A Decade Later And The Mockingbird Pedestrian Bridge Still Not Built
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A grieving Texas family has reached out to the City of Dallas to ask what is being done to prevent another person from dying trying to cross Mockingbird Lane.
Gary Murray, 53, was hit and killed Friday evening while using the crosswalk on Mockingbird Lane at the Central Expressway.Councilman Philip Kingston said the Murray family called him this week.
"They were very explicit about saying what they wanted is to make sure this doesn't happen to somebody else," said Kingston. Less than a hundred yards east on Mockingbird from where Murray was hit is the site of a future pedestrian bridge. The Mockingbird pedestrian bridge is scheduled for completion in March 2017, but many say it should have been done years ago.
The project was approved by city 11 years ago. Kingston said the "extreme lack of urgency" by the city in constructing the bridge is frustrating. The city's public works said difficulty in acquiring private land needed to build the bridge, along with several redesigns of the bridge lead to the delay in completing the project.
For comparison, another pedestrian bridge crossing Harry Hines near Walnut Hill Lane is near completion. It was approved by the city eight years after the Mockingbird bridge.
"Why did one happen instantly and the other one has dragged on?" Kingston said. "I don't have a good answer for that."
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