Dallas delays vote on I-345 plans

On Tuesday morning, the local group Dallas Neighbors for Housing posted on social media a call for an upcoming City Council vote.

“Urgent,” the message said. “Send an email and register to speak at the February 22 city council meeting to stop [the Texas Department of Transportation] from forcing the City of Dallas to pass a resolution supporting their I-345 plan.”

The message included links to information about the controversial highway and an email already typed and ready to be sent by residents to city council members. People must have taken notice, because by the end of the day Magazine D will announce that the vote has been removed from the city council’s agenda on February 22. This was stated by council member Omar Narvaez, chairman of the Dallas Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Magazine D that the agenda item was removed “so that some of my colleagues have more time to get answers to questions … and so that public discussion can be held before any vote.”

According to Caleb Roberts, board member of local environmental group Downwinders at Risk, the vote will be delayed because the whole process was rushed. Roberts, an urban planner by trade, lives just off I-345 on Ross Avenue in Dallas. “So, I’m affected by what’s going on out there in a radius of 345 meters,” said Roberts.

“I think they’re trying to move this forward, and frankly, we feel like the process is being rushed,” he said, “rushing so that other people don’t have a chance to step in and say what they want for Dallas.”

He believes that the city council needs more time to consider all possible options. “The city council should be slow to approve this and exhaust all options just because of the size of this thing and the amount of space we’re talking about,” Roberts said.

There is a lot of history involved here.

Deep Ellum became Dallas’ black business center in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. But the construction of I-345 was a serious blow to Deep Ellum, leading to the collapse of many enterprises. The residents moved out in the 60s and 70s. The future expansion of roads has led to more displacement and decline in the area. For Roberts and others, the removal of I-345 could be a step towards correcting this bias and reclaiming the area.

“We want to create places where people go, not go.” — Caleb Roberts, “Lee in Peril”

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“We think this is a great opportunity to talk about the history of what 345 took from this area, about the black and brown communities that were strong and really powerful before the highway was there,” Roberts said. “The highway took them away. … This is an opportunity to reclaim some of that space in the city center where you can do mixed development.”

He said: “It’s a link between Deep Ellum and Downtown and we don’t have that walkable community right now.”

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) held its first public meetings about the future of I-345 in 2012, according to Dallas Neighbors for Housing. Around this time, urban planner Patrick Kennedy and real estate developer Brandon Hancock began advocating for the removal of I-345 and making it a boulevard. In 2016, TxDOT released a CityMAP study showing the potential to remove I-345.

In 2021, TxDOT released five variants of I-345 and 12 city council members supported the removal of the highway. But in May 2022, TxDOT approved a hybrid option that would allow for a flooded freeway with an intersection on a bridge above it.

By June 2022, the TxDOT plan appears to have received support from members of the city council’s transportation committee, none of whom have voiced support for removing I-345. Then, late last week, residents learned that a vote in favor of the hybrid plan would be held at the next city council meeting.

TxDOT calls it a hybrid plan because it connects city streets to an overpass over I-345. According to Dallas Neighbors for Housing, this plan is more expensive and creates fewer connectivity options than completely removing I-345. Removing I-345 will free up four times as much land as the hybrid plan.

According to Dallas Neighbors for Housing, urban infrastructure and highway dependency perpetuate poverty. The group says the poorest and most vulnerable Dallas residents rely on public transportation that cannot serve them because jobs and homes are so scattered.

According to the non-profit research organization Urban Institute, Dallas is one of the least economically inclusive cities in the country. Studies have shown that the more dispersed a city is, the more difficult it is for its residents to improve their socioeconomic status. Jobs in south Dallas have fallen 17% since 2000, according to Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Studies.

The removal of I-345 will give more land for downtown housing and jobs, the group said. These homes and workplaces will be easily accessible by public transport. The group also says that removing the highway would be better for the environment and human health. Noise and particulate matter generated by highways can cause health problems for people, especially when these highways pass through dense urban areas.

So why wouldn’t TxDOT support the deletion of Form I-345? The state agency says studies have shown it will lead to more traffic and other undesirable results.

TxDOT spokesman Tony Hartzel made the announcement in an email. Observer that the agency was “conducting a broad public discussion of the future of I-345”.

“The recommendation was the result of hundreds of stakeholder meetings, elected official briefings and broad public participation and public meetings with thousands of comments received,” Hartzel said.

There were several variants of the I-345 on the table. It can be left as is, removed, lowered or raised. Hartzel said more than half of the respondents in the latest round of public meetings supported the hybrid plan. According to him, traffic studies have shown that the travel time of some passengers will increase by 30-50% during peak hours if I-345 is removed. For TxDOT, this meant removal was not a viable option.

“While all stakeholders will not agree on a single solution,” Harzel said, “the TxDOT process has developed an alternative that takes into account as many requests and goals as possible regarding mobility, connectivity, resilience and community cohesion.”

Roberts sees it all a little differently.

“What TxDOT was saying in some of the meetings they had was not that the removal was bad, but that it could negatively impact people,” Roberts said. “We really need to categorize what negative impact means. This does not mean that people cannot work. It just increases their travel time.”

He added: “But what you also get when you delete is a space that people can go to. Motorways just flow through the place. We want to create places where people go, not go. So it’s just a different understanding of what we need.”

As someone who lives in the area and works in urban planning, Roberts thought he heard if there were any plans in the works for I-345. “I didn’t know what TxDOT was doing, where they were in their process,” he said. “I think it comes from not really hearing from the community. What do the people who live in this area want?”

Now that the vote on the I-345 plan has been delayed, Roberts hopes that TxDOT, city council members and their staff will have time to consider the community’s wishes.