Patrick Kennedy is an urban planner who runs a blog called Walkable DFW. He also writes for D Magazine from time to time. After reading on his blog about a plan he and a buddy hatched to tear down a highway that runs through downtown, I asked him to write about it for the magazine in February. If you haven’t yet read the piece, you should. IH-345 separates downtown from Deep Ellum. It’s at the end of its lifespan. Rebuilding it would be expensive. Tearing it down, Patrick argues, would spur $4 billion in development.
Which brings us to A New Dallas, a wonderful site created by Justin Scott Childress to showcase the IH-345 study by Kennedy and his aforementioned buddy, Brandon Hancock. Spend a few minutes poking around on it. Then make plans to go to the Dallas Center for Architecture tonight to hear a free talk given by Kennedy. Presented by AIA Dallas Communities by Design, it is titled “Highway Tear-outs: The Next Frontier.”
Let’s make this happen, people.