What Will Become of Dallas' Interstate 345?

The debate over the future of Interstate 345 is stirring strong opinions in Dallas. Should the thoroughfare be replaced with boulevards or be left to bisect the city? An opinion piece recently published in The Dallas Morning News argues that the removal of I-345 equates to the destruction of a necessary artery for low-income people living in Dallas:

The highway links I-45 to the south with Central Expressway to the north. Some 180,000 cars travel it per day. More than 75,000 of those begin their trips south of I-30, heading north. Many of the people in those cars are middle- and lower-income residents from southern Dallas getting to their jobs in the north. They rely on the road as a way of life.

Decision making about the highway, however, is now tied up in a strange political situation. Roddrick West, the son of state Senator Royce West, proposes to lease land beneath over a mile stretch of I-345 to build soccer fields. The Dallas Morning News says the Dallas City Council "was right to hit pause on this proposed lease Wednesday until everything that happened around it is aired in the full light of day."