Patrick Michels

The scene at City Hall on the morning of January 27, 2011.

It's been more than three years since the City of Dallas first began moving CNG-powered cabs to the front of the line of taxis at Love Field. The protesters have long since vacated the City Hall plaza, and the city's attention has inevitably drifted. But through it all, the cabbies have never lost hope that their gas guzzlers might once again be allowed at the front of the queue, nor have they given up their legal fight, even after having their asses handed to them in federal court.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt their dreams a possibly fatal blow last week when a three-judge panel emphatically denied the appeal filed by the Association of Taxicab Operators, agreeing with the lower court's decision to grant the city's request for summary judgment.

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Last May, after conquering Central Expressway by stopping traffic and graffitiing the pavement as an inexplicable memorial to a fallen comrade, stunt bikers planned to do much the same to the newly opened Calatrava. But a heavy -- and heavy-handed -- police presence derailed those plans.

Really, though, they'd only pressed pause. A group of them showed up on the bridge last night and formed a traffic-stopping wall of crotch rocket. Who knows what havoc they would have wreaked if it weren't for Fox 4.

See also
After Conquering Central Expressway, Stunt Riders Take on Calatrava this Weekend
Chris Moore, the Biker who Caught His Shady Arrest on Video, is Suing the Cop Who Pulled Him Over and Took His Helmet Cam

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City of Dallas

Bike parking could soon be a requirement in Dallas. The misguided croquet theme, we hope, will not.

Last year, as part of its ever-so-hesitant embrace of things that aren't cars, the city of Dallas eased its parking requirements a bit. The idea was that, by shrinking the sea of asphalt the city requires shops and restaurants to surround themselves with, the measure would help foster the denser, more walkable development the city hopes to encourage.

But that was the beginning, not the end, of the city's parking revisions. Currently on the City Council's plate are three more parking tweaks: One does away entirely with the requirement that downtown shops and small restaurants provide parking; another would allow robotic parking warehouses; the third would require every new development in the city to offer parking for bicycles.

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bikescore.com

Walk Score became a thing almost as soon as the company first began rating the pedestrian-friendliness of cities and neighborhoods in 2007. By now, it's so firmly established that it's worked its way into the vernacular of real estate and urban planning. Zillow, for example, includes a walk score for every property it lists, and Phoenix used the data to determine where to locate light-rail stations.

A year ago, the company branched out into wheeled transport and began giving a bike score to an ever-expanding circle of neighborhoods and cities. That circle now includes Dallas.

The results aren't particularly surprising. Dallas as a whole gets a 41 out of 100, earning it a "Somewhat Bikeable" which, given that the label applies to everything with a 0 and above, isn't exactly a compliment. It's certainly well short of making Dallas a "Biker's Paradise" (which, to be fair, not even biking mecca Portland achieves) or "Very Bikeable" or even just "Bikeable," which requires a score of 50.

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Tesla

Tesla's bid to sell cars directly to Texas consumers, thus bypassing the state's deep-pocketed car dealers, came up short this legislative session. But that's not stopping the electric car company from edging its way into the Texas automotive market.

Tesla announced Thursday that it's tripling the number of Tesla Supercharger stations, with plans to open one by the end of June between Dallas and Austin. Within a year, the network will "stretch across the continent, covering almost the entire population of the U.S. and Canada," the company says.

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Fresh off its registration-blocking, car-impounding victory in the state legislature this month, the North Texas Tollway Authority is hiking the cost of driving on its roads.

The agency announced this morning that toll rates are increasing by slightly less than a penny per mile come July 1, from 15.3 cents to 16.2 cents.

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DART

In the end, it wasn't the opposition of the Fort Worth City Council that killed the Cotton Belt project, nor was it the opposition from neighbors in North Dallas. Not directly, at least. Rather, the 62-mile commuter rail that would run from Plano to Fort Worth, died a quiet death at the state legislature in Austin.

State Senator John Carona's bill to create a special taxing districtrail improvement district to fund the $2 billion-plus project never made it out of committee, effectively ending its chances of being completed as transportation planners had envisioned.

The Star-Telegram's Gordon Dickson does a thorough post-mortem on the project. The bill's death in the legislature means a still mostly mysterious group of private developers and construction interests won't be offering to help pick up the tab as was initially planned.

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Dallas Trinity Trails

When the city first began putting down bike lanes last year, it was hard to divine if there was any grander vision than simply flinging paint at random patches of asphalt. In a century or so, we figured, they'd coalesce into the long-awaited Dallas Bike Plan. Until then, we were left to puzzle over how a lonely mile of bike lane on Malcolm X Boulevard or Main Street was supposed to help cyclists get any place useful.

But wait. It seems that logic has emerged from the expanding tangle of bike paths. On Saturday, the city, DART and various trail groups will unveil the CentraLink, which is the somewhat awkward name for the cluster of bike lanes downtown that now connect all the downtown-area trails -- the Santa Fe, Katy and Trinity Strand -- with Union Station and the the Jefferson Cycle Track.

See also
- City Will Add 70 Miles of Bike Lanes by the End of 2014. Beyond that, Things Get Complicated.
- To The Guy Who Thought It Was Funny to Shoot Me With a Paintball Gun on the Santa Fe Trail: You're a Dick

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anewdallas.com

There would be some practical questions that would have to be answered if the Texas Department of Transportation decided to tear down I-345, the short stump of Central Expressway between Woodall Rodgers and Interstate 30. Where will one find shade at Bark Park Central? Where will those artsy, bohemian types paint their highway-pillar "Welcome to Deep Ellum" murals? And, more important, what about the 160,000 cars that travel through the corridor every day?

Those questions are academic at this point. TxDOT's planning to rebuild the freeway, not raze it. A spokesman told Unfair Park in November that the latter option is very, very remote but not completely off the table. It would simply require "a lot of money and a lot of permits and buy-off by all the stakeholders."

Patrick Kennedy, the arch-nemesis of freeways and I-345 in particular, is hoping to get the ball rolling. In February, he penned a piece for D arguing that getting rid of the 1.4-mile stretch of elevated freeway would spur $4 billion in development. The traffic, he wrote, could easily be handled by Elm, Ross, Live Oak and other existing streets.

See also:
TxDOT Wondering What to Do With Bridge Between I-30 and Woodall Rodgers. (Hint: They're Not Going to Tear It Down)

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Drivers and liberals can breathe easy: Central Expressway is still officially Central Expressway. The state legislature opted over the weekend to retain the familiar name for the roadway's entire length.

That said, the three-and-a-half mile stretch between Knox Street and Northwest Highway will also be called George W. Bush Expressway. The measure has now passed both chambers and was sent to the governor's desk over the weekend. All it needs now is Rick Perry's signature which, though the two men have had their differences, is not going to be withheld.

See also
A Dallas Lawmaker Wants to Turn Central into George W. Bush Expressway
The House Voted to Rename Central for George W. Bush

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