Posts under ‘Infrastructure’

This Streetfilms video uses animation inspired by the classic game Frogger to show the usage and benefits of raised crosswalks, which help to slow traffic down on streets and provide safer pedestrian access.
This is similar to the planned raised plaza at 7th & Arch Adams in the Cultural District, in the Museum Place development.

I attended the Fort Worth South, Inc. presentation yesterday evening on the proposed re-striping of Magnolia Avenue to feature fewer traffic lanes and create dedicated bike lanes. As I expected, there were both supporters and opponents in attendance. What I was pleasantly surprised at was the very strong showing of supporters at the [...]

Refreshing honesty from TxDOT. I’ll have to remember this link the next time somebody blasts me for supporting transit and its “endless subsidies” over roads that “pay for themselves” with gas taxes:
Applying this methodology, revealed that no road pays for itself in gas taxes and fees. For example, in Houston, the 15 miles of [...]

It didn’t get much press, and in fact most of the people I know didn’t even hear about it. Nevertheless, the City Council voted in late May to demolish the 7th Street bridge over the Trinity to replace it with a new bridge which will be able to accommodate the Cultural District line of [...]

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Trinity River Vision meeting being held in conjunction with a broadcast of Biz Radio. I got some updates on the status of various TRV projects, so here’s a little roundup of the current happenings.

One of the highlights for me personally was getting to meet [...]

An expanded look at the Phillis Tilley Bridge is now online at West and Clear.

The new pedestrian bridge over the river, to be built parallel to the Lancaster Avenue bridge, has been named the Phyllis Tilley Memorial Pedestrian Bridge. Tilley was the founder of Streams and Valleys, a group formed in the ’60s to further the beautification of the Trinity.
The bridge, designed by Boston architect Miguel Rosales, is [...]

Samuels Avenue, long pitted & scarred by potholes and cracks, is at long last getting a makeover, to go along with the Trinity Bluff developments. The street is currently ripped up from Bluff Street to well past Nash Elementary, and is being completely rebuilt from the dirt up. What’s been finished thus far [...]

Fort Worth, it’s time to do a little thinking.
I am speaking of the issues of the Southwest Parkway, the proposed streetcar light rail system, and the planned Southwest-to-Northeast rail line. Now, if you’ve read Fort Worthology for any length of time, you probably already know that I come down on the side of rail, [...]

Music to my ears, this. From Dan McGraw, in the Fort Worth Weekly:
Next week, the Fort Worth Central City Redevelopment Committee, which deals with issues relating to downtown development and infrastructure, will recommend the city invest in urban light rail. The panel wants Fort Worth to build four “ultra-light-rail” lines, trains that would run [...]

The second half of the Oleander Walk project, which is converting tiny Oleander Street (running parallel between Magnolia and Rosedale) to a beautifully landscaped pedestrian pathway, is now underway. The project has already spurred new development, first with the Texana Townhomes and Fairmount Lofts developments and soon with another phase of Fairmount Lofts and [...]

After much debate, helpful comments, and research, we’ve considerably altered and refined our rough draft proposal for a downtown streetcar system. With the addition of directional arrows and two-way tracking where possible, this looks more flexible. Take a look at tell us what you think in the comments.

A sneak peek at some of the stuff we’re working on for our Streetcar page - our own proposed downtown streetcar system, color-coded to represent the various phases/routes/components. This is just a rough draft. We’re also working on similar proposals for Uptown, the Cultural District, and Fort Worth South.
Thoughts/comments?

From the July/August 2007 issue of the Congress for the New Urbanism’s New Urban News paper comes a very interesting story detailing the successes brought by Portland’s streetcar system.
In the six years since the Portland (Oregon) Streetcar began operating, the city’s Pearl District has experienced a remarkable development boom — one that is causing other [...]

Slowly but surely, the reconstruction of Lancaster Avenue in downtown is proceeding. In a nutshell, the project’s goal is to return Lancaster to the pedestrian friendly four lane road it was before the I-30 Overhead was built, rather than the high-speed eight lane traffic sewer it turned in to. The southern half of [...]

This sketch shows the proposed redesign of Hemphill in Fort Worth South. The proposal would narrow the street, reduce the number of traffic lanes to two, replace the other two traffic lanes with on-street parking, and provide for wider sidewalks with trees. Let’s hope this proposal goes forward - this would to a [...]

Today, Bing Thom unveiled the swoopy, organic designs he has come up with for the three new bridges that will span the channels and canals of the massive Trinity River Vision/Uptown Fort Worth plan:

Henderson St. Bridge

North Main St. Bridge

White Settlement Road Bridge
We’ll be trying to get better shots of the bridges, but we have to [...]

The first rendering of the new Post Office to be built as part of the Museum Place project in the Cultural District has been released. Not the greatest rendering, but it’s all we have thus far. Click the thumbnail for a larger version. Museum Place’s press release about the building follows. [...]

Local independent paper Fort Worth Weekly is preparing a big article by Dan McGraw for this week’s issue concerning the need for a streetcar/light rail system in and around downtown Fort Worth. Dan recently interviewed me for this article, and I can’t wait to read it. It should be coming out on Wednesday in the [...]