MISSISSIPPI LEVEES: BUILT FOR 100-YEARS FLOODS, GETTING 500-YEARS FLOODS.
The nation watches stunned as towns along the Mississippi River flood one after another in an unprecedented series of breached levees. According to a CNN interview today with ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS BRIGADIER GENERAL MICHAEL WALSH, the various federal and non-federal levees along the Mississipi River are built to withstand various levels of storms. Some may be built to withstand 30-year storms, 40-year storms, or 100-year storms. But the floods that towns like Gulfport, Illinois are experiencing are 500-year storms. Excerpt from the interview:

WALSH: Well, it certainly, certainly very serious. And I was up in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids last week talking with the governor and also the mayor, and working with some of the people. It's very, very serious.

But, again, some of those levees, both federal and nonfederal levees are designed for storms of a much lesser degree or grade than what the storm is hitting now. We're looking in some areas of this being a 500-year storm.

Levees breaking all over the country lately, and yet Mayor Leppert still thinks building a toll road in a flood way is a forward-thinking idea. Let's hope his grand scheme stays afloat.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Mockingbird Lane may be the first surface street in Dallas to catch toll road fever. Highland Park town engineer Meran Dadgostar thinks the idea of--how do we put this delicately--"congestion pricing" merits consideration. Apparently, some people who decided to buy houses on Mockingbird Lane mistakenly considered the street "residential". Hmmm, those were some slick realtors. One HP resident complained about the cars lined up in front of his house, feeling abused because he doesn't drive through those drivers' streets.

The idea originated with DART in an attempt to get a piece of a $1 billion Federal Grant Program aimed at "finding innovative fixes to traffic-clogged big cities".

"This is to get drivers to change their habits," Mr. Dadgostar said. "We're telling people that there are other routes out there. You pay for things that are worth paying for."

We assume by "change their habits", Mr. Dadgostar means "drive somewhere else". Another example of "innovative" forward-looking traffic engineering.

In the wake of the subprime lending debacle, we've all learned what can happen when you don't read the fine print. During the Trinity Toll Road debates, Mayor Leppert and his publicity firm loved showing off the proposed toll road rendered in soft, warm watercolors and animated visualizations, making the road look downright PASTORAL. The artist even went to the trouble of "visualizing" SIX CARS on that road. What they never talked about was the fine print which would have indicated to potential voters that the toll road defenders had no earthly idea whether the toll road will work, where it will be, or what it will be! Check out the NTTA TRINITY TOLL ROAD DISCLAIMER on the North Texas Tollway Authority website, specifically:

"Because the Trinity Parkway is undergoing a legally required environmental impact study that evaluates alternatives to build, as well as not build the project, any alternative(s) depicted in these materials should not be interpreted as the selected alternative for the proposed Parkway."

If Mayor Leppert couldn't defend the project with facts, the alternate strategy was to "wow 'em" with a Ringling Brothers-type presentation. And it's in the spirit of Ringling Brothers that we're reminded of something P.T. Barnum purportedly said about what kind of person is born every minute.

You'll have to register with the Washington Post to read a March 17th article, "Letting the Market Drive Transportation", about the Bush administration's plan to privatize more and more highways. In fact, funding for public highways has systematically been cut by the current administration with the intent of shrinking the Federal role in road-building. The scheme is to privatize roads and allow "market forces" to rear their ugly heads. This has alarmed transit advocates, like Representative John Mica (R-Florida), the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee:

"They have a myopic view," said Rep. John L. Mica. . . ." Pricing transportation to drive down traffic may make market sense, but it harms the public. This was a country based on some system of equality. People are paying their taxes and have representation. You can't exclude them from having a fair return."

Many believe that Bush administration wants to sell off roads to private firms, who will in turn charge tolls and "ration the best access to those willing to pay for a faster commute." Isn't Mayor Leppert subscribing to the Bush policy in pushing the privatized Trinity toll road, the land for which, by the way, will be GIVEN to the North Texas Tollway Authority? The NTTA gets free land and gets to keep the tolls collected.

What next, Mayor Leppert, sell off our park lands to a private "park management" firm? Next Dallas City Council Idea: Toll Parks.

Matt Goodman, writing for Dallas' only daily newspaper, reports on a 10k and 2-mile race, sponsored by pro-toll road Trinity Commons Foundation and the Dallas Running Club. Scene of the race: Trammell Crow Park. Race director Roger Foster comments,

"The first time I ran this course, I looked up and saw the hawks flying," Mr. Foster said. "Then I look up and see the skyline. This is the closest thing Dallas has to Central Park."

Apparently, the folks at Trinity Commons Foundation failed to inform Mr. Foster and the other participants that the proposed toll road will be running RIGHT THROUGH Trammell Crow Park. In fact, if and when Trinity Commons has their way, you won't look up to see the Dallas skyline, you'll look up to see hundreds of cars and trucks using the Trinity to bypass that Dallas skyline.

Sam Merten tries to find out why the Texas Horse Park (THPI) item was mysteriously and unceremoniously dropped from the December 12th Council meeting agenda. Merten, doing what a reporter does, tried to find out who was responsible for deleting it, so he could then find out why it was deleted. Simple quest, no? He first contacted City Secretary Deborah Watkins, who referred him to one of City Manager Mary Suhm's assistants, who in turn didn't know, but would find out. . . . well, you know the story. A reporter doing a little bit of information gathering at City Hall ends up with City Manager Mary Suhm accusing Merten of implying there was a conspiracy to delete the agenda item. When he asked her why a "conspiracy", this is her reply:

"When you ask questions like who did this and who did that, it just comes across that way, Suhm said.

Oh, those pesky, conspiratorial reporters!

For those who missed them, here's a re-cap of the YouTube videos supporting TrinityVote:

Our Official Commercial
Park vs Tollway
Happy Halloween
Trinity River War
Ministry of Propaganda
800 Million in the Hole
Park Good, Toll Road Bad
All Wet

Sam Merten examines Mayor Leppert's pledge to "expedite" the Trinity Project. One of the Mayor's mantras during the Trinity campaign was that delays cost money. Toll Road proponents urged a "Vote No" because delays would cost us $10 million per month. So, when the date to decide the preferred alignment of the toll road in the Trinity changed from August 2008 to November 2009, kiss $150 million good-bye, good citizens.

Merten also points out how Morning News reporter Bruce Tomaso failed to do the math when covering the story. And not to put too fine a point on the Morning News report, new diaphragm walls required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to accommodate the toll road's piers (required on elevated portions of the toll road) will add another $60 million to the price tag, as Brad Watson reported.

Jim Schutze wonders how any municipality calling itself a city can blunder forth on a massively expensive project like the Trinity toll road, based on similar and not-so-similar projects Boston is now trying to reverse.

Case in point: ex-Mayor Miller's urban design expert, Alex Krieger, who used Storrow Drive in Boston as an example of river and road blissing out together as one. Currently, there's a debate going on in Boston about closing one direction of lanes on Storrow Drive, so that people can, what, possibly enjoy the park that the road cuts through.

"It's a fabulous idea that helps jumpstart Boston's effort to be a more livable city," said Steven E. Miller, cofounder and former executive director of Hub on Wheels, an annual bike event.

Mayor Leppert comes late to the party and might not have gotten the memo.

Sam Merten sat in a City Council meeting this past December to observe a vote on giving $2.7 million of taxpayers' money to Texas Horse Park, Inc. (THPI), which had only raised $350,000 of the $15 million it was required to raise by September 2008. The plot thickened when Merten spoke with Diane Pitts, a board member and former interim executive director with THPI, and she admitted to the daunting task, blamed the Trinity Referendum on inhibiting the fundraising and at the same time expressed concern for stepping on the fundraising toes of Trinity Trust and Dr. Gail Thomas, who "have a lot more money to raise." It looked like business as usual, and that the $2.7 million would be rubber stamped until a few Council members started asking questions. Merten says, "Quit crying and start fundraising". Not another cent of taxpayers' money until THPI picks up its end of the bargain.

And, oh yeah, in case you have a soupcon of confidence in the process, in the interest of expediting the discussion, Councilman Neumann unwittingly handed out what turned out to be a 4-year-old map of the Trinity River Project to Council members.

Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer has really been hammering the DMN over their sitting on the "NTTA to Seek More City Funds for Toll Road" story. As reported here and here, the Dallas Morning News didn't report on the story until the day AFTER the Trinity Referendum -- despite their having learned about the story a month earlier.

To refresh your memory, the DMN Lindenberger story in question claimed:

"[Paul Wageman] said if the costs continue to rise above the current estimate of $1.29 billion, the agency may ask its partners - including the city and the Regional Transportation Council, which sets priorities for the entire North Texas area, to increase their investments in the road."

Mayor Tom Leppert said in a DMN OpEd during the referendum election:

"The 1998 bond election capped Dallas taxpayers' cost for the road at $84 million - not a penny more - and if things go as planned, we will receive that money back."

This "No New Taxes" mantra was stated repeatedly by the "Vote No" forces throughout the election, going so far as to send out half a million mailers claiming so. But the NTTA and the mayor knew all along that the NTTA would seek more money from taxpayers -- and so did the DMN.

Last Friday afternoon, DMN Managing Editor George Rodrigue finally took Jim's bait and defended his paper's pitiful actions. Robert Wilonsky noted Rodrigue's defense later in the day, excitedly awaiting Jim's response. And, never one to dissapoint, Jim Schutze himself disected Rodrigue's comments later that evening.

It's troubling to see the managing editor of Dallas' only daily so blinded as to what constitutes solid, responsible journalism. It's no surprise that the DMN is little more than a shell of the respected organization it once was.

CBS11's Bennett Cunningham has another scathing report on the NTTA's recent jaunt to Vienna on the tollpayers' dime. After obtaining more expense reports, Cunningham found that NTTA officials billed the NTTA for first-class airfare to Vienna and for hotel expenses up to five days before the conference began. NTTA officials even billed the agency for meals they didn't eat -- all while ignoring the conference they were in Austria to attend.

In light of these revalations, does anyone else think it might be unwise for the City of Dallas to give the NTTA millions of dollars worth of taxpayer land for nothing in return?

Pegasus News also weighs in on the CBS11 report.

WFAA reports that the Dallas City Council is considering renaming Industrial Boulevard due to changes that will come with the completion of the Trinity River Project. The thinking is that "Industrial" is not an appropriate name for an area that will be so closely linked to the Trinity River.

The WFAA article also links to two collections of suggestions for the Boulevard's possible new name. The first group comes from the Trinity Commons Foundation, and the second group of names was submitted by WFAA website visitors. As you'd expect, there are several gems among them:

Post-Industrial Boulevard
Trinity Commons Boulevard
Santiago Calatrava Boulevard
Bail Bonds Avenue
Russ Martin Way
Jim Schutze Parkway
Romo Avenue
Pawn Shop Lane

As we noted earlier, the mayor wants to expedite the Trinity River Project. In the DMN article reporting this development, the News features a photo of the soccer fields at Crow Park (between the flood control levees). The photo and its caption are shown below:

"Robert Hernandez and other Monterrey team members warm up before a soccer game at Trammell Crow Lake Park, a patch of green space that will be overhauled in the Trinity project."

Take a good look at the photo and note that the caption claims the green space will be overhauled in the project. Let's look a little more in depth at the "overhaul" the City of Dallas has in store for the green space.
First, let's look at the soccer fields from a City of Dallas satellite photo. Note the white chalk outlines of the four fields below. (The fields are just above the lake, but below the levee top and toe roads. The red "Northwest" text (for Northwest police patrol division) rests on two of the four fields.)


Next, we've taken the first aerial photo, colored the four soccer fields green, and placed the original photo over the most recent plans for the Trinity Toll Road.


And finally, the four soccer fields with the Trinity Toll Road overlay.


It seems that from these plans, what the DMN calls "overhauled" the rest of us call "paved."

Last week, Mayor Leppert gave a speech to the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce. In the speech, the mayor said that he wants to see the Trinity River Project -- and the Trinity Toll Road -- started and completed much sooner than now planned. From the article:

"None of the timetables that are sitting out there are acceptable," he said, adding that he wants residents driving over the Trinity River bottoms to be able to see the downtown park taking shape "within the space of a couple of years." He offered no specifics on how to make that happen, though.

"We are going to be going forward much more aggressively," Mr. Leppert told about 260 business leaders and public officials at the Hilton Dallas Lincoln Centre Hotel. "For us to be successful, we have to move forward very quickly."

In fact, the mayor is so serious aboout the new timeline that he and Dave Neumann, chair of the Dallas City Council's Trinity River Committee, have been consulting with all parties involved to expedite the process:

David Neumann, the Dallas City Council member who was appointed by Mr. Leppert to chair the council's Trinity River committee, said after the mayor's speech that he and Mr. Leppert have been quietly meeting with the NTTA, with the city's private consultants on the Trinity project and with officials from other involved governmental agencies.

Regarding the toll road, the project's most controversial feature, Mr. Neumann said: "We will beat that 2014 deadline."

He added: "Our mission is to expedite this. We are working to find ways to compress the schedule." Like the mayor, he declined to be more specific.

Most excitingly, Mr. Neumann gave the Dallas Morning News a date for unveiling the project's new shortened timeline:

Mr. Neumann did say, however, that in the next month or two, he plans to bring the full City Council a revised timetable for completion of the tollway.

Oh my! Secret meetings, bold promises, a new timeline, and a date-certain for unveiling it all. Mark your calendars for January 27th 2008 for the new Trinity River Project!

Several others weighed in on the project's new timetable:

Advocate Magazine's Back Talk Blog - Mayor Park Cities and the Fast Track

Dallas Observer's Unfair Park Blog - What's the Rush, Mayor Tom? Hidin' Something?

D Magazine's FrontBurner Blog - Tom Leppert Talks Pretty

People Newspapers - Mayor: Trinity Deadlines Too Far Off

Several outlets are picking up on the fact that the DMN sat on the 'NTTA to Seek More City Tax Money' story. As you remember, that's the story that the DMN ran the day after the election, in which the NTTA's Chairman Paul Wageman stated that "the agency may ask its partners - including the city and the Regional Transportation Council, which sets priorities for the entire North Texas area, to increase their investments in the road."

For those not up to speed on all of this, basically that Vote No side claimed throughout the campaign that voting yes would raise your taxes. Of course that was untrue, and now the NTTA and their over-budget Toll Road are going to raise your taxes. The DMN knew about it the month before the election, but sat on the story.

Sometimes "I told you so" just doesn't do a situation justice.

DallasBlog 11/15 - Schutze Exposes DMN

FrontBurner 11/15 - I'm Sure the DMN Has a Reasonable Explanation

Dallas Observer 11/15 - Trinty Toll Road May Cost More Than Promised

Unfair Park 11/16 - Jim Schutze Doesn't Forgive or Forget

FrontBurner 11/19 - Still Waiting on George Rodrigue's Response

Nearly half of Dallas (47%) voted for Proposition No. 1. The cool half.

CBS 11's Benett Cunningham caught some NTTA fatcats touring Vienna on your dime. Oh yeah, they also blew off the conference meetings they were there to attend.

I wonder if they toured the Toll Road running through Vienna's famous Statdpark. (Oops! My mistake. There is no Toll Road running through Vienna's Statdpark.)

Jim Schutze from the Dallas Observer comments on a story written by Michael Lindenberger, the DMN's transportation writer. The story in question was published the day after the election. In the article, Lindenberger claims that the Trinity Toll Road is so over budget that the NTTA may seek more taxpayer dollars from the City of Dallas and the Regional Transportation Council -- something Mayor Leppert and the rest of the Dallas City Council promised the NTTA would never do.

What's most troubling about the story is that Lindenberger knew about this fact LAST MONTH -- before the election. Considering the the Vote No forces based their entire North Dallas strategy on scaring folks into thinking moving the Toll Road would raise taxes (a lie), it is particularly galling that the DMN knew that it was the Vote No forces that would be seeking to raise taxes instead -- and said nothing.

Any credibility that the Dallas Morning News had as Dallas' paper of record is completely gone. Michael Lindenberger should have published the truth right when he learned it, and the Vote No forces should be ashamed of themselves.