Doohickie

After going to the meeting I found out a few things:

. The new bridge will connect to a development called Clearfork. It will not run straight through, but will connect from Hulen to Bryant Irvin in the patch of land between the train yard and the river.

. The basic roads in Clearfork will be complete prior to the bridge. The bridge is supposed to be open by the summer of 2011. So as soon as it opens there will be connectivity between Hulen and Bryant Irvin.

. The Trinity River Trail will remain open throughout construction. This was stated in the meeting but hard to imagine how they can build a bridge over the trail with out at least some spot closures.

. This bridge will not affect access to the north side of the train yard. However, the Hulen Street bridge over the train yard and Vickery will be reconstructed as part of the Southwest Parkway construction and will include a cycle/pedestrian lane that is separate from the motorized lanes.

. The Clearfork bridge will consist of three separate spans. There will be east- and west-bound spans for motor traffic. Hanging in between the two, and at a lower level, will be the cycle/pedestrian span. There is a pretty long approach to the motor lanes and it will be quite a bit higher than the cycle/pedestrian span, which will basically be at a level right at the top of the levee; i.e., no climbing to cross the bridge, and it will run between the trails on either side of the river. There will also be a "through lane" that will go under all the spans so cyclists don't have to slow down for bridge traffic.