Which zoo would you rather visit?
The Old Oak Cliff Conservation League sent out a concept for what people in what’s now being called “the Southern Sector” would like to see as a solution to transportation.
They used two ideas that have worked well in North Dallas. Of course, they’ve been told it’s too expensive. Wasn’t too expensive for North Dallas, but for Oak Cliff? No fucking way.
The ideas taken from North Dallas are: 1. Put I-35E below grade like North Central Expressway and 2. Deck over I-35E like Woodall Rodgers. No one can argue that downtown’s deck park isn’t successful. It’s always packed.
Above I posted a picture of a before and after of I-35E at the Dallas Zoo. Before: The giraffe faces a highway. After: The giraffe faces a deck park. Which Dallas Zoo would you rather visit?
The design also calls for multiple foot bridges to reconnect neighborhoods that were cut off in 1960 when the interstate was built and returning shoulders to the highway. Another Oak Cliff innovation — put the OAK back in Oak Cliff with massive tree plantings along the right-of-way. Trees. Wow. Radical. City Hall will obviously find a good objection to that one.
Since adding HOV lanes, traffic has slowed and driving on I-35E through Oak Cliff has become much more dangerous. Black paint from cars scraping the barriers rapidly became one continuous line the full length of the dangerous, yet rarely used, lanes. Even people with multiple passengers learned to avoid them. The design includes suggestions for usable HOV lanes.
As usual, OOCCL is coming up with practical solutions that include preserving and helping to find new and creative uses for what’s historic and beautiful while suggesting new and innovative designs to keep Oak Cliff moving forward.
Wanna bet City Hall ignores all these suggestions?
