The Eleventy Billionth Blog

Before We Have One More UT-OU Game

Before we have another UT-OU game in the Cotton Bowl (the real one, not the Jerrydome usurper), I think we're all in agreement that DART and the State Fair need to figure out a better way than last year's debacle to get everyone there.

 I was just as stymied as everyone else as to what the solution to overcrowded trains full of angry fans opening up to platforms equally full of angry fans might be. And then, last weekend, the answer came to me, by way of Memphis.

Specifically, the Memphis Area Transit Authority. Now, I know DART has already said it has a plan for the 2010 game. But frankly? It's unwieldy and confusing. MATA came up with a plan to get fans to the Liberty Bowl efficiently (save a little signage issue that was cleared up with a phone call), and get them all back, too.

And it didn't involve any trains. None at all. Which, to me, is key.

Trains break down on tracks. If they get full, you can't get any more people on them. They can't circle back around quickly. 

But you know what is more flexible? A bus. More can be dispatched if necessary. They can circle back and pick up more passengers. This is what MATA did for the Liberty Bowl, which had an attendance of more than 62,000. Dedicated bus shuttles from specific pickup points in Germantown, downtown Memphis, northeast Memphis, south Memphis, etc., came at specific times. MATA workers were also out in cars driving by to assess the need, likely to make sure that extra buses got to places that needed them.

They were prepared for the influx. I'm guessing if fewer people had opted for the shuttle, those buses would've been sent back to the barn. If they needed more, more were available.

Now, I know this could be seen as negating the whole super-duper Green Line. But no, not really. Fairgoers can still take advantage of the Green line, which more may do if they know it's not going to be super-congested with UT/OU fans. Make the shuttles just for TU/OU ticket holders. Charge $5 round trip, like MATA did. Have a pickup in Plano, one in South Dallas, one in the Irving/Las Colinas area, etc. 

But after watching happy fans get on the shuttle to go to the Liberty Bowl, and coming out of the game to find them all lined up like soldiers waiting to take them back, I know this for certain: This solution can't be any worse than last year.

An Open Letter to the DMN Editorial Board:

Today we find on the pages of the Dallas Morning News that Mayor Tom Leppert is a bastion of ethics reform, and the soon-to-be-voted on rules were all his idea.

Let's be clear: Angela Hunt proposed it first. The mayor came in later, acted as if it was his idea, and then tried very hard to ram a watered-down version designed to placate voters through the machinery at City Hall.

So to praise Leppert for this nearly toothless bit of spun sugar is as believable as praising the Pope for the Bible. To rail against Hunt and say she was trying to stop the vote - when it's already been reported in your own paper that it was a) her idea and b) she merely wanted more teeth in the thing - is disingenuous at best and patently misleading. 

Sunshine is Lovely, Clean Your Windows

It's been a scant week since the trial that ultimately pulled a curtain back to reveal that everyone has a price, including city officials, and just about everyone - you'd think - would agree that Dallas' windows are dirty.

Government - like glass - is meant to be transparent. Yet we've learned that not only have some lobbyists and officials have rubbed the dirt on to obscure the view, but that just about all of them are perfectly content to continue to do business just like it's been done for years, apparently - even though one of their most promising former members is looking at serious time in the pokey now indirectly because of it.