Yesterday, I went to get a haircut after work, taking the train to Uptown from the West End. This was very convenient. However, my wife had to pick me up after on her way home from work. Otherwise, it probably would have taken me 30 minutes to get home when a 5 minute car ride would have sufficed.
This kind of brings me to an idea I've been kicking around with regards to transportation and planning. I call this idea 'Rail Scale' (not to be confused with 'Whale Tail') Trains are extremely helpful in hyperlocal transportation, like Downtown Dallas where each station is no more than about a quarter mile from the next, or in semi-regional transporation where each station is a couple of miles apart (like all the park and rides starting with Mockingbird Station in the north) and is supplemented by either parking for commuters or access to transfer stations for busses. These are of course less convenient, which is why I think the park and ride structure is a smart one and will become more popular in the coming years.
I have long said that adding lanes to a highway are a bit like adding another notch in a fat persons' belt. The only answer to releiving traffic from the street perspective is to add more streets in parallell. Multiplicity of strees if you will. Since Dallas is out of room, and there is a strong movement by the amalgamation of cities in Dallas county to slooooooooow traffic down in their towns, this seems more and more impossible. Not to mention that there is only so much expansion room for the other highways. Leftover options are to 'double up' and stack highways, try to expand existing highways, time lights etc.
I suspect that the growth of the area will exceed the capacity of these roads, and that ridership on public transportation will likely increase, with the park-and-ride as the crowning jewel. It's not the utopian system that EcoNazis dream of, where every man is set equal by their reliance on public transportation to save mother Gaia, but I think its a great free-market idea, letting those who think it's worth it make use of transportation, and letting nature take its course.
Let's be honest, there is a price to be paid in exhange for less fuel consumed, fewer hours in gridlock traffic, and that price is time and flexibility. It simply takes longer to get from A to B, and requires more planning to time connections or rides. As the equation changes, this price will seem all the more reasonable to more and more people.
This kind of brings me to an idea I've been kicking around with regards to transportation and planning. I call this idea 'Rail Scale' (not to be confused with 'Whale Tail') Trains are extremely helpful in hyperlocal transportation, like Downtown Dallas where each station is no more than about a quarter mile from the next, or in semi-regional transporation where each station is a couple of miles apart (like all the park and rides starting with Mockingbird Station in the north) and is supplemented by either parking for commuters or access to transfer stations for busses. These are of course less convenient, which is why I think the park and ride structure is a smart one and will become more popular in the coming years.
I have long said that adding lanes to a highway are a bit like adding another notch in a fat persons' belt. The only answer to releiving traffic from the street perspective is to add more streets in parallell. Multiplicity of strees if you will. Since Dallas is out of room, and there is a strong movement by the amalgamation of cities in Dallas county to slooooooooow traffic down in their towns, this seems more and more impossible. Not to mention that there is only so much expansion room for the other highways. Leftover options are to 'double up' and stack highways, try to expand existing highways, time lights etc.
I suspect that the growth of the area will exceed the capacity of these roads, and that ridership on public transportation will likely increase, with the park-and-ride as the crowning jewel. It's not the utopian system that EcoNazis dream of, where every man is set equal by their reliance on public transportation to save mother Gaia, but I think its a great free-market idea, letting those who think it's worth it make use of transportation, and letting nature take its course.
Let's be honest, there is a price to be paid in exhange for less fuel consumed, fewer hours in gridlock traffic, and that price is time and flexibility. It simply takes longer to get from A to B, and requires more planning to time connections or rides. As the equation changes, this price will seem all the more reasonable to more and more people.
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