Oak Cliff Residents Want To See Neighborhoods Reconnected
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Where most people would see nothing but construction and traffic, some Oak Cliff residents see an opportunity.
TxDOT's Southern Gateway project will add main lanes to I-35 E and managed HOV lanes south of Downtown Dallas.
The project will eventually extend south through four cities, and total $2 billion dollars.
Right now, construction is still over a year away, but residents who live in communities impacted by the project are hoping to influence the design.
"Some of the main things we'd like to see would be to help with the noise issues in the neighborhoods that are nearby. Things that connect the neighborhoods instead of dividing them, like the first iteration of the freeway did," said Paull Carden.
Carden is the chair of a citizen task force appointed by Senator Royce West last March.
When RL Thornton Freeway was built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it carved through Oak Cliff, forcing people who lived in its path to move, cutting the community in two.
Carden says the bridges that pass over I-35E today are more car friendly than pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
"There are neighborhoods here where people used to walk across the street to visit each other. Now they have to drive or take a very long route around," said Carden.
For the last several months, the citizen task force has asked the community to weigh in on what they'd like to see in the design of the Southern Gateway project, and presented those ideas to TxDOT in public meetings.
Raymond Crawford, of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League, is an Oak Cliff native. He says it has long been a hope that an opportunity would come along with the possibility to reconnect the two sides of the neighborhood.
"I think it became acceptable that nothing would ever change and it really fell off everyone's radar. It just popped up on everyone's radar recently, and when it did, we saw an opportunity to support a project," said Crawford.
Walkability and bridging the two sides of the neighborhood are primary interests.
"We're not trying to fight the freeway being built in the first place, we're trying to make sure that it is built in a way that is conducive to the neighborhood," said Carden.
Two models of interest: Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, which connects over Woodall Rogers with greenspace; and the below-grade expansion of Central Expressway, which lowered lanes to reduce noise.
"This project would be a great opportunity to bring together both sides of Oak Cliff to have leisure activities, to have greater mobility, a place for people to gather and to get to know each other," said Crawford.
A park similar to Klyde Warren would take public-private partnership, but members of the task force say they feel TxDOT is listening, and carefully considering neighbors' concerns.
TxDOT is expected to finalize the design for the Southern Gateway in 2016. At least one public meeting will be held before that happens.
