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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (800625)	8/9/2014 6:24:29 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583823

Some cities are perfect for light rail. SLC is one, laid out along a valley between mountains along with it's suburbs. The first line laid went from downtown SLC to Sandy, at the other end of the valley, with a spur to the University of Utah. The next spur went to the airport. Several other spurs are being proposed, with the communities competing to get them. Dallas is just a sprawl on flat land. So, how do you route the LR? I don't know Dallas well enough to know. But I can tell you how Seattle did it. The first line went from the airport to DT. So it picks up tourists as well as commuters. It has encouraged TODs around the stations. It partly goes thru a poor neighborhood in order to spark development and rehab......which it has......and the neighborhood is starting to turn. The second line goes from DT thru the most densely populated 'hoods [besides DT] in the city and then heads to UW and then on to the largest shopping mall within the city limits. Again TODs are proposed around the stations. That line will open next year. The proposed third line is scheduled to go to Bellevue, a booming suburb that has become a city in its own right and then dead heads at MSFT, a major employer. Again TODs are planned for the stations. All of these lines are fairly expensive to build........and there is tunneling and traversing a large lake involved. However, in the long run, it was expected that it would be worth it. Sadly, Seattle is behind cities like SLC and Portland in getting their rail mass transit built. And let me just say.........its easier and less costly to build on flat ground then to traverse hills and lakes and have to build tunnels in some instances. One article I read about DART/Dallas stated that Dallas mainly build along freeway or freight rail ROWs........where access from surrounding neighborhoods to stations is difficult. Again, I don't know Dallas well but here is the map for DART. What do you think: Then there is the Texas mentality: Building the light-rail system with the longest reach in North America is something that Dallas Area Rapid Transit can rightly be proud of. “On time and under budget,” as the agency’s leaders like to say about the multibillion-dollar construction juggernaut. costaustin.org Meanwhile, DART mgmt is complaining because the fastest growth in metro population is the outer ring where DART doesn't go. And just recently they are suggesting that building parking lots around stations instead of zoning for TODs might have been a bad idea. To answer your question, its probably not one thing......but many things that are contributing to DART's problems.