We profiled the city’s plan to widen Beckley at Commerce — and neighbors’ objections to the project — in a February magazine story. Rebecca Dugger, executive director of the Trinity River Corridor Project, met with West Dalllas and Oak Cliff residents and property owners late last week to go over some updates.
The people present didn’t bite, as Dallas Observer writer Alexa Schirtzinger, who was present at the meeting, writes in this Unfair Park post. She titled the post "Yet another argument over how the city remakes itself", and that’s really the crux of the issue. The neighbors who have raised vehement objections to Beckley being widened aren’t looking for a covered pedestrian bridge or medians where pedestrians can (in theory) hang out when crossing th thoroughfare. They are looking for city leaders to change their mindset about how projects and development in Dallas should go forward.
Schirtzinger says it well: "What it all boiled down to, in the end, was an old, familiar issue: Dallas has to decide whether it’s going to be a city of buildings built around roads (highways, rather) or a city of roads that accommodate buildings."
