Reconnecting Communities.

SBDS developed the concept to convert Harry Hines and McKinnon one-way couplets to two-way boulevards, converting each road from five lane one-way race tracks to four lane two-way boulevards with landscaped medians and walkable frontages.  In doing so, there is a need to reintroduce where the one-way infrastructure currently meets the two-way street network via 1) untangling the confluences between Harry Hines, McKinnon, and North Dallas Tollway and thus creating new development potential and an urban frontage for Reverchon park as well as 2) dual roundabouts where Harry Hines meets the uptown street network providing a punctuation point and sense of arrival when reaching the greater downtown area.

Location: Dallas, TX

SBDS created the concept to re-route I-30 around South Dallas and the Cedars in order to facilitate the revitalization of areas that have been disinvested and depopulating for several decades.  The concept was included in TxDOT’s CityMAP planning effort however not considered.  However, SBDS found the relocation and coupling with expanded levee system to protect the neighborhoods from continued flooding would lead to over $20 billion in economic development potential through the creation of developable land, new access points from the re-routed highway leading to the commercial revitalization of these corridors.

SBDS led the effort to promote removing IH-345 from Downtown Dallas and redeveloping the area to add needed tax base, a variety of housing types and affordability levels next to jobs and transit, and improve air quality, public safety, and overall quality of life in the greater downtown area.  The images include initial planning concepts as well as further evolved design, transportation, and economic development evaluations for the Coalition for a New Dallas.

SBDS used space syntax spatial integration software to build a network model of downtown Austin, compared the integration values for each block to real estate value in order to find correlation and possible relationships, and then evaluate a new network model if I-35 was relocated around Austin to the east.  The network modelling found a very high degree of correlation between integration value and real estate value, that a small increase in network interconnectivity lead to large increases in land value potential, and that relocating the highway would have significant economic, environmental, and social benefits for Austin, Texas.

SBDS gave a presentation at the Congress for New Urbanism annual conference in Savannah, Georgia on the What-Why-and How for highway removals in order to redevelop and revitalize American downtowns.  As part of the presentation, SBDS included the potential for removing a highway stub that enters Savannah including the redevelopment of nearby low-income public housing as part of a larger mixed-use, mixed-income walkable redevelopment.

SBDS conceptually explored the redevelopment and corridor improvement potential if US-4 was removed from downtown Stockton, California.