Here is another example of how out of touch the City Council is with reality. Highland Park officials have come up with a plan to charge non-bubble residents to drive on Mockingbird Lane through Highland Park.
So what did Linda Koop, one of the council’s top transportation people, say? Did she laugh and joke that it sounded like a very bubble-like idea? Did she threaten to put toll booths up at the Highland Park borders in retaliation? Did she say it was one of the dumbest ideas she had ever heard?
Nope. She is paraphrased as saying that Highland Park planners would have to be careful that their efforts don’t lead to heavier traffic on crowded streets nearby.
Would someone please remind Koop who she works for?
There are any number of reasons why this idea, part of a new hip and trendy urban planning concept called congestion pricing, is horrible. And none of these include the fact that it’s exactly the sort of elitist crap most of us expect from Highland Park.
First, it’s a toll on a public road designed to protect the couple of thousand people who live on Mockingbird at the expense of the 18,000 who drive it but who don’t live there. That’s not exactly democratic, especially since the town gets state tax money for highway maintenance. In fact, the town wanted to use federal money to pay for a study to examine the plan.
Second, no one has yet figured out whether congestion pricing is effective in reducing traffic for the sake of reducing traffic. London is usually cited as the best example, but any success there has always been tied to the city’s world-class mass transit system. London uses congestion pricing to get cars off the street to reduce pollution, pushing drivers to the Tube. Obviously, Mockingbird drivers couldn’t opt for mass transit. Plus, one look at a Mapsco shows there really aren’t any other east-west alternatives south of Northwest Highway — which, surprise, surprise, is in Dallas, and not the Park Cities.
Third, we just got done hearing our city leaders talk about city-suburban synergies in the Trinity toll road election. If we’re going to build the damn thing to make it easier for suburbanites to get to Dallas, why should we allow suburbanites to make life more difficult for Dallas drivers?
Fourth, think of the precedent this establishes. If Highland Park can do it, what will prevent Garland or Plano or Arlington from doing it?
Now is the time for Mayor Park Cities to show whose side he is on in any city-suburban dispute. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate to those of us who doubt his commitment to Dallas that he does care more about the city than he cares about what his pals at the Dallas Country Club think — which, surprise, surprise, is on the part of Mockingbird that would be tolled.
