Dallas seeks ‘porous’ freeway ring

More options for sunken fwys

Jon Boyd, Oct 12, 10.

Four freeways form “a concrete ring” around downtown Dallas, curtailing access to areas like the Dallas Arts District, and community leaders are examining many possible solutions, according to Nancy Visser of the Dallas Morning News. The four freeways are I-35E, I-30 (aka Thornton Expressway), Central Expressway (US-75,north of I-30), and the Woodall Rodgers Freeway.

One solution is a bridge deck park over a below grade section of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, and other neighborhoods are cleaning underpasses as a stop-gap measure, according to the Dallas Morning News story:

On all sides of downtown, solutions are being sought to bridge the gap created by Central Expressway, Woodall Rodgers and Interstates 30 and 35.

“There were different urban planning theories at that time that we know today discourage pedestrian and mass transit and denser forms of housing,” said Veletta Lill, executive director of the Dallas Arts District.

With more 30,000 residents living in the greater downtown area, Dallas is working to undo the damage from that design.

“There’s an evolution from the ’80s to the ’90s to the (2000s) for recognizing the need to create connectivity with surrounding neighborhoods,” said Lill, a former city council member. “… We have people living in downtown and close to downtown who want a porous border. They want to go back and forth between these neighborhoods.”

There are ways to bridge the freeways where they run below street level. On the city’s north side, for example, a $110 million deck park is being built over a sunken portion of Woodall Rodgers.

“The city planners and city visionaries prevailed to suppress the highway, which was great luck for us now because we can build the deck park and create a tunnel,” Lill said.

The park will link Uptown, the city’s densest neighborhood, with the Arts District. Funded by government agencies and private donors, it is expected to open in 2012.

To the south, that same solution could be pursued someday where I-30 is submerged, Lill said. Before then, the opening of the Omni Dallas Convention Center Hotel in 2012 could spur street-level improvements between downtown and the neighborhood around Southside on Lamar.

To the west — where the Trinity River flood plain creates a wide trench between downtown and West Dallas and Oak Cliff — there are plans for a lake park and street cars over the Houston Street bridge.

The east side has a different challenge: There’s no practical way to bridge the elevated interchange for Central, Woodall Rodgers, and Interstates 30 and 45. It’s 12 lanes wide in spots and passes nearly a stone’s throw from homes in the Arts District, Bryan Place, Deep Ellum and Farmers Market.

That hasn’t stopped a collection of neighborhood groups and city agencies from pursuing ways to transform the dark dirty underpasses.

Their efforts range from picking up trash and painting pillars to pursuing public art and lighting projects. And they have done it by snatching funds, talent, labor and ideas from wherever they can.

The transformation began as far back as 1992, when a shanty town was cleared out between Canton and Commerce streets. Vagrants continued to find shelter under the bridges until the city’s anti-panhandling ordinance and other measures encouraged them to move on.

Now, the debris from homeless encampments is gone, though there is plenty of street litter. And while there are green areas, there are also dirt expanses. “Dirty, grimy and scary — those were three terms frequently used to describe walking under any of those areas,” Lill said.

In Houston, the Southwest Freeway is below grade west of the 527 Spur and east of Greenbriar. The cross street overpasses within this section are level crossings, creating a better view of traffic for all types of travelers who are crossing US 59.