Trinity Updates

Mayor Tom and Angela Hunt debated the toll road last night. Ms. Hunt's big applause line, when being pressed to offer an alternate route for the road:

"There are lots of places we can put this road, and only one place we can put the park," she said. "So where is your alternative for the park?"

Also, here is a good post from Jeff Siegel last week over at the Advocate blog. It is from a discussion with State Senator John Corona, who is of course pro toll-road. But he's honest about it. He would prefer a free road outside the park, but knows that it must have some private funding and therefore the land needs to be free to make it "commercially viable." I guess the tax payers will be picking up the tab as the price continues to spiral. It appears to be all about fixing the I30-I35 mixmaster according to this post. I recall Jim Schutze addressing the contention that this road is needed before the mixmaster can be fixed and I believe his opinion was this was a myth.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson also joined the pro-toll road folks last week. Earlier this year she blew a hole in the pro-toll road crowd's assertion that if we don't build the road where it is planned all the financing will dry up. She's not backing off that statement, but has reversed herself on the vote. Now she thinks a vote on the placement of the road is a waste of time and money. She has been assimilated. Too bad.

UPDATE:
Check out Matt Pulle's reporting of the debate over at Unfair Park. It appears that the audience was overwhelmingly anti-toll road and was cheering Angela Hunt and Sandy Greyson at every turn. Also read the third comment down by a reader named Jason Eric. Great post. He illustrates very well the divide between the old way of thinking (build more roads) and the new way Dallas needs to be thinking (more mass transit).