Subject: Texas Department of Transportation

• Bridge to Be Abridged

  August 23, 2006

• Falling Down, Falling Down

  August 11, 2006

• The Bridge to the Truth

  August 3, 2007

• Damn this Traffic Jam

  August 6, 2007

• Jim's Laughing His Widdle Head Off

  August 9, 2007

• Up in Denton County, Another Fight Over a Road Project

  September 28, 2007

• Roads to Nowhere

  January 28, 2008

• Do the S.M. Wright Thing

  February 5, 2008

• TxDOT Wants City to Shell Out Green for Green on Central Expressway

  February 11, 2008

• Forbes Says Dallasites Waste 58 Hours a Year in Traffic. So, Please, Stay Home.

  April 25, 2008

• Dallas Trying to Mow Down Folks' "Negative Perception" of the City's Highway Landscaping

  April 28, 2008

• Central's HOV Lane Drives Me Crazy

  May 14, 2008

• Collins Street Bridge to Get Penetrated, Vibrated This Weekend

  August 8, 2008

• North Central's New Look? Maybe. Very Dallas, Though. Lots of Silver and Gold.

  September 8, 2008

• Buzz

  January 11, 1996

• Road Rage

  Homeowners in a Denton County neighborhood wage battle against "taxation without representation"

  March 22, 2001

• Those TxDOT Cams Need Deicing

  A Friend of Unfair Park who travels up and down Central Expressway all day long and uses the Texas Department of Transportation cams before heading out sends word: Many of them are completely useless today, courtesy the ice that has glazed over a few of the lenses. But, on the plus side, they're very, um, arty? And, besides, the ones that are working reveal fairly empty highways this on-and-off snowy afternoon. --Robert Wilonsky

  December 16, 2008

• In Houston, a Heated Battle Over Controversial Red-Light Camera Study

  And here we thought Dallas had the lock on red-light camera drama -- damn you, Houston. On December 26, two men filed suit against the City of Houston claiming it was withholding a Rice University professor's study concerning the efficacy of the city's red-light cameras. Two days later, a version of that report turned up -- and, insisted those behind the study, "The absolute number of collisions at camera-monitored approaches is not decreasing."And that, according to this report this morning, is

  December 31, 2008

• Adios, Trans-Texas Corridor. We Hardly Even Knew You.

  This morning down in Austin, Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Amadeo Saenz officially killed the Trans-Texas Corridor. And its place? Say hello to ... Innovative Connectivity in Texas|Vision 2009. Which is? Well, let Saenz explain. Projects that had been developed under the heading of the Trans-Texas Corridor will now become a series of individual projects. For example, Loop 9 in Dallas will be known and developed as Loop 9, not the "donut" of TTC-35. Interstate 69 will be k

  January 6, 2009

• BeloWatch

  September 21, 1995

• Letters

  October 5, 1995

• Letters

  June 13, 1996

• Meter cheaters

  August 28, 1997

• Flood money

  January 22, 1998

• Buzz

  July 22, 1999

• Sooner Than Later, "New LBJ" Freeway Construction Will Take Its Toll

  The Texas Department of Transportation announced this morning that LBJ Development Partners will be responsible for the so-called New LBJ Freeway -- which, as we pointed out in September, will feature among its renovations six managed toll lanes sunk smack in the middle. TxDOT spokesman Tony Hartzel, the former Dallas Morning News transportation columnist, tells Unfair Park today that construction's expected to begin in mid-2010 or mid-'11 -- "They're not sure when" -- and wrap up in 2015. Which

  February 26, 2009

• On May 5, You're Invited to Grill TxDOT and NTTA Officials About the Trinity Toll Road

  The Trinity Parkway alignment currently supported by the NTTA and the city of DallasJudy Schmidt at Dallas City Hall just called to say she's not sure where The Dallas Morning News got its info about a Mayor Tom Leppert-led Trinity River Corridor Project Summit this morning, because, she insists, there weren't no such thing. But she does remind those so interested that on May 5, Texas Department of Transportation and North Texas Tollway Authority officials will formally review the looooong-await

  March 18, 2009

• Phony Heroes

  Fakers find they can easily get license plates reserved for military heroes

  June 5, 2008

• Taking the Bait

  August 16, 2007

• Tell the Truthiness

  August 9, 2007

• Fresh Eyes

  Basically, it's Coats versus the Manchurian Candidate

  May 3, 2007

• Dear Congress

  Dallas is telling a big, fat fib about the Trinity River project

  November 4, 2004

• Flood Blood

  Politicians create flooding, not the Bible

  August 19, 2004

• Puppet Samba

  By pulling strings, road hustlers can make the city council dance

  November 27, 2003

• Idiot's Highway

  That toll road they want for the Trinity is a loser

  July 10, 2003

• Passing the Plate

  Proposed new license tags weigh in on the abortion debate

  April 24, 2003

• Greasing the Wheels

  How Texas Motor Speedway got Denton County to pay for a freeway exit to nowhere—except, that is, to the speedway

  March 20, 2003

• The Opposite of True

  How The Dallas Morning News spins the Trinity River project

  November 15, 2001

• Run Over

  Small towns in the Big Bend area brace for an onslaught of Mexican trucks rolling their way thanks to NAFTA

  July 5, 2001

• Who Will Deliver the Coup de Grace to the Trinity toll road, the Corps or NTTA?

  June 18, 2009

• If You Drive a Ford Pick-Up Truck, You Might Want to Pay Special Attention to This

  Welcome to "Watch Your Car Month" -- and, no, we're not referring to this. Not exactly. But this morning at 10 at the Dallas Police Department Auto Pound on Vilbig Street, officials from several local auto-theft task forces will gather 'round stripped and recovered cars -- and a working one made entirely of stolen parts, how Memphis Raines -- to make the case that most high-speed car chases, this week's excepted, stem from auto thefts. Officials say a car's stolen every five minutes in Texas."H

  July 1, 2009

• The Easy Answer to the Trinity River's Levee Problems? Just Blame Katrina.

  Sam MertenKevin Craig of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wasn't given a chance to speak when Mayor Leppert and other politicos announced a two-year, $29 million levee study.After Mayor Tom Leppert announced the need to pony up $29 million to study Dallas's levees resulting from "unacceptable" ratings by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a frustrated city official essentially blamed Hurricane Katrina for everything. "I think the corps is CYA'ing in the worst way," I was told. Indeed, the 53 levee

  July 7, 2009

• No Later Than October, Harwood Street Will No Longer Drive Over Woodall Rodgers

  ​While I was at City Hall today, Joanna Singleton sent word that the Texas Department of Transportation has selected Archer Western, which has done work on the rail expansion for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, to handle construction of the $43-million-plus Woodall Rodgers Deck Park. Her press release also notes the groundbreaking on the public-private project -- which received $16.7 million in Obamabucks in March and $265,000 from Keep Dallas Beautiful in June -- will be held September 14.But when

  August 3, 2009

• John Carona, a TxDOT Director and DART Spar Over Size and Safety of DFW's HOV Lanes

  Justin Cozart​Late yesterday, the Texas Senate issued a summary of sorts of the Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security's public hearing in Arlington on Thursday, during which everything from drought to driving was on the agenda. Of course, Rosemary Miramontes's testimony, concerning her son's accident in an HOV lane on I-35E in '07 that left him paralyzed, garnered the most coverage; some officials, concerned about the dramatic rise in crash rates since the opening of HOV lanes on

  August 21, 2009

• Keep on Truckin'. Just Not in the Left Lane.

  ​For the last four years, the Texas Department of Transportation and the North Central Texas Council of Governments have been restricting big rigs from driving in the left lane along small sections of I-20 and I-30. And they're delighted with the results of the pilot program: Dan Kessler, NTCOG assistant director, will tell the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environment Committee this afternoon that the restrictions have reduced the number of crashes, increased travel speed and cut d

  August 25, 2009

• After First Claiming It Couldn't Without Trinity Parkway, City Prepped to Do the Wright Thing

  Once more, a proposed S.M. Wright realignment, which you'll need to click to enlarge​Here's another early peek at the Dallas City Council's briefing agenda -- this one concerning the list of projects, major and minor, the City Manager's Office is proposing to pay for out of the bond sale scheduled for May 2010. While we pore over the details for future Unfair Park items, one item in particular sticks out immediately: a proposal to spend $34 million acquiring properties "around the southern ter

  August 31, 2009

• Things Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison Apparently Hates: Rick Perry, Iran, Iraq, Obama's Health Care Plan and TxDOT

  Sam MertenSenator Kay Bailey Hutchison criticized Governor Rick Perry in a speech to the local Republican Jewish Coalition this afternoon, claiming Texas has the country's highest property taxes, an education system with the worst dropout rate in the nation and a government growing faster than the federal government with more than 600 agencies. She said as governor she'd reform the Texas Department of Transportation. "We have the most arrogant Texas Department of Transportation of any state ag

  September 11, 2009

• She Didn't Mind Paying the 60-Cent Toll. But the Extra Buck Made Her Call a Lawyer.

  ​Courthouse News brings us the interestingish case of Mary Kemp v. the Texas Department of Transportation over ... one dollar. Our story starts on November 4, 2007. The Wichita Falls resident was on State Highway 121 -- the Sam Rayburn -- and about to take the Denton Tap Road exit near Coppell when she realized she didn't have any change for the toll. Nor did she have a TollTag. So, according to her lawsuit filed Monday in Dallas federal court, "she decided to pay for use of the tollway throug

  October 28, 2009

• Council's on the TxDOT Money Trail to Fund "Non-Traditional" Transportation Projects

  For years the city's been trying to find a way to convert the Santa Fe Trestle into part of a trail that would include a Trinity River overlook.​The city of Dallas has till December 11 to submit to the Texas Department of Transportation a list of projects it thinks worthy of the Transportation Enhancement Program, through which TxDOT doles out federal funds for so-called "non-traditional transportation related activities." Which would be what, exactly? Well, bicycle and pedestrian trails, for

  November 16, 2009

• Cracking the Mystery of TxDOT's Proposals to the Corps: Do Nothing and Build a Pile of Dirt.

  Sam Merten​In case you missed it, Michael Lindenberger reported in Saturday's Dallas Morning News that the Texas Department of Transportation finally submitted its proposals to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aimed at solving the soil issues currently stalling construction of the approaches to the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. And if the corps doesn't green-light the remediation plans by December 1, TxDOT will likely sever its contract for the approaches. The potential delay is estimated to

  November 20, 2009