Columnist to Dallas: Tear Down That Freeway

"If you will excuse the pun, it looks like we may finally be approaching the end of the road — or at least the beginning of the end of the road — in deciding on a future for Interstate 345," writes Mark Lamster.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is wrapping up public comment on a feasibility study for the future of I-345 that includes an option to tear down the elevated freeway, reconnecting Downtown Dallas to the neighborhood of Deep Ellum.

As explained by Lamster, the feasibility study offers five possible alternatives: "repairing the road but leaving it unchanged; keeping it as an elevated highway but with a slimmer profile; depressing it into a trench (like U.S. 75) that can be bridged and decked; removing it altogether; and a hybrid combination of the trench and removal options."

According to Lamster, there was enough reaction to the feasibility study that TxDOT extended the deadline for public comment. We already know what advocates want—I-345 in Dallas made the 2019 "Freeways Without Futures" report published by the Congress for the New urbanism.

Discussions about what to do with the rapidly approaching obsolesce of the freeway's elevated structure has been ongoing since 2013, according to Lamster, and the tear-down alternative has emerged as a well considered planning alternative along the way:

The tear-out proposal, developed by the urban planner Patrick Kennedy, was a chance to re-knit the city while freeing up a huge swath of land for the kind of mixed-use, affordable development it desperately needed. Careful analysis of traffic patterns suggested that a new street system with boulevards and increased connectivity would avert serious congestion and massive delays, adding a mere five minutes to commutes.

Lamster voices his support for removal: "Of TxDOT’s five options, removal is the most logical, best option. Retaining the status quo at enormous cost would seem to be the worst possible choice."