that. How so?
I think there needs to be a review of what is in the best interest of government. If the purpose of 4a and 4b is to take an employer from a part of the Dallas-Fort Worth region, who is paying taxes to government, and move them 10 miles to another portion of the region and give them five years of free taxes, then the impact to government is reduced revenue for transportation. We in the transportation environment have to pick up the pieces. I think the legislators and elected officials ought to talk about it.
Why is Dallas-Fort Worth so auto-centric?
If you developed post-World War II, you’ve been given a land-use situation that is very
inefficient. You have a lot of people in four- and five-thousand-pound pieces of equipment driving alone. You have a region that has seven or eight parking places for each vehicle to make sure it can do whatever it needs to do. You have huge interchanges that cost $250 million to build. With 3 million more people coming into the region in 30 years, we cannot do business the way we’ve been doing business.
These low-density, post-automotive environments are changing. As people get older, they don’t necessarily want the grass-mowing, suburban community. And you have a lot of younger people who don’t necessarily have the same dream that we or our parents had of owning that home. Maybe they’d rather live in more fun, walkable, lots-of-things-to-do communities. Are we seeing the pendulum swing to a balanced marketplace in the way people wish to live, shop and have fun?
If that’s the case, why has DART’s ridership plateaued despite greater access to rail? Aren’t people as wedded to cars as ever?
As we review the census from 2000 to 2010, I think that pattern is generally still there — slow growth in central cities, particularly Dallas, huge amounts of growth in Collin County. You have communities there that are doubling in 10 years. But if you look at things at the more neighborhood level, you can see what’s happening — in Uptown in Dallas, American Airlines Center , downtown Plano, Old Town Lewisville, Seventh Street
and the Cultural District in Fort Worth. You have things we didn’t see 15 years ago. I think the pendulum is swinging. But the picture isn’t clear.
If Dallas-Fort Worth continues to grow like it did in the ’60s through the ’80s, and we put another 500,000 people north of U.S. 380, within 25 minutes of Lake Texoma, I don’t know where the revenue for the transportation system is going to support that, when a lot of those jobs are in the metroplex and those people still want to get on an airplane and go to a Dallas Cowboys game.
But the jury is still out.
This Q&A was conducted and condensed by editorial writer Rodger Jones. His email address is [email protected]. Morris can be reached at [email protected].