Trinity quick hits

Truckin’
The best coverage of the debates I have seen by far is from Sam Merton over at Dallas Blog. Here he confirms that ex-councilman Bill Blaydes has agreed that trucks will be allowed on the highway.

I wonder if The Dallas Morning News plans to ignore the fact that trucks will be rolling down the Belo Tollway up through the election, which is the opposite of what we’ve been told since this project morphed into a tollroad and is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. I would think the EPA might have something to say about a truck route running through the middle of a non-attainment area; or through a nature preserve. Nothing like a major news daily sticking its head in the ground.

Signs signs everywhere signs
On my early morning run this morning I noticed that the signs have been sprouting up. There were four “Vote No Pave the Trinity” signs along McCree, a fairly well-traveled road in Lake Highlands. It appears that the Vote No folks hit McCree specifically because I saw no other “Vote No” signs in the neighborhood. Only counted two “Vote Yes” signs on my route (including mine), so by that measure it doesn’t look good. But there is a HUGE “Vote Yes” sign on Audelia just north of NW Highway. The town hall attendees and the blogosphere appear to be 99% on the Vote Yes side. The Advocate online poll had 77% on the Vote Yes side.

The Vote No people are smart. Their slogan is “Save the Trinity.” Remember that they want to build a big highway inside the levees. So they’re trying to save their vision of the Trinity Corridor Project, not the river itself. It’s a sneaky slogan and it might get some folks to unwittingly vote their way. But the people that are informed and motivated to go to the polls will know which way to mark their ballot. All the Vote Yes folks are smart enough to ignore the propaganda streaming from the DMN so they won’t be fooled by a slogan.

Floodin’ down in Texas
I don’t hear too much about the fact that this road project will take up precious cubic feet from our flood control system. The next time there is a big flood in Dallas, if there is a big road displacing water inside the levees, people will finally realize why this was such a bad idea. From the beginning this has been my major point of contention with this project. You don’t stick something that big in an area that is designed to channel flood water out of your city. So I was glad to see this on the talking point sheet provided to me by the Trinity Vote folks who left us our yard sign.

Ground control to Mayor Tom
The front page of the Morning News this morning had a huge headline about all the money that will be lost by the city if the referendum passes. They appropriately reported that all the flood control and much of the park is funded regardless of the outcome. There was no new information as far as I could tell with the exception of one thing. There is a contention that was printed as fact that Dallas’ contribution to the highway is “capped” based on the original 1998 bond referendum. I’m suspicious of this claim – perhaps someone with a more investigative bent than myself will challenge it.