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Follow TURFFederal study backs single Dallas Trinity toll road route
Federal study backs single Dallas Trinity toll road route — or none at all
By ROBERT WILONSKY
Dallas Morning News
Published: 18 March 2014
Dallas will either get a toll road inside the Trinity River levees or there won’t be one at all.
That’s according to the Federal Highway Administration’s recently completed final environmental impact statement on the project. The study appears to give Dallas City Hall what it has long wanted: a somewhat clearer path toward building a nearly 9-mile toll road along the east levee of the Trinity River.
But the road ahead is still a bumpy one, and any construction would be years away. The city lacks the more than $1.5 billion needed to build the road. Other federal clearance is still required.
And the highway administration wants to evaluate the toll road’s impact on wetlands and flood plains between the levees. Those effects were rated unacceptable by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2009.
Tuesday’s report concludes a toll road just inside the east levee would be the “least environmentally damaging alternative” of all options presented — except for not building the road at all.
“Then let’s not build it,” said council member Philip Kingston, one of a handful of council members opposed to the toll road.
The FHWA won’t issue a final decision about the project until after an April 24 public hearing to gather input about the report. The federal agency is holding the hearing in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation and the North Texas Tollway Authority.
Several key hurdles to building the toll road, like securing funding, remain. The project also will require two permits from the corps. One allows an agency to modify an existing corps project — in this case, a flood plain. The other regulates changes to bodies of water overseen by the U.S. government and is required by the Clean Water Act.
The corps also is finalizing its own environmental impact study, which is expected to be given to council members April 14. Jim Frisinger, a spokesman for the corps’ Fort Worth District, said its contents will not be made available until shortly before that.
“They’re a little ahead of us, the parkway people,” Frisinger said.
Despite remaining steps, FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox said his agency’s final environmental impact statement is a key part of the process.
“The FEIS is a milestone,” he said.
Hecox said barring any surprises at next month’s hearing, his agency will support the option to build just inside the east levee. Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan, who oversees the Trinity River Corridor Project, was delighted Tuesday.
Jordan said the least environmentally disruptive route has always been Dallas’ preference. That option is labeled 3C in the report.
“We were hopeful the record of decision would point in the direction of 3C, and the fact they’re getting to that conclusion eventually supports the city’s position and desired outcome,” she said.
Still, there are caveats that came with the FHWA’s conclusion. The massive document said that general policy “would not favor such an alternative” at all as going inside the levees.
The report says it’s recommending the route “for further evaluation” based solely on “a unique set of factors that warrant favoring” such an alternative.
The federal government says in the study that it has allowed the so-called 3C plan to survive this long because the toll road has been designed to avoid substantial impacts of the Trinity River flood plain to perform its “fundamental mission of safely conveying floodwaters from extreme storm events” past downtown Dallas.
The study also notes the toll road has been a prominent aspect of Dallas city planning for more than 40 years.
Kingston criticized the report for being influenced by Dallas politics and planning.
“It doesn’t seem responsible to allow Dallas’ zeal to build this road to affect an outcome of an environmental impact statement,” he said.
The NTTA has first shot at building the toll road. But it will first conduct its own revenue study to determine, among other things, how many people would use it and whether it makes financial sense to fund it.
Jordan said once all federal clearances are reached, a funding plan will be put in place. Then the design phase can begin.
“Construction could be several years off,” she said.
AT A GLANCE: The preferred route
Description: Preferred by the city, this option would put the toll road to the inside the east levee. It would run 8.67 miles, with about 6.2 miles in the floodway.
Total cost: at least $1.46 billion (2013 dollars)
Environmental mitigation cost: $22.9 million
Operating and maintenance costs: $597.8 million (2012 dollars)
Buildings destroyed: 30 (27 commercial)
Pro: It’s cheaper, faster and less disruptive to business. It also would leave Riverfront Boulevard open to commercial development.
Con: It puts a six-lane toll road right in the middle of the floodway, something that has never been done. Critics say it mars the parklike atmosphere and needlessly adds strain to the aging levees that protect Dallas from floods. Federal law prohibits a project from elevating flood levels, and this alternative would do so slightly. The corps could issue a waiver to permit the higher water if it felt the associated risks were small enough.