Punching Through PGBT

An interesting experiment is being run by Trinsic Residential Group. Steve Brown has the story in The Dallas Morning News:

Construction has started on a large new rental community just across the street from State Farm Insurance's huge campus in Richardson.

Trinsic Residential Group is building the 11.7-acre apartment project on the north side of Bush Turnpike at the DART commuter rail line in Plano

The 386-unit Aura One90 project is just a short walk under the turnpike to DART's rail station and State Farm's office buildings in the $1.5 billion CityLine project.

Source: The Dallas Morning News.

Note how Steve Brown calls it "just across the street" from State Farm. That "street" happens to be the President George Bush Turnpike (PGBT). The "short walk" involves going "under the turnpike."

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The experiment will determine whether the turnpike can be overcome as a barrier between developments on opposite sides of PGBT. Elsewhere in Richardson, US 75 has proven to be an impenetrable barrier between development east and west of the freeway. In downtown Dallas, IH345 has proven to be an impenetrable barrier between downtown and Deep Ellum. Likewise, the Woodall Rodgers freeway (Spur 366) has cut off the West End from Victory Park and West Village. The Klyde Warren deck park was a clever (and expensive) solution for integration of the Arts District with Uptown, but it depends on a sunken freeway, which PGBT most certainly is not.

Will PGBT prove to be an impenetrable barrier to integration between developments in Richardson and Plano? Will residents in those new apartments north of PGBT walk to CityLine to eat? City leaders, put your thinking caps on. We need something as clever (and not as expensive) as Klyde Warren Park to make sure people can, and in fact want to, walk between CityLine and places to live, shop and work north of PGBT. It's in the long-term best interest of Richardson and Plano (and DART) to punch through PGBT.