A perambulator who was just yelled at by cops for being so bold as to use the sidewalk in front of the Dallas Museum of Art while they are erecting tents for the Art Ball sends along this picture. Get in your car, fool!

Having worked through lunch today (let me hear the violins!), I popped out for a late sandwich and decided to walk the half mile from the D Magazine studios (way cooler than “office”) to the 7-Eleven in One Arts Plaza. On my return, on this beautiful, sunny day, I took the following pictures for you as I strolled down Flora Street. As you look at them, imagine seeing downtown’s cultural gem through the eyes of a visitor to our fair city.

Dallas is a city in transition. With unprecedented population growth on the horizon and increasing inequity, now is the time to recreate our infrastructure to achieve a livable, connected city. On March 19 at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Coalition for a New Dallas and D Magazine brought leading transit thinkers and planners from L.A., Denver, Seattle, and Houston to shed light on how their cities have reoriented their policies and tax dollars to restore their urban cores.

They were joined by local leaders who are working to define and deliver a new way of thinking about the restoration of Dallas’ urban fabric. Topics ranged from the options to remove highway I-345 to investing in buses for a functioning transit system and how to prevent pedestrian deaths. You can read our highlights here, and look through the slideshow for images from the morning.

Let’s say you’re in the heart of the Arts District. You’re strolling down Flora Street, headed to the DMA. You come to the intersection of Flora and Pearl. This scene, fellow perambulators, is what you’ll encounter. The sidewalk in your path is closed for repairs. The sidewalk across the street is nonexistent, thanks to construction at Graham Greene’s project. Good luck!

Dallas has long prioritized commuters over city residents, and it’s time to reverse the order.

That was the central thread on Tuesday, as an auditorium full of engaged Dallasites spent their morning at the Dallas Museum of Art learning about the transportation challenges and opportunities of our city. They heard about the way I-345 has ripped up neighborhoods and swallowed hundreds of acres of developable land between downtown and Deep Ellum. They learned of case studies from places like Milwaukee, which recently tore out a mile-long stretch of elevated highway, boosting development in the process. And they dug into public transit, the rail system, the buses, and what a functional web of options might actually look like. What emerged was a picture of how it could come together to better serve every facet of the city.

Patrick Kennedy, a partner at a Dallas-based urban design firm who writes about Dallas’ infrastructure, laid the foundation for the day.

“If you design for cars and traffic, you will get cars and traffic,” he said. “If you design for people, you will get people.”

Kennedy handed the microphone to city planner Peter Park, who has worked in Milwaukee—overseeing the highway removal—and in Denver, spurring the creation of its heralded Union Station. He cited a study of highway removals that showed neighborhood improvement in each instance. “There’s proof that it works,” he said. “It’s not theoretical.”

And he compelled the audience to start thinking in terms of effectiveness and return on investment. Capacity has often reigned supreme, and building for capacity has equated to building more highways. But this only induces demand and continues the cycle of congestion. “Nobody loves congestion,” says Park. “But that’s not the singular thing we should be designing for.”

The event was hosted by the Coalition for a New Dallas, in partnership with D Magazine. Here is a sampling of key thoughts from a morning of panels and keynote speakers inside the Dallas Museum of Art:

Dallas’ public transportation system doesn’t work for far too many of its residents. It’s disjointed and unorganized. There are too many Dallasites who live beyond reasonable walking distance to buses and rail. We’ve written about the way DART has repeatedly made plans without keeping our residents in mind. We’ve also written about the way Dallas seemed to be doing something right a century ago, only to tear out the old rail system and start on something much leaner.

Which is why many will welcome the news of a partnership between Uber and DART. When it comes to closing some of the system’s gaps, it’s a starting point. This week, the two sides said people in certain transit-excluded neighborhoods—such as the southern Dallas neighborhoods near the Inland Port, Rylie, and Kleberg—can get free rides to certain DART stations. Here’s how it works: