No, seriously. Says so right here, on the DC Streetsblog site, where today they're handing out best-and-worst-of-2010 nods. Something to do with streetcars and bike lanes and Dallas Area Rapid Transit's Green Line expansion. Well, all right. To the kudos!
We give our 2010 Streetsie for The Next Portland to Dallas/Fort Worth. In February, the Fort Worth City Council committed to a radical new bike plan [PDF], increasing the local bicycle transportation network from the existing 102.6 miles to 924.7 miles. Dallas/Fort Worth got three major TIGER grants, too -- one for building freight rail capacity, one for intelligent transportation measures on Dallas's second beltway, and a particularly notable one (Streetsblog overheard a DOT official gushing that it was the most innovative project they were funding) for a streetcar line in downtown Dallas. (In a strike against Fort Worth, however, the city pulled the plug on its own streetcar dreams just last month.)Always said Half-Price was our Powell's. But who will play Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in the spin-off?
Finally, Dallas's growing commitment to transit grabbed headlines when its most recent rail line extension made it the longest light rail system in the country. Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic made the point that Dallas is still struggling to boost ridership, but we applaud the city for working to bring transit where we never would have expected to find it.
