Two weeks ago, Next City’s Diana Lind stacked differing downtown redevelopment strategies in Dallas and Fort Worth against one another. She found that while Big D has by and large stayed focused on large-scale tourist magnets designed by starchitects (see the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum), its smaller neighbor has taken a more modest, favorable approach: Aiming to become bike- and pedestrian-friendly.
And following the launch of a new bike share program last month, Fort Worth made another commitment to this notion over the weekend. The local community development non-profit Downtown Fort Worth Inc. (DFWI) released a draft of a 10-year strategic action plan that emphasizes, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes, a “pedestrians first” philosophy.
A commitment to density and walkable spaces pervades each section of the document, which covers everything from transportation and housing to business development and education. One of the most notable objectives is to bring a planned commuter rail line, known as TEX Rail, to Forth Worth by 2016. There’s also a call for neighborhoods with Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known locally as The T, to expand bus and trolley service as well as bicycle infrastructure.
In another section, the DFWI plan sets a goal of 7,500 new units of housing in and around Downtown, putting a stress on infill and mixed-use development along a number of corridors. When considering retail, arts and entertainment, the plan stresses the creation of “on-street” activity via more benches, lighting, shade and crosswalks.
The end goal? “[A] pleasant rhythm of storefronts, activity and visual cues along building walls and along pedestrian corridors.”
And so on. Urbanist and pro-transit buzzwords pop up in nearly every subsection of the draft. It’s full of ambitions familiar to many planners in the field today. Yet if all this optimistic planning can lead to results like, 88 miles of new waterfront parkland and amenities along the Trinity River, or an extension of the Fort Worth’s 28-station bike share system, it could make a real different in this city of 760,000.
In addition to all the appeals to urbanism and smart growth, this year’s DFWI strategic action plan is the first (of four) to address homelessness — albeit briefly — by propping up supportive housing over long-term shelter residency.
For our readers in the Fort Worth area, DFWI will hold a public review of its strategic action plan on Wednesday evening.
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