Mayfield's Got a Deal: $10 Mil From County to Move OC-to-Downtown Streetctar to Commerce

Late last night, the missive you see below -- in which Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield offers to pitch in $10 mil for that Oak Cliff-to-downtown streetcar line -- appeared in the Unfair Park in-box. Mayfield tells Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, that...

By Robert Wilonsky

August 6, 2010

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "18855504",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17105533",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18349797",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17105532",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18349797",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17105535",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

Late last night, the missive you see below -- in which Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield offers to pitch in $10 mil for that Oak Cliff-to-downtown streetcar line -- appeared in the Unfair Park in-box. Mayfield tells Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, that he'll kick in the dough with one caveat: if they move the proposed route from the Houston Street bridge to the Commerce Street bridge in order to accommodate workers at the county jail.

I'd planned to make calls this morning to find out where Mayfield plans on getting the dough -- only to see this morning that, hey, Roy Appleton's already done the heavy lifting. Mayfield tells The News the promised $10 mil is a slice of the "discretionary capital improvement program funds set aside for his district," though, of course, he can't do anything with it without the commissioners court's OK. Questions remain, though -- chief among them, is $10 million enough to cover the cost of the reroute, and if the shift even do-able given the fact the feds' OK'd that TIGER grant in February with Houston Street serving as the connector? Plenty of time to answer those questions and others -- three years, at least.

KEEP THE OBSERVER FREE... Since we started the Dallas Observer, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Dallas, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.