Greetings!  It’s been a while since my last post, which is why you’ve seen an entirely new cast of characters writing about all things urban, and providing a new perspective on things.  And nothing wakes me from a deep slumber like a data dump of reams of databases.  That’s right, TTI (Texas Transportation Institute) has […]

Hillsborough County, FL (where Tampa is) is considering passing what is in essence a pigovian tax on sprawl, creating something called Mobility Fees.  A mobility fee is an updated version of an impact fee that development typically pays in order to help cover the cost of infrastructure.  However, they’re typically a drop in the bucket […]

I'm well on record as saying the second downtown rail line is probably the most important piece of transportation infrastructure in the city of Dallas.  Since I've now been asked my opinion on the various routes about five times this week, I thought I might as well share my perspective.  I suspect people are seeing the pros and cons with each and there are some making it difficult to discern a preferred option. The most important thing is that it gets built because of the ripple effects it allows up and down all of the lines. Because we can't fit any more trains on the existing line through downtown means we can't fit any more trains on any of the lines, which means we can't reduce headways which is critical to convenience and ridership.  Getting it built and having multiple ways around downtown might even allow for 'new' lines.  For example, every line runs back and forth on its set line. Now think about London.

Since all of Oak Cliff is spending all of their litigious days toiling away on facebook, I though I might pose a question I raised in one of the endless and countless threads about Oak Cliff development.  It’s one that I don’t believe has an answer: We could argue that more [business owners] need to […]

“When it comes to parking, people’s mental activity drops to a lower level.”  Parking guru and recently retired professor from UCLA, Donald Shoup. —————————————- I thought it worthwhile to post this article and this story/radio piece about parking in LA and like all things urban, the counter-intuitive nature of how it really works. The first […]

Chris Leinberger wrote the book The Option of Urbanism and has led the research on the value premium of walkable real estate.  Here he is speaking about the need for walkable development last month in Dallas: Part 1 and Part 2

CityLab has a new piece outlining the on-going debate in Houston not to tear down a highway, but what to do with the carcass left behind after they go forward shifting traffic around the city rather than entirely through the city in every which direction.  In that sense, they’ve leapfrogged our efforts locally in Dallas. […]

Well well.  Lookit what Houston’s been up to on the down low: They’re really doing some things down there. I suppose when you have terrible weather, you have to be smart with your urban design in order to compete and attract.  I kid.  I love what they’re doing with transit and trails, so this is […]

Robert Wilonsky has a story on the retirement of Keith Manoy from the city of Dallas.  Keith is the director of streets and neighborhood vitality (if I have my ever changing city hall titles correct).  For a few more days, that is, until the Oak Cliff streetcar gets a bottle of champagne broken across its […]

This is a multi-part post that you’re getting all at once since there is a lot to cover and the information, lessons, and ideas are all interrelated.  Since Senator Royce West and former mayor and trade ambassador Ron Kirk have requested alternatives to the Trinity Toll Road, which should only serve to suggest, yeah, it’s […]