Please donate! Jason Roberts Needs Help Paying His Cancer Bills
Jason Roberts has done a lot for our Dallas community and other cities around the country. Please consider helping him and his family in this time of need.
If Only All Subway Sandwich Shops Were Actual Subway Stations.
via The Atlantic Cities
Bishop Arts Streetcar Line Funding in the Air
It would be most wise for DART and the City of Dallas to work together to fund the new streetcar line to Bishop Arts for extended evening hours. I’d push for the line to be extended to Ross to connect to the McKinney Ave line.
A recent Texas Tribune article pointed out that over the last 10 years the city of Dallas grew by a mere 1 percent and Dallas County grew by only 6.7 percent. The four most populous other Texas counties grew by over 20 percent. City and county officials in Dallas blame the topography for the low growth, claiming Dallas is simply built out.
And yet, “critics suggest that Dallas’s larger-than-life image may be shrinking for another reason. They say that officials’ lack of investment in public schools, streets, parks and pools — the real-world priorities outside the city’s [iconic projects] — is sending white families and middle-class minorities to the suburbs. The result, they say, is an increasingly Hispanic, less educated and poor inner city.”
Dallas continues to be an absolutely phenomenal city, with true men and women of vision, and nowhere has this been more apparent than our amazing skyline. In…
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Can you recognize Victory Park in the early 1980’s?
The current Victory Park neighborhood in Downtown Dallas is barely recognizable in this early 1980’s photo. The former rail yards and grain elevators were razed for American Airlines Center and the current Victory Park development.
(courtesy Picasa/Bryan Amann)
While the rain put a damper on Saturday’s schedule, the soaking rain cleared up Sunday morning to pave the way for a perfect Complete Streets event down on Knox Street. The vacant lot on the corner of Travis and Knox was converted to “Knox Strasse”, complete with food and retail vendors, a live music stage, Biergarten, and lots of bike parking. The length of Knox Street from the Katy Trail to near Central Expressway was temporarily re-striped for diagonal parking, a center turn lane, and a two-way cycle track on the north side of the street.
Being my own neighborhood, I was thrilled to see this Complete Streets redo to take place, even if just for the weekend. The overall feedback was mixed but as pedestrian advocate, I was thrilled to see the changes. Car traffic was backed up more than normal between McKinney Ave and Central Expressway but the overall street flow was smooth. I think some motorists failed to realize that there was a temporary center turn lane. The cycle track appeared to attract a fair number of cyclists as there was a noticeable number of cycles throughout the neighborhood.
While the weather might have deterred some from coming 0ut, the overall event attracted a great turnout. These are the events that will continue to change people’s perspective in Dallas towards creating a more human-oriented city.
In case you’ve forgotten today was PARKing Day in Downtown Dallas around Pegasus Plaza. I stopped by earlier and was thrilled with the setup as well as the turnout. Planter boxes were set up to create barriers between traffic and the extended sidewalk in makeshift “booth” areas. Main Street was extra lively with Downtown denizens of every age. Everything from makeshift soccer fields, drum groups, art displays, and free goodies courtesy of Yelp. The event was well planned and it took me back to my recent visit to Toronto where setups like this are permanent.
Knox Street’s Small Town Feel isn’t Necessarily Over….
The Dallas Morning News Blogs have been alive all afternoon with leaks regarding the secret redevelopment of the area surrounding Knox and Cole in Dallas. Knox Henderson is my neighborhood so this issue is very dear to me. Most rumors point to a mixed-use development that include a Trader Joes, apartments, and even a concept for a Restoration Hardware branded hotel. Knox-Henderson is a gem in our city and while this project seems intimidating for our quaint pocket of town, this project has great potential to be a positive catalyst for the neighborhood.
Spied Concept Rendering (courtesy Dallas News/D-FW Urban Development Forum)
Great Article by Robert Wilonsky on the Uncovering of Streetcar Tracks on Live Oak
As part of street resurfacing project along Live Oak Street, crews uncovered the former streetcar tracks, buried by the proliferation of automobile traffic in the 1950’s. Robert’s article sheds light on the end of the streetcar era in Dallas. One can only hope that a new streetcar era returns to our city.
LivablePerspective 