A deck park over Interstate 35 could connect the Dallas Zoo to downtown Oak Cliff.
That is the proposal from neighbors working on the Southern Gateway citizens task force.
Katherine Homan and Paul Carden worked up the plan, which calls for rebuilding the highway below grade. Using Klyde Warren Park as a model, a deck park would be built over the highway between Beckley and Ewing.
That would reunite neighborhoods that were torn apart when 35 was built in the early ’60s.
Homan and Carden also have come up with a list of ways to mitigate the effects of having a 10-lane expressway run through our neighborhood. They are planning a press conference to explain their plans at noon Wednesday.
Here are some of their ideas:
- Provide fewer, longer exit ramps. Examples: Close the southbound 12th Street exit and combine with an exit for Marsalis. Eliminate the northbound Beckley/Overton exit and combine it with Loop 12/Ann Arbor exit.
- Plant lots of trees along the roadway to mitigate noise and pollution.
- Build 8-foot noise-reducing walls near residential areas.
- Provide pedestrian crossovers adjacent to residential areas.
- Provide a continuous, usable shoulder along both sides of the entire length of the highwayAllow no advertisement signage on residential portions of the highway.
- Prohibit loud braking by trucks.
- Provide raised, traffic lane marker buttons instead of painted stripes.
