STREETCAR MOMENTUM

Oak cliff neighbors started talking about streetcars almost four years ago. And they didn’t just talk; they created a plan, did a cost analysis, and applied for grants.

Now city Hall is hot on streetcars, too, thanks to some federal stimulus money and a contentious convention center hotel under construction. Some worry, however, that whatever plan city Hall produces won’t include our neighborhood. but the push for streetcars in Oak cliff has momentum and a few potent champions.

The idea for streetcars came to Oak cliff neighbors who realized that our neighborhood, along with many similarly aged areas of Dallas, was designed for them.

“Oak cliff is a streetcar suburb,” says Jason roberts, a founding member of the Oak cliff Transit Authority.

Decades ago, Oak cliff commuters could ride streetcars to work Downtown or to the ballpark once in West Dallas. And now that the system is gone, along with most of the nation’s streetcar systems, Oak cliff is an automobile suburb. but that won’t work for the dense developments planned in line with the Trinity river project, says Oak cliff chamber of commerce president bob Stimson.

“You have to have alternative transportation available to [people],” Stimson says. “If you force them into their vehicles, then that high density just creates a logjam on the roads.”

Starting a streetcar system Downtown would be a great service for tourists using the convention center hotel, allowing them easy access to Victory Park, the West end and connections to DAr T trains and the Tre And that plan eventually would include a line to Oak cliff. but some fear that tourists won’t create enough ridership to encourage city Hall to expand down the line. councilmember Linda Koop, who represents North Dallas and is chair of the council’s transportaion committee, says “everybody” wants streetcars in Oak cliff.

“We want to get the city focused on a streetcar plan for the whole city. If not, it’s going to be shortsighted,” Stimson says.

“my mother lived in Oak cliff and used to ride the streetcars,” she says. “We’re all working toward the same goal, which is building a system.”

The plan that the chamber backs it’s also supported by the Old Oak cliff conservation League and Oak cliff councilmen Delia Jasso and Dave Neumann — would start downtown at Union Station, and travel to the West end and the American Airlines center. Then it would come to riverfront Drive (formerly Industrial boulevard) and the edge of the Design District. From there, it would cross the continental bridge, which is planned as a pedestrian bridge and park once car traffic moves to the margaret Hunt Hill bridge, which is under construction. The streetcar would make a left at beckley, make a stop at methodist Dallas medical center, and come back across the Houston Street Viaduct to Union Station.

Proponents of this plan call it the “lakes loop”, and they think it would solve some transportation problems they say the city is bound to face with the Trinity river Project.

For one, the project includes fewer than 100 parking spaces. With the lakes loop, people could drive from North Dallas, mcKinney or Plano, pay to park in the city-owned garage next to what used to be reunion Arena, and take a streetcar to access Trinity river parks.

“For the continental bridge, we’re talking about having parties there, but there’s no parking,” Stimson says.

One of Oak cliff’s strongest allies in the streetcar system design could be bill Velasco, the Oak cliff native who recently was appointed chairman of the DAr T board.

“The group here in Oak cliff (the Oak cliff Transit Authority) has its act together,” Velasco says. “They really want to get the dirt moving.”

DAr T lost some ridership in Oak cliff recently when old apartments were demolished to make way for dense, mixed-use developments, which were planned before the recession hit and have not yet gotten underway. Part of the mission as board chairman for Velasco, who owns an insurance agency in Oak cliff, is to create economic stimulus in our neighborhood. eventually making the Oak cliff Transit Authority which essentially is a group of friends with a good idea — a part of DAr T has sort of been the plan all along, roberts says.

The “Trinity Lakes Streetcar Loop,” which OCTA and the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce are proposing, would run through downtown and touch West Dallas and Oak Cliff.

And that’s on track with the vision for an Oak cliff streetcar line, which eventually would branch into West Dallas and extend from methodist to the bishop Arts District, and Jefferson and Singleton boulevards.

“In some form or manner, we need to bring the two plans together somehow,” Velasco says.

“I think we’ve hit the tipping point. Dallas is getting a streetcar no matter what. Whether it’s coming to Oak cliff, I don’t know,” he says. “but it’s coming to Downtown.”

It was good timing that Oak cliff jumped into the streetcar conversation around the same time as city Hall, roberts says.

“because of that, Oak cliff is seriously being looked at, and if we hadn’t been out there with a megaphone saying, ‘We want a streetcar,’ no one [else] would be asking for these things.”n

NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT

Connie Boyd is the new executive director for Family Gateway Inc., a nonprofit that provides transitional housing and other help to homeless families. Boyd succeeds Kelly Harris, a former Family Gateway board chairman who had been interim executive director for 10 months. Boyd most recently was the chief development officer for Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, and she has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the nonprofit sector. For more information, visit familygateway.org

THE SUNSET HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION awarded $7,020 in grants to the school in October. Group Counseling received grants totaling $1,470 for items such as DART bus passes and ACT/SAT study packets. The Medical Explorers Club and the Business Education CTE program received $500 each. The KOM Mentoring Program, Ras’en Celebration, Ballet Folkloric, Robotics Club, PE Department, Academic Decathlon, Outdoor Wilderness League, Peace Keepers, the Advanced Placement program and Ms. Tatum’s Scholars each received $250. The Special Education and World Languages departments received $200 each. And the National Honor Society received $100. The school’s newspaper and yearbook, the Sundial and Stampede, received a laser jet printer valued at $500, which Staples Office Supply Co. donated. They also received a $600 digital camera. For more information, visit sunsetalumniassociation.com.

THE COMMUNITY LIAISON AT SUNSET

HIGH SCHOOL, Nora Garcia, won a national award from Practical Parent Education, a Dallas-based company that provides training and curriculum to parent educators. She won the Linda Johnston Parent Educator of the Year award, which “recognizes the work of a parent educator who goes the extra mile to provide outstanding services to the community.” Garcia has been a parent educator for 16 years, the last six of which were at Sunset. Since she started, parents have become more involved in their children’s educations, and they ask more questions and volunteer more often, says principal Anthony Tovar

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