Will Dallas Buckle Under the Weight of So Much Asphalt?

What we’re witnessing today is a generational divide where outdated philosophies are represented by a leadership that refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that their children are all saying, “I’d rather live in Austin/Portland/NY/SF/Chicago than Dallas.” Stubbornly, the parents keep saying, “they’ll come back for the jobs,” without realizing that the jobs are starting to go where the people want to be. We’re well aware of the $1.4 billion levee toll road, and the Winfrey Point parking debacle at the Dallas Arboretum (both ironic due to their nature vs. machine conflict), but another instance also making the news is the “lack of parking” headlines in the historic (and walkable) Bishop Arts District. Every week we’re seeing one costly issue after another related to our endless pursuit of maintaining unsustainable suburban development patterns, and the solutions are always the same: take more land, and give it to cars. For some reason, the adage “When you’re in a hole, stop digging” has been completely ignored, and I’m beginning to become numb to the monthly, “I’m finally leaving Dallas!” emails that friends keep sending me.

While other major US cities are disincentivizing auto use and incentivizing mixed transportation models in order to balance their costly strain on infrastructure, we continue to do the reverse.  It’s obvious that our leadership is going to have to eventually take a stand (and a few arrows) and say, "we’re going to have to try something different," or else they’re going to be the embarrassing “Before” picture to an eventual leader who decides to take the inevitable path that every other city around them is taking. Like George Wallace in 1963, Dallas is waiting for its Bobby Kennedy.