On Wednesday, the Texas Department of Transportation will deliver its first briefing to the Dallas City Council since the body last year approved a plan to remove and trench I-345, the presently elevated highway between downtown and Deep Ellum. The biggest news in the presentation is the cost: an estimated $1.6 billion to pull down and sink 2.8 miles of highway between Interstate 45 near Corinth Street and Woodall Rodgers Freeway. That’s about $600 million above previous estimates, which were admittedly preliminary.
The freeway will be placed about 65 feet below grade and will connect with Central Expressway to the north and I-45 to the south. Wednesday’s presentation also confirms that city staff did not pursue funding through President Joe Biden’s Reconnecting Communities grant program, because it would compete with applications for Klyde Warren Park, the Southern Gateway deck park of Interstate 35 in Oak Cliff, and the Interstate 30 Canyon project. (Dallas was not awarded any grant money for those projects.)
As suspected, once the City Council signed off on the resolution in support of trenching, the state went to work. It has held a series of subcommittee meetings to discuss how the plans for I-345 fit within the City Council’s approved climate, housing, racial equity, and economic development plans as well as Dallas’ Street Design Manual. Another subcommittee has studied whether the state’s plans for Interstate 30 in the downtown Canyon coexist with 345’s trenching.
TxDOT and the city appear to still be studying the surface street grid—existing streets are planned to fly over the highway—and what to do with 8 acres of surplus right of way and another 10 acres of new land that would allow for things to be built on top of deck caps over the thoroughfare. The city will need to come up with the money for the decking; the state will only cover the highway itself.
The presentation is light on details for each of these matters, so we’ll have to wait for Wednesday’s discussion. In the meantime, the presentation is below.
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