On a chilly, muggy morning, I stood on the edge of a street in Downtown Dallas.
In my outstretched hand was a paper cup filled with water. To my left were dozens of runners, making their way down Main Street. Above me was a noisy highway viaduct.
I was grateful for the viaduct on this morning. For there was a chance of rain, and its cover would keep me dry.
The runners would also likely be grateful for a brief respite from the elements during their race.
But on most other days, what lay above us was a hot-button topic.
The viaduct, you see, connects two highways. One of them meanders through Dallas’ vast northern suburbs and continues for about 80 miles until it crosses into Oklahoma. The other connects Dallas to Houston, roughly 250 miles to the southeast.
When the structure went up in 1973, it was likely met with little more than a shrug. Development hadn’t reached this part of downtown, and the neighborhood that abutted it — Deep Ellum — was a slum. Stitching the highways together made perfect sense.
But now, plenty of activists want it demolished.
They see the viaduct as a divider, separating a reborn Deep Ellum from Dallas’ Downtown. And they think removing the highway will solve the problem.
Spoiler alert: It won’t.
The discussion over removing an elevated highway from Dallas is a local issue. It could impact city neighborhoods, as well as drivers traversing through town.
The story should begin and end there. But it doesn’t.
You see, this topic has gotten the ear of an activist posse based miles and miles from Dallas, Texas. A posse that seeks to replace urban interstates with parks, boulevards with bikeways, and side streets with pedestrian promenades.
This posse has zeroed in on several American cities as targets.
St. Paul, Minnesota. Kansas City, Missouri. New Orleans, Louisiana. Atlanta, Georgia. And yes, Dallas, Texas.
All these cities are far from this posse’s base. And yet, the posse sees itself as a savior meant to right the wrongs these municipalities endured.
The leaders of this activist posse point to an acknowledged fact. Highways have, in fact, torn apart city neighborhoods. But the proposed “cure” of effectively banishing all motorized transportation in cities is several bridges too far.
Hashing a universal urban future in the image of a Brooklyn hipster enclave is not righteous. It’s not idyllic.
If anything, it’s shortsighted and delusional. It’s opening Pandora’s Box to a parade of unsavory side effects.
Let’s look at why that is.
If you were pressed to choose one word that defines America, what would it be?
Freedom? Democracy? Fireworks?
All are good choices. Yet, I wouldn’t pick any of them.
My one-word definition of America is Movement.
It’s been at our core from the start.
Movement was behind Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road. Movement was behind Manifest Destiny and the Oregon Trail. Movement was behind the Transcontinental Railway, the jumbo jet, and — yes — the Interstate Highway network.
Our willingness to uproot ourselves in search of better opportunities, better resources, and a better life is well-known. And the innovations spawned by this commitment transformed America from a fledgling nation into a superpower.
Transportation was part and parcel with this narrative. Indeed, many cities an America’s interior grew and blossomed with the advent of steamships and train tracks.
Cities like St. Paul, Minnesota. Cities like Kansas City, Missouri. Cities like New Orleans, Louisiana. Cities like Atlanta, Georgia. Cities like Dallas, Texas.
The advent of the automobile helped these cities grow ever further. No longer did homes and businesses need to be within a stone’s throw of the port or depot. The footprint could expand exponentially.
The incursion of high-speed highways eventually cut into this growth, of course. It divided some neighborhoods and left visible scars on the city grids.
But I would argue such disruption amounted to a setback, rather than a crisis, in these cities.
After all, these metropolises were forged by transportation. And now, the encroaching ribbons of blacktop provided its residents new opportunity.
Opportunity to get fresh goods from other corners of the country, quickly and efficiently. Opportunity to build a new house on a generous plot of land without sacrificing that steady job downtown. Opportunity to get away to that city, mountain village, or beach town without spending half the day on a crowded, slow-moving train.
You see, transportation is part of the culture in broad swaths of America. But it runs so much deeper than that.
Indeed, so many aspects of cities that the activist posse members loathe turn out to be more feature than bug in the wild. Urban sprawl, supermarkets, parking lots outside malls and sports arenas — these have value for the people using them.
Sure, such constructs create massive hurdles for those without sufficient transportation access in these regions. But those hurdles were, sadly, not caused by the advent of transportation. And as such, its removal will do little to level the playing field.
Why does all this matter? Well, let’s consider what happens when we remove modes of transportation from cities built upon them.
Let’s say we tore out a highway — such as that one in Dallas — and replaced it with nothing. Some of those scars on the cityscape might heal. But they’d be replaced by a fresh nuisance — gridlock traffic.
People are not going to suddenly uproot their lifestyle just because a highway is gone. If they’re used to traveling to — or through — the city center, they’ll keep doing it.
But with less room for all those vehicles, remaining roadways would get clogged up quickly as a result. And this would be a nightmare for everyone.
Travel times would increase. Emergency services would have trouble getting through. Trucks would face delays ferrying goods to stores.
It would look a lot like that view across the river from the Brooklyn hipster’s neighborhood. An endless parade of headlights and taillights. A cacophony of car horns.
Perhaps this is why some in the activist posse want motorized transportation banned. Shifting cities back to the good old days would seemingly make neighborhoods vibrant, while exiling the ills of transportation culture.
But there were no good old days for cities built on transportation. So, rewriting history will only serve to punish countless residents. It will force substantial sacrifices with only fleeting rewards in return.
It will backfire. Badly.
There’s a 5-mile path in Dallas’ Uptown neighborhood that I’ve moseyed down from time to time.
It’s called the Katy Trail, and it was built on an old rail line. It’s elevated over street level, providing a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of the city below.
The Katy Trail is just one example of an urban trail oasis. The BeltLine in Atlanta, Georgia is another. So is the River Line in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I am thankful these trails exist. But I’m also glad the rest of the space in these cities doesn’t look like them.
There is a need for recreational activities in cities. And there is a need for vibrant neighborhoods.
But there is also a need for transportation. A need to get around town, and out of it. A need for people to get essential goods and services in a timely fashion.
Is it worth giving all that up so that some faraway hipster activist can live out their own idyllic urban fantasy? I don’t think so.
So, yes. I was grateful for that highway viaduct in Dallas once. I still am.
But more than that, I’m fearful of what might happen if it were gone.