Texas cities want millennials living downtown. So why does the state keep building highways to the suburbs?
June 29th, 2018
June 26, 2018 - Texas Tribune - by Brandon Formby -
Less than 1 percent of TXDOT's budget is earmarked for public transit
As young, educated professionals push away old ideas about how to move around Texas cities, transportation planners’ vision for the future is still largely influenced by the past
DALLAS — As the neighborhoods in and around downtown Dallas redeveloped in recent decades, they became hotbeds for millennials who, more than their parents did, rely on everything from walking and shared bikes to light-rail trains and ride-hailing apps to get around.
The same dynamic has played out in other Texas cities as people with college degrees and higher incomes return to the inner city neighborhoods that previous generations abandoned for the suburbs. But car ownership is still a necessity in most of the state’s urban areas, which still trail other American metros in luring educated young professionals — who in turn help attract new businesses and sustain government coffers.
That’s a conundrum for transportation planners like Kevin Feldt, who spends his workdays inside a nondescript Arlington office building trying to figure out how to build North Texas’ future transportation grid for a new generation while political and financial inertia still heavily favor the kind of highway building that exacerbates sprawl.
“Where are we headed?” Feldt asks. “And what does the future hold? That’s my dilemma.”
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/26/millennials-new-urbanism-texas-highway-compulsion-dallas-fort-worth/?
Less than 1 percent of TXDOT's budget is earmarked for public transit
As young, educated professionals push away old ideas about how to move around Texas cities, transportation planners’ vision for the future is still largely influenced by the past
DALLAS — As the neighborhoods in and around downtown Dallas redeveloped in recent decades, they became hotbeds for millennials who, more than their parents did, rely on everything from walking and shared bikes to light-rail trains and ride-hailing apps to get around.
The same dynamic has played out in other Texas cities as people with college degrees and higher incomes return to the inner city neighborhoods that previous generations abandoned for the suburbs. But car ownership is still a necessity in most of the state’s urban areas, which still trail other American metros in luring educated young professionals — who in turn help attract new businesses and sustain government coffers.
That’s a conundrum for transportation planners like Kevin Feldt, who spends his workdays inside a nondescript Arlington office building trying to figure out how to build North Texas’ future transportation grid for a new generation while political and financial inertia still heavily favor the kind of highway building that exacerbates sprawl.
“Where are we headed?” Feldt asks. “And what does the future hold? That’s my dilemma.”
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/26/millennials-new-urbanism-texas-highway-compulsion-dallas-fort-worth/?