I’m here for you, Eric. First, let’s review where we are. Yesterday the Federal Highway Administration gave a thumbs-up to the overall Trinity Project, in a long-awaited revised environment report. It answered objections by the Corps of Engineers to the proposed tollroad “in painstaking detail.” So what we have now is a battle of two bureaucracies, which was not helped by the discovery of sand deposits in the levees themselves that could weaken access roads to the bridges. And, of course, that happens just as the steel finally arrives from Italy to begin construction of the first Calatrava bridge.
Nothing good is easy. But the Corps new objections are not likely to be appeased. After Katrina, they may changed the rules in the middle of the game, but who can blame them?
The FHA is crucial to the overall Trinity project. It was the late Robert Hoffman’s insight in creating The Dallas Plan back in 1992-1994 that transportation dollars were the missing element in solving the problem of the Trinity River as a barrier dividing Dallas. Federal dollars are there to help relieve Stemmons congestion. But the escalation of costs to solve the Corp’s objections is a very big hiccup. Even the FHA says so. So the time may be approaching to go to Plan B, which is Industrial. The problem with Industrial is eminent domain: those warehouses and businesses will not go quietly into the night. So the question is: which of the two is ultimately less expensive, relieves the most traffic in the most efficient manner, and achieves the Corp’s goal of rebuilding and protecting the levees?
At the core, this is an engineering problem, and only then a public policy question. The DMN, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, and everyone else can opine all we like, but it makes no difference until the engineers finally determine the facts and revise the costs. We have a tendency in this town to argue public policy until we’re red in the face, while changing nobody’s mind about anything. For once, let’s step back. It’s frustrating, it’s slow, and it’s bureaucratic, but it is in the design and engineering and inter-agency negotiations that Dallas avoids turning an already massive project into a financial sinkhole like the Big Dig.
So I’m withholding judgment until we finally get all the facts. But if I were City Manager Mary Suhm, I’d have Plan B ready to go and in my back pocket.
