The City Expects That By December 2012, You'll Be Able to Hike n' Bike the Santa Fe Trestle

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., May 18 2010 at 11:16 AM

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Sam's at the Trinity River Corridor Project Committee meeting -- lucky! (Too bad he don't liveblog like Andrea.) But whilst on the subject, let's look ahead to next week's council meeting, when the city will finally move forward on a project that been years in the making: construction of the Santa Fe Trestle Hike and Bike Trail. A couple of months ago, the city put out a call for bids and came up with one it likes courtesy Massana Construction Inc., which says it can carry out Halff Associate's design at the low, low price of $5,575,149.

Right -- you're wondering where the money's coming from. Well, remember how, back in November, the city submitted to the Texas Department of Transportation a list of "non-traditional transportation projects" it thought worthy of the federal funds via the Transportation Enhancement Program? In February, the feds said, "Sounds good!" and agreed to dole out $3,547,603, which means the city's only on the hook for the remaining $2,027,546, which'll come out of 1998 bond funds (from which Halff was paid its more than $1.4 million).

The trestle trail's always been part of the Trinity Master Plan -- it'll overlook the Standing Wave, in case you've forgotten -- and, per the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "provide bicycle and pedestrian access across the Trinity River to Moore Park, the future Trinity Levee Trails, DART services, Fair Park, and the Dallas Zoo." According to council docs, construction's supposed to begin in June and wrap just in time for the holiday season 2012. Merry Christmas!

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The city contractor seemed to have conveniently left out of the drawing plan of the "Standing Wave" that will go under the bridges. The old trestles provided an existing ROW for the trail and should have been incorporated and would have reduced costs tremendously while still would be in like kind with the historic "Warren Through Truss" Railroad bridge. To my knowledge DART never did the HABS/HAER Level IV documentation for the historic railroad bridge considered eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places and mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1969. Does a HABS/HAER Level IV report for the bridge exist? I would like to read that report if it exists. If not there should have been one done for the 404 Permit for the current construction for the "wave" and the "concrete trial" that are now being built. For those that work with agencies and others that have complained for years that the trestle poses an impedance to flow a simple remedy would have been to reduce some of the numerous existing trestle supports (leave every fourth support maybe) because they no longer have to support 65,000+ ton freight train loads, only a pedestrian trail. the existing supports could have been made more stable to stand up to high flows. This would have opened up the conveyance. However, the planned elevated trail ramparts winding across the river add even more to impedance of flow and the "snag effect" with low clearance and numerous structural supports as shown in the design. As planned the ambiance and historic integrity of the old railroad bridge has been totally compromised dwarfed and hidden by the DART rail bridge and further compromised by the concrete ramparts that are being built. Part of the purpose of the historic documentation is to record the bridge so it could be moved and a more modern structure of less significance be erected in it's place. The historic railroad bridge could be used downstream as the pedestrian trail bridge across the Trinity going from Lemmon Lake towards McCommas Bluff that would add to the setting.
Was this artist rendition done by the 9 yr old son of one of the Massana Construction Inc workers who had to tag along to work that day because he had a fever and found a Pentium 2 box in storage with a "3d graphics program" from 91?
Schluder, What projects were those? I don't remember any pedestrian road connecting Fair Park and Downtown?
it won't matter, the cyclists will ignore the moneyed trail and ride against the flow, fording the river or requiring us to regularly rescue them, sorta like they do now riding the wrong way down one-way streets parallel to the Veloway, which remains empty. I'm always glad to save an historic bridge, however.
So am I correct in assuming that this is in no way related to (nor going to connect with) the Santa Fe trail currently under construction? That trail is also one that starts and ends pretty much nowhere in its current form, though when they finish the bridge across Garland Road to White Rock, it'll at least start nowhere and end somewhere.
I just downloaded the PDF and looked at the map. It appears that this is a trail that goes from nowhere to nowhere. I hope it looks good as an art piece as viewed from the interstate because that's the only use it's going to get.
@Tom That was a popular strategy in this country during the 80's. As it turned out, in almost every case, It was a failure. Secondly, theres no need to tinker around with Main St. Considering (especially with the yesterday's Joule announcement) Main St. will soon be almost completely revitalized from the 1200 to 2000 block, it represents the most successful revitalized portion of downtown.
Those trestles snag debris and make an effective flood barrier. They will have to come out.
This could all be done in a much simpler way. Make Main a pedestrian walkway from Downtown through Deep Ellum to Fair Park. That would give Dallas it's own San Antonio like 'waterway'. Add cops walking on patrol, some lunch wagons, and electric carts to move people and you've got a new Dallas. Soon it would revitalize Downtown, Fair Park and Deep Ellum. Then carry the pedestrian walkway over a bridge (that people can walk across the river on) into South Dallas, and watch the real estate build up.? Note this will never work because it helps too many people and no developer would reap all the rewards - sadly that's the way Dallas usually works.