Moving on streetcars at Dallas City Hall

From: Dallas Morning News
By: Rodger Jones // August 5, 2009

Could be a breakthrough moment at City Hall today. Council member Linda Koop and staff will brief council on a new approach to planning the first stretches of a citywide streetcar system.

The idea melds the long-soughtdowntown starter line with an ambitious plan that Oak Cliff has been developing to both serve the community and connect their neighborhoods with downtown.

The dual projects had been dueling projects of sorts, with some Oak Cliff boosters saying that Dallas City Hall was horning in on an OC strategy to go after stimulus money under a new program.

As colleague Sharon Grigsby wrote on the Southern Dallas Blog:

Now there's some buzz that several city council members want to apply for the same funds for the proposed downtown street car system. The thinking is that downtown should get "first dibs" on this funding source. Now whether that's just talk or may develop into a problem for the Oak Cliff-based idea, I don't know. But I do know that's the same thinking, unfortunately, that has left southern Dallas so often getting the leftovers.

Along comes the different approach. Linda Koop told me that she met with Dallas, DART and NCTCOG planners in Arlington Tuesday about the best way to secure money to start both systems. The thinking is that the city would be owner of either the Oak Cliff or downtown line and ought to bring them along simultaneously mindful of certain common needs -- like a financial plan, an operator (probably DART) a unified power system (electricity via overhead catenaries), car procurement and a maintenance facility. It only makes sense to address these things once.

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