Mockingbird Lane

[Cheesesteak]

HP may change course on Mockingbird plans
Council to consider narrowing street instead of widening it

Wednesday, February 15, 2006
By KRISTEN HOLLAND / The Dallas Morning News

HIGHLAND PARK – After months of wrangling over conceptual plans that include widening Mockingbird Lane between Hillcrest Avenue and the Dallas North Tollway, an unlikely idea has been thrown into the mix – narrowing the thoroughfare.

Council member Helen Mann received a positive response when she broached the concept at Monday's 2 ½ -hour council meeting.

"Would the street be safer if it were made more narrow between Hillcrest and Fairfield?" she asked Meran Dadgostar, town engineer.

"Yes," Mr. Dadgostar said, sparking a flurry of cheers throughout the audience.

The concept is only an idea at this point, but it's one several council members asked the town staff to investigate. Mayor Bill White said he's not opposed to narrowing the street, except at intersections where left-turn lanes have been proposed – at Byron Avenue, Golf Drive and High School Avenue.

"To me, the primary benefit of the proposed three left-turn lanes is to allow people to get to the Armstrong [Elementary] School" and their homes, he said. "It becomes a safety issue for our residents."

But the mayor said that narrowing Mockingbird would only exacerbate the traffic congestion that widening the road was supposed to relieve.

Council members refused a request by the staff to begin preliminary designs on the road. Instead, they tabled further discussions until the questions raised at the meeting can be answered.

"I personally would like to hear more," Mayor Pro Tem Andy Smith said at the meeting. "I don't think we have been rushing, but why start now."

Mockingbird Lane is 30 to 31 feet wide and in disrepair. Town officials have wanted to widen and repair the street to ease traffic congestion and improve safety. Prior conceptual plans have called for most of Mockingbird to be widened to between 32 and 34 feet. The stretch from Lomo Alto Drive to the Dallas North Tollway would be expanded to between 36 to 38 feet wide so an additional turn lane could be added.

The most recent plan, presented Monday before the discussion about narrowing the road, calls for widening only between Preston Road and the tollway. It also includes the three – rather than nine – new left-turn lanes between Hillcrest and Fairfield avenues.

Mr. Dadgostar has said that the conceptual plans are merely a starting point and only about "5 percent complete."

The original concept to widen Mockingbird has been sharply criticized by residents. It prompted them to again overflow the town's council chambers for Monday's meeting.

Many of the two dozen residents who spoke Monday tied their remarks to safety. Two elementary schools and a middle/intermediate school campus either back up to or are within walking distance of Mockingbird.

Sarah Clark urged the council to retain the curb lines between Douglas Avenue and Lomo Alto, as they recently proposed doing between Hillcrest and Fairfield. Mrs. Clark said she routinely sees drivers run the red light at the intersection Bradfield Elementary backs up to.

"The issue is not about enforcement," said Mrs. Clark, who lives a block north of Mockingbird. "Enforcement is too late when a kid jumps out into the street. You need to design something for these kids that's safe."

[Vitale]

Brilliant. Take a street that's always congested and make it narrower. Maybe they can drag out the decision for months, and then spend years screwing up one of the only roads that leads to Ford Stadium.
Only in Highland Park.

[abezontar]

Whatever happend to the idea of a toll tunnel underneath Mockingbird that was to go from central to the north tollway, to love field and ending at 35?

[EastStang]

Several years ago when I went back to SMU for a reunion, I was driving down Mockingbird and as soon as I crossed the Toll Road I notice like every house was for sale for two blocks. I commented to my wife at the time, I wonder what's happening here? Was that because of the road widening discussions?

[Bergermeister]

It's because most of the people in those homes died from carbon monoxide poisoning from the automobile exhaust of cars stacked up waiting for the light at the Tollway.

[McClown27]

Brilliant. Take a street that's always congested and make it narrower. Maybe they can drag out the decision for months, and then spend years screwing up one of the only roads that leads to Ford Stadium.
Only in Highland Park.

I think they should put gates up. That way, they can zip around really fast.