Critic Sees 'Dallas Logic' in Latest Trinity River Plans

Mark Lamster, architecture critic for The Dallas Morning News, describes his befuddlement with the latest developments in the saga of the Trinity River project:

Only in Dallas would you design a highway in a park, and only in Dallas would you design a highway in a park before designing the park itself. Or even developing a general concept of that park, much less creating an authority that might actually be charged with building and paying for it.

That planning context explains, according to Lamster, why the project "has been meandering along for the better part of two decades with no tangible result beyond an endless series of conflicting reports, studies, and briefing documents."

Lamster casts doubt on the idea that the "Dream Team" that released its report for the Trinity Toll Road earlier this week cleared any of the hurdles that have plagued the project during its history. Moreover, writes Lamster, "[t]here is a good argument that the dream team should never have been convened in the first place, that it was conceived and paid for by toll-road proponents to give intellectual cover for the plan to drive a high-capacity toll road through the Trinity…"

The remainder of the column details the back-and-froth between Dream Team members and city councilmembers during the recent public hearing on the report, and also illustrates how the project exemplifies "Dallas Logic," as Lamster describes it. "Dallas Logic" resembles the "Paradox City" formulation Lamster created in 2014 in reaction to an earlier moment in the debate surrounding the Trinity Toll Road and Trinity River project.