Speaking of transportation and the suburbs …Been meaning to mention this for weeks, but Patrick Kennedy’s post on the subject reminds: There’s a Facebook page called Save Downtown Dallas: Tear Down Central Expressway — a subject that’s addressed from a distance in the just-adopted-by-city-council Downtown Dallas 360, actually. As in:…
As you’re no doubt aware, American Airlines’ flight attendants and service workers have long been at odds with the Fort Worth-based carrier over new contracts, leading to an endless parade of protests — including ones at Dallas-Fort Worth International during Super Bowl week and one on Wednesday at JFK in…
As we saw this morning, the city’s having enough problems funding that 1.6-mile streetcar starter line from Union Station to Methodist Hospital (or close to). So how does it expect to stretch track over more than 40 miles in and three miles around downtown Dallas, which is the ultimate goal?…
Here’s a council committee briefing worth keeping an eye on today: Streetcar Planning Update, always a topic of interest but even more so as the Federal Transit Administration revenue-service deadline barrels down the tracks. Recall: In order to not to lose that $23-million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant the…
I just stumbled across this piece out of Houston, which says the Texas Department of Transportation has submitted docs to the feds asking for around $43 million to expedite that long-discussed and even longer-debated Dallas-to-Houston high-speed rail line. I called Jennifer Moczygemba, who oversees the Texas Rail Plan at TxDOT,…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have asked in recent weeks: When should they begin avoiding LBJ Freeway, which, of course, is about to become the “LBJ Express”? (To which I replied: What, you don’t already avoid LBJ Freeway? I know, right? Hilarious!) One Friend asked in particular because he espied…
Every year, the Airports Council International — a trade org representing most of the airports in the world — asks terminal travelers how they really feel about their skymalls. And every year, the ACI manages to keep those reports secret. Except this year: The Times of London has hidden behind…
Bloomberg News says this morning that higher oil prices may be bad for Texans, but are good for Texas — especially the so-called Rainy Day Fund Gov. Rick Perry doesn’t want to touch to offset the state’s $27-billion shortfall. (In a speech in Dallas only yesterday, the gov said the…
With a crowd of DART execs, reporters and folks who’d apparently misplaced their cars looking on at downtown’s Akard Station, the Kinkisharyo ameriTRAM streetcar made its first arrival a little after 11:30 this morning, just a hair behind schedule. The first of two audition runs through downtown carried VIPs, including…
So says this just-posted AP piece, which notes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has decided to allow charter flights to Cuba from eight new airports — among them Baltimore, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Juan … and Dallas-Fort Worth International! Till now, you could only fly out of New York,…
There’s an intriguing item on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s board agenda this morning: “DART Board of Directors’ Streetcar Tour.” Which is exactly what it sounds like: At 11:30 this morning, the DART board — and some city of Dallas officials, says DART director of media relations Morgan Lyons –…
To follow up this morning’s item on Project Pegasus, which has been all but left for dead on the side of the Mixmaster …I spoke earlier today with Bill Hale, P.E., the district engineer for the Dallas District of the Texas Department of Transportation, and he said that, yup, “based…
From time to time, Friends of Unfair Park ask about the status of Project Pegasus, which is — or was — “intended to transform the two major Interstate Highways directly serving Downtown Dallas, by totally redesigning IH 30 from Sylvan Avenue to IH 45, and IH 35E from Eighth Street…
The Department of Transportation sends word today that it’s charging American Airlines for charging its passengers for agreeing to swap seats on oversold flights for travel vouchers. Because, ya see, the Fort Worth-based carrier doesn’t just let you use the vouchers gratis — turns out, AA charges an up-to-$30 ticketing…
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit board is meeting today, with the board once more set to award HDR Engineering, Inc. the $351,536 Dallas Streetcar System Planning Study Consultant contract. (Last month’s scheduled vote was deferred following a disagreement over minority- and women-business enterprise participation, as outlined in the January 25…
About four years back, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor John D. Kasarda ID’d Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as the city center of the future — the so-called aerotropolis. Well, Kasarda’s turned his article into a full-blown tome that just landed in the mailbox: Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll…
Speaking of changes at Love Field …Mayor Tom Leppert — along with council members Delia Jasso and Linda Koop — yesterday sent a memo to City Manager Mary Suhm proposing that the city change the name of a section of Cedar Springs Road to Herb Kelleher Way. In honor of…
Morgan Lyons, director of media relations for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, says this morning that he too is “ready for some warmer weather.” Certainly would take some of the sting out of this morning’s kick to the crotch courtesy The Dallas Morning News’s editorial board, which chastises the transit agency…
On the other side, a Green Bay weatherlady HQ’d at Ice Station Zebra — pardon, downtown Fort Worth — is fed up with this “Wisconsin weather” too, and TxDOT takes us on a command center tour and slippery drive-along in Dallas. But here’s a sneak peek at today’s Martha Stewart…
City Hall just sent word: At midnight, shortly after the snow began to fall, the city went to Ice Force 1 — meaning, 30 sanding units took to the streets, where drivers, at least, are crawling along carefully, per Friends of Unfair Park as they headed back from the Flaming…
This just in from the Transport Workers Union of America, whose members have been engaged in drawn-out and heretofore unsuccessful negotiations with management at American Airlines: Beginning at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, they’ll be picketing and leafleting at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Specifically, they’ll be marching up and down the sidewalks…
Below, in the comments, Brenda Marks wonders what the eff’s going on at Love Field, where all is most definitely not clear. So I called Frank Librio, PIO at City Hall, to see what gives. He asked around and reports back: “The long runway’s open” and can handle takeoffs and…
