ailevan veradissa yoomee
Denisha Padley
However, they'd need to be replaced. So what I've thought about is essentially returning as much of the grid as possible, replacing flyover with surface streets and at grade intersections. This image below is probably a bit hard to understand, so I'll try my best to explain.
-Macon Street currently turns into an onramp north of Lancaster, where it flys over Lancaster Henderson and then under Rio Grande before turning into I-30. A portion of Lancaster also currently merges onto this ramp. Instead, this ramp would be demolished and Macon would be made an at grade street continuing due south following the grid, intersecting Lancaster and eventually dead ending. Instead of using Macon as an onramp, an intersection would be created at at Lake and Rio Grande/El paso streets. Drivers leaving downtown would then use the existing ramp to the south to enter I-30 Westbound. This would free up a large amount of land for potential development and would drivers on Henderson easier access to WB30.
-The U-turn lane from exiting WB30 drivers onto Lancaster would be elimated and the land used for developable space. NB Henderson has an existing 3rd lane and yeild lanes which makes such U turns easy and simple to do anyway.
-There is an existing ramp for exiting EB30 drivers which flys over the existing RIo Grande exit tunnel, and then splits, offering drivers an option to exit onto EB lancaster or continue north into downtown where the road turns into Cherry street. This ramp would be altered so instead of flying over Lancaster it would intersect with it at grade, allowing drivers to go east or west, and eliminating the need for the Lancaster branch. This opens up additional land north and south of the Lancaster.
-This plans main goal is to open more room for development while hindering drivers as little as possible. North to South roads Florence, Macon, Cherry, and Burnett streets could all be extended 2 blocks south while East to West streets Presidio and El Paso could be extended several blocks west, which would expand much of the grid. In total, this would create 11 new full size blocks and 2 partial blocks. Some of the blocks come close to the drilling pad however, which could be limiting. Another benefit is the Public Market would no longer be so ostracized, and development could fill in the area to the north and create a much more coherent neighborhood with a driect connection to downtown, the upper west side, and less separation between downtown and southside.
-This could be done in phases as demand is needed. Doing it all at once would create a traffic nightmare. For now, there is still plenty of land available, but as land downtown and along the Lancaster masterplan area is developed, more would be needed.
Not all of the 20 acres of land are taken up, Austin. Someone had the foresight and brilliance to erect a monument/marker out there in the weeds. The monument/marker looks pretty shiny and there may or may not be a cow engraved on it...I've never visited it though since it is inaccessible to anyone but the transients who walk through the field. The easiest way to visit the monument would be to sprint across Lancaster Avenue, Frogger-like, get muddy shoes, chigger bites (bonus points for a snake bite), and then get hit by a car on your way back across Lancasater. Easy money.
Good spot Austin55. This is an area with a lot of "wasted" property that is probably not contributing to the tax rolls or to the viability/livability of the area. I think the blocks you drew in are a good approximation of how redevelopment should be mapped out but I'm not sure about the freeway access. I always felt that some sort of direct access off of I-30 and the Chisholm Parkway onto Forest Park Blvd. and points downtown would be a good idea but now that the flyovers are complete there might not be adequate room for that idea to be realized. Maybe an expanded/streamlined intersection with Henderson/SH199 could handle the commuter traffic, especially if the street were opened a little up and traffic signals re-timed. It might be tricky but I would support an effort for the city to cost-share parking structures with weekend-only businesses (churches, synagogues, etc.) within two miles of downtown and use those as points along a streetcar or express bus system that would then bring commuters into town, weekday parking and ride combined and discounted. That would negate the need for those ramps off of I-30 into town. An emphasis on improving arterial routes into downtown would also serve to keep commuters from having to use freeways to access the central city; the on-again-delayed-again Hemphill connector comes to mind, as well as improvements to White Settlement Road.
Based on the pictures above, it looks like there is a lot of green space in the area. It's just undesirable/impossible to get to because of the street network. I'm going to assume that the rumor you may have heard did not include demolishing a building or converting a parking lot.
The county recently purchased a full block for $6.18M. ST mentioned this as being a competitive price for a DT block. A block is about 1 acre, so DT land is roughly $6M per acre. The land that could be reclaimed by removing or relocating ramps is 22 acres. Assuming this land is 1/3 the value of lots closer to the core, $4M per acre, the potential return on selling the all land is $88M, likely enough to repay the capital costs of moving the ramps.
TxDOT is planning an $81 million rebuild of the interchange at I30 and 580/Camp Bowie on the west edge of the city, not too dissimilar from my proposal in this thread. TxDOT has the ability and funds to enhance the downtown corridor, this is just one of 3.377 billion proposed projects by TxDOT's Fort Worth District.
I believe some of the proposed plans for the I-30 West Freeway outside of I-820 can be seen here. I do think widening that 4 lane portion to 6 lanes is justified, though, given the bottleneck that happens at I-30 and I-820, plus it closes the gap between the main 6 lane section of I-30 and the discontinuous 6 lane section of I-30 and I-20 out by Aledo.
I also heard that there are plans to rebuild I-30 between I-820 and Camp Bowie and widen it to 8 lanes in the process. No schematic was ever made (to my understanding), though NCTCOG's Mobility 2045 plan is calling for its widening by 2028.
That said, I would love to see more efficient use of the right-of-way at the I-30/183/341 interchange (which still might be tricky due to the air base there) and the aforementioned Henderson/Lancaster interchange. None of these projects cover Henderson/Lancaster though.
As my office is near Henderson and Lancaster I passed by the demolition work this morning. Update: Champion Springs is gone and now the old Haws Paint and Body Shop is going. Is it really going to just a Quick Trip to replace these structures?
...including bike access through and around the interchange. Supposedly the Bomber Spur rails to trails conversion will cross Calmont just east of 183; it needs to be routed toward 341 (Lockheed Boulevard) for bicycle commuting, and up 183 to provide access to Ridgmar and the retail to the north, and eventually up to the Airfield Falls Trailhead. It'd be cool to redo that whole intersection and take cycle paths into account.
Why not a restaurant? Does anyone appreciate the fact that there's only one restaurant (the Depot) in the entire southwest sector of downtown. If I want to take someone to lunch within walking distance the closest is the caf just southeast of the Bank of America building.
The interchange has long been the main way to move travelers from one roadway to another. The concept was first patented in 1912. Since then, as more and more people use our roads, increasingly complex systems have been invented to accommodate them. To get a better understanding of this important transportation infrastructure, let's explore the diverse world of interchange design!
A diamond interchange involves four ramps that exit and enter the highway. These designs are very economical because, compared to other options, they require less land and materials. The diamond interchange and its iterations are the prevailing service interchange design, and some of the first were developed in Los Angeles in 1941 along the Pasadena Freeway.
A tight diamond interchange has the same general form as the conventional diamond but the spacing of the design is tighter. The spacing between the two at-grade intersections (intersections directing travelers either onto or off the highway) is usually between 250 ft. and 400 ft.
The single point diamond interchange, also known as a single point urban interchange (SPUI), first sprang up in 1974 in Clearwater, Florida. SPUIs have only one at-grade intersection on a minor road, and they tend to be more expensive than traditional interchange options due to the need for a wider and/or more complex bridge.
The diverging diamond interchange (DDI), or double crossover diamond (DCD), was first developed in France and brought to North America around 2002. It is the latest new interchange form developed in the past 30 years, and because of this, it comes with a learning curve for many drivers. The setup is initially confusing because drivers must drive on the opposite side of the road as the roadways diverge; but once learned, this design yields significant safety improvements for both drivers and pedestrians. Click here to learn more about how a DDI works.
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