Streets and Flood Control Propositions A and D: Put some significant investment into our city's failing infrastructure.

James Coreas

Proposition A: The issuance of $533,981,000 general obligation bonds for street and transportation improvements, the estimated amount of repayment, including principal and interest based on current market conditions being $724,650,750.

Last October, the City Council began holding public hearings on what would become the $1.05 billion bond package. The primary concern of residents who attended: Streets. It is the largest of all the propositions, accounting for more than half of the entire package: $534 million. There are resurfacing and reconstruction jobs. There is a program to upgrade our aging traffic signals. There is money to establish a traffic management center that would allow the city to control the timing of the lights based on what’s occurring on the streets. There are assignments to remove lanes and add sidewalk space along roads in Deep Ellum, East Dallas, and South Dallas. There are millions of dollars set aside to fix critical bridges throughout the city. It is a broad package, intended to not only fix decaying infrastructure, but to help make the streets and sidewalks safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

“Some people talked about drainage, some people talked about libraries, some people talked about public safety, some people talked about parks,” says Al-Ghafry, who is in charge of the bond program. “But streets were the overarching theme.”

Surveys of taxpayer-satisfaction rates of the city’s streets have plummeted from 81.8 percent in 2012 to 71.9 percent last year. The goal is 87 percent. In all, there are 1,027 projects as part of Proposition A. Of those, 986 are district-specific, whether that be resurfacing cracked concrete or outright reconstruction of the roadways and the alleys behind residences and businesses—pathways that are frequently used by hulking sanitation trucks. The city’s Pavement Management Division has spent years mapping the quality of Dallas’ streets, which has informed what ended up in the bond package. The two-fold process accounts for the objectivity of data culled from testing devices known as falling weight deflectometers, which estimate the structural capacity of the city’s streets, and the subjective analysis of engineers.

They examine cracks, dilapidated pavement, and other conditions that signal the degree of maintenance necessary and combine their observations with the findings from the deflectometer. The streets are listed in order of priority; some get repaved, others get torn up and rebuilt. This is the maintenance portion of Proposition A, and it’s the most likely way you’ll get that lingering pothole in your neighborhood fixed. Some, like Councilman Lee Kleinman, have decried using credit to pay for deferred maintenance that would ideally come from the city’s general fund. City staff, however, maintain that it’s the only way we can afford to keep up.

“In a perfect world, yes. But we don’t have a perfect world,” Al-Ghafry says. “I wouldn’t call this deferred maintenance. This is exponentially aging maintenance. The infrastructure is aging faster than what we can fund it for.”

There are 664 resurfacing projects. The most expensive are in North Dallas: the one-mile stretch along Walnut Hill from Marsh Lane to Midway Road will cost $2.2 million, the half-mile resurfacing of Forest Lane from Cromwell Drive and Marsh Lane is $1.1 million. There are hundreds of smaller, neighborhood resurfacing jobs: the $58,859 resurfacing of 300 feet of E. 7th near Bishop Arts, the little offset from Beckley to Crawford; $84,229 to resurface Haskell Avenue from Garland to Parry in East Dallas. All of these projects can be browsed here in a searchable PDF, and here in an interactive map. Also of note: McKinney Ave. and Cole Ave. will be converted into a two-way road, paid for with $8 million in bond funds and $12.8 million in money from the North Central Texas Council of Governments; the matching funds which will have to be in city coffers before bonds can be issued.

Almost $40 million is earmarked to begin to upgrade the traffic signals. Phase 1 of the so-called Traffic Signal Synchronization Project will cost $20 million and includes the creation of a traffic management center. Another $18.35 million is to install traffic signals at 63 of the most highly-trafficked intersections throughout Dallas.

Here is how Al-Ghafry explains it: “For example, God forbid, I have an accident here, and I want traffic to be diverted here. I may have a side street that has specific signal timing, so what I want to do is be able to expand that timing so I’m not creating a jam (by the accident). Or, if and when we have a parade and I want to do a detour plan, I can.”

The proposition sets aside $6.3 million for critical bridge repairs, the money distributed evenly across the 14 districts. The city will pitch in $9.2 million for the construction of a new four-lane bridge in Southeast Dallas over the Union Pacific railroad tracks, just south of Forney Road. The NCTCOG has vowed to pitch in $9.9 million of matched funding.

The NCTCOG and the Texas Department of Transportation are also vowing to give about $4.45 million to put in sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, and additional lighting near U.S. 75 between Mockingbird and Lovers lanes. The city’s share on that will be $1.1 million. The Skillman and LBJ corridor will require a buy-in of $6.5 million from the bond package, but TxDOT will throw in $65 million of its own money to improve the lighting and street-scaping at the busy interchange.

Another chunk of the package involves six “Complete Street” makeovers, which allot for a divided roadway, larger sidewalks, and dedicated bicycle lanes. Those include Commerce Street from Good Latimer to Exposition in Deep Ellum, which will turn into a two-lane, two-way street with sidewalks and bike lanes ($9.7 million). Canada Drive from Westmoreland to Hampton in West Dallas will become a four-lane divided roadway and also get new sidewalks and bike lanes ($7.6 million). Casa View in East Dallas will go from six lanes to four, the extra space filled with sidewalks, lighting, and landscaping. ($6.3 million). Columbia Ave. and Main Street will get a redo ($4.25 million). Skillman and Walnut Hill will receive pedestrian safety improvements like new sidewalks($1.59 million).

“I want to be able to feel safe on the street. I want to be able to walk without getting hit by a car. I want to be able to ride my bike and enjoy the scenery,” Al-Ghafry says. “You really want to create that balance among all users. Everyone is important.”

Proposition D: The issuance of $48,750,000 general obligation bonds for flood protection and storm drainage improvements, the estimated amount of repayment, including principal and interest based on current market conditions being $66,088,750.

Before getting any kind of OK from voters for $48.75 million for flood management and storm drainage, the city will first seek to issue $350 million in bonds for projects from past bond packages, the biggest of which — an almost $250 million project, Al-Ghafry says — will go toward flood prevention near Baylor Medical Center.

This latest proposition would bankroll 85 “flood protection, storm drainage and erosion control projects” in neighborhoods throughout the city. This covers $2.6 million for erosion control near Coombs Creek in Oak Cliff, the $5.6 million Vinemont Channel flood management project near the frequently flooded Dixon Branch in East Dallas, and dozens of other smaller upgrades and improvements. Go here for a full list of projects, which include the building of new storm drainage tunnels and improvements to existing infrastructure.

Especially after Hurricane Harvey, some have raised the alarm about Dallas’ flood preparation, as climate change and new development exacerbate the risks of old weather events. But it doesn’t take a hurricane or major disaster to create problems. Flash flooding, common in North Texas, can take advantage of poor infrastructure to harmful, and sometimes deadly effect. As with streets, Dallas officials say investment in flood infrastructure is necessary to keep up with the region’s growth.

This bond package puts a dent in the long list of wish list flood management projects on the city’s needs inventory, which makes plain just how much work is needed.