Riding the Trails in Dallas

I (Charlie) was in Dallas for Thanksgiving and decided I needed to do some more exploring of the ever growing Dallas Trails network.  My spouse’s parents live right near Central Expressway and Walnut Hill, so, I jumped on my bike ready to do a circuit of a good portion of central Dallas.  I found the most useful info from the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail group, which is a new rail trail south and east of White Rock Lake.

First, I rode north to Meadow Road which provided an easy crossing under Central Expressway, then left onto Greenville Road for a short but trafficiky ride (without sidewalks despite a major park / ballfield complex – grr!) over the the eastside of White Rock Creek.  There I actually headed north to check out the recently constructed Cottonwood Trail primarily so I could check out the under Central Expressway / 635 interchange trail crossing.  It’s pretty amazing how they threaded about 1/3 of a mile of trail under the interchange and while quite noisy, it was very impressive, as it provides a connection to the trail system north in Richardson.  Here’s a few photos showing the route and some of the artwork along the interchange walls.

View to the south on the TxDot Interchange trail

The Interchange trail flows right into the Cottonwood Trail – an spur of off the White Rock Creek Trail, with a number of links into existing parks as well as a light rail station connection (very nice)  So, the photos are showing the progression of the trail as I headed south on my bike.

Trailhead at Central Expressway

Light Rail Station / Parking Lot / Native Landscaping Next to Trail

Soon enough, I was back on the main (and older) section of the trail along White Rock Creek.  Yellow and red leaves were fluttering down as I continued south along the trail, which is subject to flooding.  Here and there I saw portions of the creek banks, which showed telltale signs of urbanizing.

At Northwest Highway, they are rebuilding a portion of the street, so I had to use a detour, riding east a short way to the light rail station entrance, using the traffic signals to cross Northwest Highway and then make my way on the street heading south to the park to hook up with the trail around White Rock Lake.

Once on the trail, I headed east to use the trail along the eastern shore. The wind was blowing from the south at about 10-15 miles per hour, so it was at times, a bit slow going.

I eventually passed the Arborteum and made it to the “falls” at the southern end of White Rock Lake, where I stopped to pause at the reworked plaza, then headed across the bridge, and then a bit north, before taking a left onto the new Santa Fe Trail heading south.

White Rock Lake Plaza at the falls

This is a new trail on an old railroad bed built just this past year and takes you through southeast Dallas to the edge of Deep Ellum somewhat abruptly.  There, I made my way a few blocks north to Elm where I headed west through the heart of Deep Ellum to Downtown Dallas.

For those of you worried about riding in traffic, it was Black Friday, but just after lunchtime and the traffic wasn’t too great in the downtown area. Once downtown, I stayed in the bus lane (always a good choice) along Elm and then headed north to see the progress on the forthcoming Woodall Rogers Park (aka the Park)

The park is showing some great progress with the work on the tunnel completed and the pipes for irrigation, structures for structures and improvements and everything going in.  There are even custom built holes for the trees to be planted (very cool).

Museum Tower Condos rises above the Park

One of many holes for trees to be planted.

After looking around a bit, I threaded my way over the American Airlines arena, then onto the Katy Trail and back up through Highland Park to the dreaded intersection at NorthPark mall again waiting to cross Northwest Highway.

A great ride overall – about 35 miles.  Looking good, Dallas.

Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston

With a free late afternoon to wander, I went to the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston to check it out. The other times I’ve been here it’s been (a) pouring rain or (b) covered in lots of snow, it was great to be out there on a 65 degree sunny October afternoon.  While the regular markets and other events weren’t happening today, it was still pretty great.

For those of you that don’t know, this was previously the site of a six elevated freeway that was replaced by the big dig back in the 1990s / early 2000s.

Memories of Parks Past in San Jose, CA

For a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I lived in the Bay Area of California and we bought our first house (1088 sq ft, built in 1923) in San Jose CA on Atlanta Ave.  Our main street was Bird Ave and it had a number of vacant city owned lots along Bird as well as big empty median in the middle.  At one point, we met good friends Ken and Debbie and helped build some of the first fences around parks, plant trees and paint out graffiti.  We recently returned to visit Ken and Debbie and check out the actual official parks (2) and the six 15 gallon trees I planted back in 1992 in that big empty median on Bird Avenue with help from the city arborist.

Cool Art in Cameron Park, Waco

Great use of willow stalks harvested from the nearby river at Cameron Park in Waco which we saw on a recent visit.

You can walk through the willow constructed artwork

 

Thinking Big in Oklahoma City

APF Blog:

Trip to Dallas and Oklahoma City

By Jill Nokes, APF Board President

 On this blog a few weeks ago, Charlie shared photos and a progress report on the Woodall Rogers Park in Dallas.  If you remember, this 5.2 acre park is being built on a huge concrete deck spanning an eight lane freeway, and when completed, will provide a link between the arts district downtown and new and emerging residential neighborhoods to the west?

Our friend Linda Owen, CEO of this ambitious project, invited me to Dallas to attend a symposium : “The Designed Landscape in Dallas” at the Nasher Sculpture Center.  This was an opportunity to hear from some of the most well known and prolific landscape architects in the nation, beginning with Peter Walker, Gary Hilderbrand, Michael Van Valkenburgh, and James Burnett, whose office developed the plan for “The Park” and is overseeing its construction.

On Saturday, Linda and I, and the lead planner/architect for Dallas Parks Department Willis Winters, traveled to Oklahoma City to attend the “soft” opening of Myriad Parks, another urban space designed by The Office of Jim Burnett.  I say “soft”, because despite a fast-track construction schedule, the park was not quite completed, but since an annual art fair had always traditionally taken place on this weekend in the park before it’s renovation, it was decided to open it anyway and give everyone a preview. The scheduled completion date is in June.

Children's Garden Area

And come they did.  One city official estimated that there were 100,000 people strolling the 12 acre site, looking at the art booths and eating snacks, but also exploring areas that had previously been inaccessible or so overgrown as to be forbidding to most visitors, except weather-hardened transients.

I was told that Myriad Park had been an unfinished and then neglected city space that consisted of a lake, a strangely wonderful but marooned “Crystal Bridge Conservatory” (designed by I.M. Pei), surrounded by huge berms (spoils from the lake’s excavation), which resulted in a forbidding perimeter, and also a security issue.

You can see on the map all the features the renovated park includes: a children’s garden, several restaurants and concession kiosks, at least two performance spaces, a place for an ice rink in the winter, ornamental plantings, and a re-designed lakeside shoreline and terraced hillside. “Oklahoma streams” and other water features such as rills, and a fun “wave fountain” instantly delighted both children and grownups.  Some of the berms were left or only moderately re-shaped, preserving the best of the mature trees and providing higher place for picnics and resting.

I was really impressed by the quality of detail in the paving and pathways, the careful thought given to circulation, the variety of spaces for crowds and also for solitude, program opportunities, and festivals such as the one happening on that day.

This park instantly transformed the heart of downtown, and that was evident on the faces of every visitor there.  But city leaders also recognized what the park has set in motion, and has subsequently hired the Office of James Burnett to re-design the downtown grid of streets: changing one-way streets to two-way, with narrower lanes, broader sidewalks, and street trees.  Instead of placing a priority of getting office workers out of town as quickly as possible, this new plan will make it easier to park on the streets, will slow down traffic, and will encourage more outdoor cafes and pedestrian movement.

Myriad Gardens were funded through Tax Increment Financing (or TIF) funds lead by the CEO of Devon Energy, who is building a skyscraper office headquarters for his company just across the street from the park.  I was told that before “Myriad Park” was paid for by bake sales. The non-profit friends of the park group essentially built the park by asking folks to donate $100 for a tree.  But this new arrangement allowed Oklahoma City to think big, and to build on that excitement and instant community benefit by continuing to invest in other public space amenities such as the boat houses on the Oklahoma River.

When we visited the boat houses, there were three colleges finishing up a morning’s race or practice on the river.  The Oklahoma River has about as much scenic beauty as the bottom of Mansfield Dam – no trees or natural life along the shore, just gravel cobble – a typical Corp of Engineers aesthetic.  But I am sure the rowers enjoyed the spacious boat slips, the permanently marked lanes, and the state of the art digital timing board.

Again, they are thinking big in Oklahoma City, a city that is smaller than Austin, and with less caché than we claim to have.  But they are way ahead of us in terms of investing in public works that add to a shared quality of life and shape the way city development will unfold in the future.

Downtown Dallas: Main Street Garden

Another set of photos from our weekend trip to Dallas – Main Street Garden is a new park developed by the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department and operated by Downtown Dallas.  It has a large lawn area, moveable seating, a cafe, wifi, piped in music, a small playscape and a gated off-leash area.  On Saturday evening around 9 pm, there were about 50 people at the cafe, in the off leash area, sitting on benches and walking around.  Good sign I’d say.

Meanwhile in Dallas – Woodall Rodgers Park Under Construction

We took a quick trip up to Dallas to visit a friend on the mend from a big injury and surgery and I visited the currently under construction Woodall Rodgers Park, also known as The Park in Dallas.  It’s a 5.2 acre deck park over a portion of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway that will connect Downtown Dallas at the Arts District with the booming uptown district.

The Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation is building and will operate the park, raising funding and working closely with both TXDOT and the City of Dallas Parks and Recreation Department, the latter through a public/private partnership.

NYC: HighLine In The Snow

Due to an uplanned extra five days of vacation in the northeast USA (that snow storm you might have heard about) so we took the train from Boston to New York and spent a day and a half visiting the slushy streets of New York.  I really wanted to see the first section of the High Line – once an elevated railway, now a park.

The first of three segments opened this spring, it’s in the Meatpacking District of NYC.  Friends of the High Line are developing and maintaining the new park as part of a public/private partnership with the City of New York Parks Department. When all three sections of the High Line are open, it will be a mile and a half long.

Main Plaza San Antonio

It is amazing what happens when you leave the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio.  You discover the rest of San Antonio. We discovered Main Plaza, operated by the Main Plaza Conservancy a few weeks ago.  It has many of the right things going for it, including vendor, moveable tables and chairs, foundations, shade and events.

Riverwalk Museum Reach In San Antonio

Mom was visiting over the weekend, so we took a break and made a trip down to San Antonio, where we walked much of the new (2009) portion of the Riverwalk on Museum Reach.  Great examples of an urban path (a few quibbles about the trail not being wide enough in sections) but wanted to share some photos taken for a little inspiration.  They are now working on the longer and more complicated southern segment to connect to all of the missions.  More photos here.