DART Solicits Public Comment on D2 Subway Environmental Plan

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Googling “subway” and “Dallas” nets a lot of information on where to purchase a train-shaped sandwich, less so the underground transit system it was named for. 

But Dallas is desperate for transit solutions to connect the city, and this week, the D2 Subway line was on DART’s radar. Too bad it’s not on anyone else’s, it seems.

Public Comment or Not

On Thursday, DART held two public input sessions on their recently released Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the 2.4-mile mostly underground D2 Subway.

Quickly, D2 is proposed to connect Victory Park with Deep Ellum via downtown under Commerce and Griffin Streets. It drops Green and Orange lines currently at ground-level along Bryan-Pacific Streets. This frees capacity for the four lines that currently share track at ground level. In the process it will also run under Woodall Rogers and IH-345.

I was able to attend the noon call and I felt bad for the moderators. During the hour-long call there were exactly two speakers from the public. Two. They each had three minutes. What were the other 54 minutes filled with?  Let me just say I think we were moments away from cute cat videos.

Part of the poor turnout is probably that few people care or pay attention to these things. Another part is that this was only for public comments, not official answers (often making them as useful as tossing coins in a wishing well). So anyone could have babbled for three minutes under an incorrect assumption and no one would have corrected them – or alternatively raised honest questions whose answers could have informed the other two of us on the call.

So what were those scintillating comments?  Without embarrassing anyone, the first one was an investor in downtown properties. He opposed the route of D2. Apparently he’s got some pull because he referenced multiple meetings he’d had in the past with DART officials and consultants that left him unsatisfied. His three minutes were essentially a voicemail where the receiver had context while anyone listening had no clue. We never really learned why he was opposed except in one brief second he mentioned that it would damage something. One assumes something to do with his property portfolio.

The second guy told us of his community group affiliation and then said the comments were his own – so why bring up your affiliation? But at least his comments were to the point. He wants station air rights to be integrated with their surroundings as future development unfolds. He feels the access to the proposed Commerce Street station isn’t intuitive to use. Finally, he felt the East Portal needs to be considered architecturally and landscape-ally to not be a leftover space. Hooray, something folks can work with.

The remaining time was spent with in-house rehashing of the environmental plan, NCTCOG saying how much we need it and moderators imploring someone – anyone – to speak in English or Spanish. There was a brief moment of excitement when another caller appeared to be on the line, but it was just a lawnmower going by the moderator’s window.

Possible intersection at Woodall Rogers across from Perot Museum

Report Offered Tidbits

First, to the naysayers of lightrail. The chief reason for D2 is to increase capacity – people use it. In fact, since 2011 it’s reported that ridership increased over 20 percent during a period where a nine percent increase was the national average.  Just comparing 2018 to 2019, the American Public Transportation Association reported DART ridership increased 14 percent. Add that to the Dallas metro population set to jump 55 percent by 2045 and the need becomes obvious.

The chief reason it’s going underground is because Dallas business interests finally cast off their hoop skirts and joined the 20th century (the 21st remains too frightening).  I guess seeing the success and opportunity (dollar signs) brought by Klyde Warren demonstrated that underground generates more at ground level than it costs to tunnel.

So D2 is needed and we’re finally getting a tiny subway.

They also mentioned two historic building issues – St. James A.M.E Church would lose between 1.5 and 5.4 feet of their front/side yard. The Magnolia gas station at 902 Ross be demolished for construction storage (which seems dumb to demolish an historic building for a temporary construction lot.

Also, the new Live Oak Station (replacing the existing Deep Ellum station) would see thirteen commercial displacements including the defunct Lizard Lounge, Bottled Blonde restaurant and equally defunct Midtowne Spa.

Odd surprise is that the parking garage in back of Neiman Marcus qualifies as contributing historic structure. I think this means the historic Neiman’s building needs the parking.

Even odder still is the minuscule potential for prehistoric “archeological deposits” that the report says, if found, would “most likely be significant.” How cool would that be?  But don’t get your hopes up, apparently, such things have never been found in conjunction with any downtown excavation.

WPA, PWA, CWA TVA – TODAY? TOMORROW?

Back in the 1930s, FDR’s New Deal included programs to put people back to work after the Great Depression. Those agencies built dams, power plants, bridges, replanted forests and other public works projects.

Do you see where I’m going? 

Since we can’t know how many jobs are gone for good from COVID-19, but we do know raising the economy depends on people having money to spend, does a post-COVID response include federal support for putting people back to work? Many are talking about energy efficiency being a theme for such actions – cars off the roads sounds efficient to me.

In 1961, President Kennedy knew that mass transportation was “one of the key factors in shaping [urban] community development.” After attaching mass transit to the Omnibus Housing Act in June 1961, it took nine months after Kennedy’s assassination for then-President Johnson to get it funded with the Urban Mass Transportation act of 1964. At the time Johnson said, “… until 1964, the Federal Government did little or nothing to help the urban commuter.”

Before Johnson’s tap was crimped in the Nixon years, the feds were financing tons of mass transit. In addition to expanding existing systems, Washington D.C. got METRO and Atlanta built MARTA after Seattle voted down a subway – with $5 billion (in 2020 dollars) from the Federal Transit Administration. Compare the Fed’s $5 billion (in today’s dollars) for just the Atlanta system back in the 1970s with the $8.5 billion in committed funds on all projects from 2017 through 2020.  

Currently, the FTA funds up to 80 percent of highway construction but just 50 percent for mass transit. What if that were reversed as part of a federal infrastructure works project?

Rich, white Dallas needs DART too

So I put it to DART, if the feds open their purses post-election, be ready to strike with a bolder plan than D2. Submerge all downtown lightrail. Think about a subway line (D3?) into Uptown, Oak Lawn and West Village. Connect it to Preston Center, Preston/Royal and Preston/Forest and Galleria/Midtown Dallas. It would certainly be a reason for Dallas to retain ownership of the Preston Center garage for people using a future subway station. Many rich, white neighborhoods have historically limited mass transit projects for the reason you think – keeping out “those people.”  

Pew Research noted in 2016 that nationwide, 38 percent of public transit use is by blacks and Hispanics compared to just 7 percent by whites. Two reasons were given – generally, minorities make less and may have less access to a car, but also cities have heavier concentrations of public transit and minorities – 50 years after “white flight” to the suburbs. They also say that whites living in cities are more likely to work within walk/bike distance to offices versus minorities who tend to work further away from home.

Envision a city that continues to attract business and workers. Ignore today’s pandemic, plan for the next, but deliver the future of Dallas in transportation. We all know one big reason Dallas didn’t (thankfully) get Amazon HQ2 was poor mass transit.

And remember, much like universal healthcare, no one who has a subway wished they didn’t. In both cases, what they wish for is better maintenance.

The effects of good urban transit are best summed by New York City mayor William Gaynor as the first phase of construction of that city’s subway a century ago: “The effect it is to have on the city of New York is something larger than any mind can realize.”

The U.S. hasn’t embarked on such sweeping projects in decades. It’s past time, and Dallas should be the place.

Jon Anderson is CandysDirt.com's condo/HOA and developer columnist, but also covers second home trends on SecondShelters.com. An award-winning columnist, Jon has earned silver and bronze awards for his columns from the National Association of Real Estate Editors in both 2016, 2017 and 2018. When he isn't in Hawaii, Jon enjoys life in the sky in Dallas.

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