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James Northrup
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12/15/03 Who wants this rush to madness?
Do you know anyone who is panting at the bits to see a road
running down the Trinity River? What about someone who wants a lake
in the middle of the Trinity, much less two?
Everything the city council and the pro-Trinity Project gang want to do to our
river is every wrong thing that has caused flooding and other environmental disasters
elsewhere. Digging the river deeper and making it more narrow will only
cause problems up and down the river and guarantee future flooding.
City Hall people know future Dallasites will damn them when the
river floods, but they are living for the here and now, more particularly for
Our Downtown Betters.
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What is on the table now for the Trinity Project is so far removed from what Con
Jerk sold the voting public that it's not the same deal at all. How many
changes do the council get to make before voters get to rethink their decision
from 1998. This voter went the other way on that vote, so I don't need to
rethink my decision. |
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A call to action by
www.isthisdallas.com
It is time for the citizens of
Dallas, to stand up, and demand a new election on the Trinity River project.
Which in it's current form hardly represents what voters approved in 1998 by
a razor thin margin of 51%. . . . |
If anything really chaps me about all this mess it's the decision to destroy our
historic viaducts.
For what? Those ugly string bridges?
I'm
not the only one who thinks those silly bridges are not right for Dallas or the
Trinity River. |
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James Northrup:
The connection that needs to be drawn here is that there
never was any reason to extend Woodall Rodger across the Trinity in the
first place.
It only serves to connect
35/30 to 45.
It's
pointless to build that sort of freeway connection to Singleton Boulevard.
It's all about tollroad access into
the arena at Continental. |
Dylan Cave has another
great post on www.IsThisDallas.com with pictures of Calatrava's duplicate
"original" bridges for several cities.
Me
Too! - A lesson in sameness
"I noticed a
recurring theme in arguments against the Trinity River Project, in relation
to the Calatrava bridge, that the bridge to be built crossing the Trinity
River looks strikingly similar to bridges he has already built elsewhere in
the world. So I started searching the internet for examples of his work.
What did I find? Well, it's true. Much of his work looks the same, as if he
is a merchant of sameness, an architect gone fast food chain. How would you
like your whopper today? . . . . |
Where's the Princess of Preservation in all this? Why is she out raising money
for new stuff and planning the destruction of our historic viaducts? Where
are all the so-called preservationists in this town? Do they only care
about old houses and dead architects who should have been shot before they built
all those flat roof boxes that cost a fortune to maintain?
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Big D, Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity
in the 20th Century, Revised Edition by Darwin Payne (copyright 2000, ch.
2, p. 34) |
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One important thing already had been
achieved in the aftermath of the 1908 flood: the construction of an
all-weather viaduct linking Dallas to Oak Cliff that could defy the greatest
of floods. Voters had approved a bond election for $650,000 to build
the viaduct, and when it opened in 1912 some 58,000 spectators came for the
spectacular opening ceremony. The Oak Cliff viaduct, later known as
the Houston Street viaduct, was billed as the longest reinforced concrete
structure in the world. |
Some of the stuff, the Princes of Preservation gets all emotional about came
along years after 1912. Does the sacrifice of those early Dallasites not
count for more than some Spaniard who is going to charge us millions to
replicate something he's doing all over the place?
This is more like the office towers built around town designed by I.M. Pei.
They look just like the boxes he has dumped on other cities. He put a
concrete plaza out in front of City Hall in Dallas. He turned the Meyerson
into the South Sun in Dallas.
The men and women who designed and worked on and paid for the Houston Street
viaduct put a lot more heart and concern for Dallas into it than anything we are
going to get from that string thing Calatrava is selling to Our Downtown
Betters.
A few weeks ago the Mayor spoke to the North Dallas Improvement League.
She
tried to sell the Trinity to that crowd. The audience sat on their hands.
She glowingly talked about how the Calatrava bridges would draw people to
Dallas. The audience sat on their hands.
She claimed it's now a water
project instead of Con Jerk's road project. The audience
sat on their hands.
She changed the subject.
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The new Trinity Project is different from Con Jerk's
version, but it's still not practical, still way overblown and still too expensive.
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Bill Kincaid:
Sharon, connect the dots.
The Trinity toll road is for Grampa
Jones' stadium. |
It's still the Trinity, a dirty, stinky sewer drain for much of North Texas.
Tell you something else that ticks me off -- that rich oil widow throwing
millions at string bridges that are so inappropriate for where they
intended to be. How many millions has she tossed into the pot so far?
Our Mayor is out begging churches to chip in and help the city move Cadillac
Heights
residents out to homes in non-polluted neighborhoods. What would
the impact be from using the oil widow's millions to relocate those unfortunate citizens
whose homes were destroyed by poor city decisions?
It's her money, but she's using it to leverage a bunch of pea-brained
politicians into creating an art object, when all we need is a good bridge that
will be as reliable as the 1912 Houston Street viaduct. It's over 90 years
old. In Dallas, that's almost considered prehistoric.
It's ironic to hear liberals like councilwoman Veletta Lill express concern
for the downtrodden, when their concern never translates to results. If council
members spent half as much energy helping the needy as they
do carrying water for the elite and arts crowd, there might
not be so many needing help.
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But, back to the Trinity. I asked if you knew anyone anxious to see the
Trinity roads or the lake(s). But, do you know anyone who would really spend time
near the Trinity in the heat of Summer? I mean anyone who has lived here a
couple of years? |
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DLandry:
I can't imagine
anyone spending time down near the Trinity if they get those
lakes and roads built.
The humidity, searing heat,
aggressive large Tiger mosquitoes with West
Nile virus, chiggers in the grass, homes with
knives waiting to rob or rape.
The water will be muddy brown, not the bright
blue Florida Keys painted up version of the
architects' renderings.
Guess they think this will be
like San Antonio's river walk
or Central Park, but it will just be a more
picturesque spot to dump bodies of murdered folk at 2
am. |
Why don't we just not do it?
We don't have the money. We can't do the project for the amount 51% of the
voters approved in 1998. Even our dumbest council members know they better
not come back to Dallas voters for the hundreds of millions they are short for
their dream scheme.
We should be spending our limited public resources on more immediate needs.
We have not and will not get the economic return on our basketball arena as
promised by Con Jerk and the ODB, and he used the same lies to sell the Trinity
Project..
We will never see a return for spending billions on the Trinity River. The
Trinity River is not navigatable and will always be a River of No Return.
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