Southern Dallas Task Force: It's time for City Hall to put up

From: Dallas Morning News
BY: Rudolph Bush // September 24, 2009

Before the passage of yesterday's budget, leaders of Mayor Tom Leppert's Southern Dallas Task Force penned him a pretty pointed letter.

The message: There's been a lot of talk at City Hall about making Southern Dallas development happen. Now where's the money?

It wasn't as blunt as that. In fact it was very polite.

"As you might expect, the projects and goals promulgated by the various Areas and Committees of the Task Force will require a certain level of funding in order for them to be realized," the letter reads.

"Our goal, in seeking an allocation of capital from the City Fund, is simply to create a pool of resources that is dedicated to the projects being promoted by the Task Force, and that may be leveraged with private sector and/or public sector dollars."

MORE

Trinity gift is $10 million for pedestrian bridge

From: Dallas Morning News
By: Bruce Tomaso // September 24, 2009
The gift is anonymous, but in honor of Mary McDermott Cook, who chairs theTrinity Trust Foundation.

The existing Continental Avenue Bridge is next to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, which is under construction north of downtown. The Hill bridge is the first Trinity bridge from Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who was in town for today's gift announcement.

"This landmark $10 million anonymous gift given to the City of Dallas gives us the funds to convert the Continental Bridge into a pedestrian and living bridge for everyone in Dallas to enjoy," said Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.

He praised Cook for "her tireless vision for Dallas."

Cook said: "This gift will transform the Continental Bridge into an outdoor venue for walkers, bikers, and potentially, a future trolley line across the Trinity River. It will be beautifully landscaped and include the infrastructure and facilities for recreational events, markets and fairs. Cook is the daughter of Margaret McDermott, for whom a second planned Calatrava bridge is named. That bridge would replace the existing Interstate 30 bridge over the Trinity.

Houston: Texas Sized Sprawl

From: NPR
By: Steve Inskeep // September 17, 2009

Listen to the Story

Houston is the latest stop on the Urban Frontier, Morning Edition's occasional look at how cities change and grow.

Houston is a swiftly growing city; it has added a million residents this decade. No doubt, some of those newcomers drive on Interstate 10, which roars in front of Houston's own version of Mount Rushmore — giant white busts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and two founders of modern Texas, Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

Since it overlooks the freeway, the spot is known as Mount Rush Hour. And it reminds visitors of a couple of things about Houston: one, that it's a little quirkier than you might realize; and two, that it is huge.

The highways radiate out to a giant seaport, oil companies, skyscrapers, and miles and miles and miles of suburban neighborhoods.

MORE

Dallas -- Perot Museum of Science & Nature

From: Dallas Urban Core
September 20, 2009

Renderings and a building model for the 180,000-square-foot Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park have been unveiled for public view. The $185-million project has a fall 2009 groundbreaking and is slated for an early 2013 opening.

The facility, which is being built on just under five acres at 1155 Broom St., is less like a typical museum with Doric columns adorning the front, and more like a floating cube over Victory Park; a cube blending in with the landscape and allowing a great deal of light into the spacious interior. Designed by Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm, Morphosis Architects of Los Angeles, the 14-story, 170-foot-tall building contains an acre of rolling roofscape comprised of rock and native drought-resistant grasses, five floors of public space containing 10 exhibition galleries and a children's museum and a multi-media digital cinema that can seat 300 people.

MORE

DFW & Houston -- Low Transit Ridership

From: The Transit Pass
September 14, 2009

Here are the most total rides per day (for the first quarter of 2009), according to the American Public Transportation Association.

1. New York (MTA/Long Island Railroad/Staten Island Railroad): 10,758,600
2. Chicago: 1,635,700
3. Los Angeles (MTA/DOT/RRA): 1,608,300
4. Washington, DC: 1,421,200
5. Detroit (including Flint): 1,322,100
6. Boston: 1,217,500
7. Philadelphia: 1,145,100
8. San Francisco: 1,060,900
9. Atlanta: 487,900
10. Seattle: 449,700
11. Baltimore: 408,900
12. Miami: 349,900
13. Portland: 323,000
14. Houston: 307,700
15. Denver: 292,100

It is exciting that there are eight metropolitan areas in the United States transporting over 1,000,000 rides per day. However, there are several major metropolitan areas that are missing from this list.

The following are the top 17 largest metropolitan areas and their populations according to Wikipedia. I cut off at 17 as these are all metropolitan areas of 3,000,000 people or more.

1. New York: 19,006,798
2. Los Angeles: 12,872,808
3. Chicago: 9,569,624
4. Dallas: 6,300,006
5. Philadelphia: 5,838,471
6. Houston: 5,728,143
7. Miami: 5,414,772
8. Atlanta: 5,376,285
9. Washington, DC: 5,358,130
10. Boston: 4,522,858
11. Detroit: 4,425,110
12. Phoenix: 4,281,899
13. San Francisco: 4,274,531
14. Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario: 4,115,871
15. Seattle: 3,344,813
16. Minneapolis: 3,229,878
17. San Diego: 3,001,072

The cities from the population list that are most conspiculously missing from the ridership list are Phoenix (214,000 rides per day) and Dallas (217,000 rides per day) as well as Houston’s low ridership.

MORE

Taking Downtown Dallas Investment a Step Further

From: Dallas Urban Core
September 16, 2009

Today Mayor Tom Leppert announced the details of an effort that has been in the works for the last several months, through cooperation of the City, DOWNTOWNDALLAS and the Dallas Regional Chamber. Called “Bold Moves”, the initiative is a unique, multiphase CEO-to-CEO business to business recruitment effort.
Bold Moves aggressively targets CEOs primarily from California and the Northeast corridor whose businesses are feeling the effects of the poor economy, tax increases and excess regulation. The “Make a Bold Move” campaign highlights the benefits of moving to Dallas and how the bold move of relocating headquarters will create positive change in a company. The campaign elements include videos, direct marketing, e-mail, iPhones and an invitation-only Web site. To check out a preview visit downtowndallas.org.

MORE

DART rolls in new era with Green Line opening

From: Dallas Morning News

By: Michael Lindenberger / September 14, 2009

When the trains begin running today on the opening segment of DART's new Green Line, the transit agency will unveil the longest expansion of light rail in North America.

It triggers four years of growth that by 2013 will double daily rail riders and double the length of a DART rail network that has been 26 years in the making. And it finally will begin to deliver on an old promise to make Dallas Area Rapid Transit mean more than just a way for some downtown Dallas commuters to get to work and back.

The new stations that will open just ahead of the State Fair of Texas will attract fewer than 2,000 round-trip riders per day in the first couple of years – and they certainly won't end Dallas' dependence on the automobile.

But over the next 15 months, the four stations east of downtown will be followed by 16 more along the 28-mile Green Line, stringing communities together from as far north as Carrollton to as far south as Pleasant Grove.

MORE