Yesterday at a meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, something quite spectacular came out of director Michael Morris’ mouth. You can watch it for yourself. Fast forward to the 4:00 mark of the video for item No. 5. But first let me set this up for you.

Earlier this year, news broke that Roddrick West, son of State Sen. Royce West, was close to signing a deal that would allow him to build soccer fields under I-345. Royce, it should be noted, is very much opposed to tearing down I-345. This soccer field deal would seem to make it much harder to tear down the highway, and all this had been going on without any public debate about it. No matter. Robert Wilonsky at the Morning News said there was nothing to worry about. Everything was on the up and up.

The Texas Scorecard disagrees. That’s the Michael Quinn Sullivan joint, so read this knowing their agenda, but today they posted, for the first time that I’ve seen, Roddrick’s schematic of where he wants to put the fields. Oh, also, as a result of Royce’s run for the U.S. Senate, new information has come to light showing his appetite for conflict of interest (short version: if it makes him richer, he’s hungry for it).

OK. That brings me back to yesterday’s meeting of the Regional Transportation Council. Now you’re ready to appreciate what Morris said. He was asking for (and got) $10 million to $15 million to help spruce up the neighborhood around Uber’s new Deep Ellum headquarters. (And, please, don’t get distracted by news of yet another round of layoffs at Uber.) Morris wants to use the RTC money to do the following: give the first wave of Uber employees transit passes; improve the sidewalks and make bicycle connections; work on the traffic signals; fire up an electric shuttle that will take Uber employees from Deep Ellum to someplace, maybe the Farmers Market; and, finally, to help Roddrick build soccer fields under I-345. Morris’ exact words:

This ain’t good. Not for folks who live and work downtown. The YMCA just sent a note to its members announcing that it is putting up its building for sale. Apparently it is too expensive to maintain. And more and more offices downtown offer their employees on-site exercise options. As a member of the downtown Y for more than a decade, I have this to say:

Booooooooooooooooo! Hisssssssssss!

Man, we’re talking about shutting down a historic gym. That’s where the Kelly Oubre Jr. incident took place, for goodness’ sake. There’s not another gym downtown with basketball courts like the Y’s. Not to mention the pool. In fact, with 24 Hour Fitness gone, I can’t think of another proper gym downtown besides the Y. This is really, really, really bad news for Dallas. How can you be a world-class city without a single swimming pool and basketball court in your downtown?! They say they are going to look for another location downtown, but I find it hard to imagine how a new location could accommodate a swimming pool and multiple basketball courts.

Zac is also a member. We’ve just had a meeting to discuss the matter. We have a plan. No one is going to buy that building if the place is haunted. Time to Scooby-Doo the joint.

Here’s the letter from Giselle Patterson, executive director, and Curt Hazelbaker, president and CEO:

Displacement, pollution, and increased congestion are all part and parcel to highway expansions. It’s a drum we’ve been beating in this space for years, and now I’d like to direct you to this Texas Observer feature, because they get it. In studying highway projects in Houston (the expansion of Interstate 45), Dallas (the existential question posed to officials as to whether we should rehab it or remove 345), and Austin (bringing down Interstate 35 between downtown and the east side), writer Amal Ahmed shows that elevated freeways are flirting with schools and swallowing homes in Houston.

In Dallas, she uses Deep Ellum as the example. Once 345 went in where the Central Track Railroad line was, the community was broken and physically separated from downtown. There are other examples, too, like Interstate 35 and the 10^th Street Historic District, and Interstate 30 that cut South Dallas off from Old East Dallas. As you know, there’s a movement to tear out 345, and TxDOT and the city of Dallas are working together to improve safety and connectivity by possibly burying and adding pedestrian crossings to Interstate 30. There’s also the environmental aspects: a big study came out last week finding that all the pollution from vehicles causes damage that is similar to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

One of the more interesting tidbits from the Observer piece is a quote from a director at Rice University who wrote the book on Houston’s freeway building:

It’s official. Uber is opening an office in Deep Ellum that will eventually employ 3,000 people. The company will have 400 people in place by year’s end. The mayor, the county judge, the governor, the Dallas Regional Chamber — everyone is super pumped about the decision to give Uber $36 million in incentives to set up shop. So good on us. I hope this works out. I’ll put aside for now my concerns about whether the company will ever turn a profit. Never mind the 400 employees who were laid off in July. Course correction. It’s all good.

Except wait a second here. One passage in the DMN story about the news caught my attention. It’s this:

I rely on DART. Having not owned a car in a decade—a personal point of pride, especially in this city—its services are my primary method of getting around town. While I have learned to enjoy the benefits that DART provides (and there are benefits) I understand why many people shy away from, or outright dismiss, Dallas’ sole provider of public transit services.

The system can be daunting and confusing. If you are trying to get from Point A to Point B with one or more transfers, you need to time everything just right as to not get stuck at a station or on the side of the road. Buses don’t always show up when they’re supposed to, traffic being a primary contributor. Yet, for all of its inefficiencies, I can’t call DART altogether ineffective. It will get you where you are going, but it will test your patience.

Last Thursday, I took DART from my work in downtown to the June Shelton School and Evaluation Center in Far North Dallas to attend the fourth community meeting regarding the Cotton Belt, DART’s 26-mile suburban rail line connecting Plano to DFW Airport. It was the first to be held in the city of Dallas. It took more than an hour to reach Arapaho Road and Hillcrest Lane, a distance of about 13 miles. Here’s what that trip looked like:

• 5:04 p.m. – Leave work and walk to the station
• 5:16 p.m. – Get on the train
• 5:44 p.m. – Arrive at Arapaho Station
• 6:00 p.m. – The 361 bus arrives, three minutes later than scheduled (this is pretty good)
• 6:15 p.m. – Arrive at Arapaho and Hillcrest bus stop, walk to Shelton

I know what you’re thinking. “It takes an hour to get from downtown to North Dallas?! Are you insane? Get a car, you fool!” For many, this is a standard travel time on DART. It takes up to an hour or more to travel almost anywhere from downtown unless you live within a four-mile radius. And this is just from downtown, DART’s central hub. It’s a completely different story riding the system across town. It’s not a new thing, either. In 2016, D’s Peter Simek spent some time riding buses around Oak Cliff. His headline: “Doesn’t Anyone at DART Realize How Terrible Riding DART Actually Is?”

I pass the time reading books and refreshing my Twitter feed.

Inside Shelton’s Gene and Jerry Jones Family Dining Hall, neighbors gathered for the meeting, talked among themselves, and looked at enlarged photographs of the Cotton Belt route, running east to west, along the sides of the room.

As the presentation got underway, it was clear that we were in for a contentious evening. DART officials recognized notable members of the community, their own board members who were in attendance, as well as recently elected Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn. The Cotton Belt runs through the middle of her district. She addressed the 200-member strong crowd, voicing many of their concerns.

“There are lots of things that are happening and you have to speak up because you think it’s hard to fight City Hall? It’s really hard to fight a railroad,” she said. “So, use your collective voice and make things happen. I’m with you. This is not a great thing for the neighborhood.”

Last year, Crescent Real Estate snapped up a 30-year-old office tower at 2401 Cedar Springs in Uptown. It was the sort of drab, mundane seven story building that is rapidly starting to look out of place in the neighborhood, which is being outfitted with a whole lot of glass. The new renderings instead have a feature that looks like an engorged pneumatic tube system you find at banks. Paper City described architecture firm Corgan’s plans for the building as a “work playland,” complete with “social lounges” that can either be a conference room or a golf simulator. Which, fine, do what you do, but can you leave the sidewalk alone?

A FrontBurnervian who appreciates his morning walk to work sends the photo above this post. Perhaps the golf simulator is too big and dangerous for pedestrians to walk by as it’s being installed. More likely, it’s probably a lot more convenient for the contractors to have a place to put all their construction detritus, sidewalks be damned. Walkers have access to a sliver of the median or they can wander along the street. Your choice. Crescent, meanwhile, has a place to put a billboard along the fence advertising how much space is for rent.