When at a disadvantage, one becomes extremely efficient. Bruce Lee took a Kung Fu designed for women and made it extremely efficient. As a result, he became, far and away, the greatest Martial Arts fighter to ever live. In that type of Kung Fu, one always attacked the opponent even when defending.
The city of Dallas has always been at a disadvantage to Houston because it is landlocked in comparison (though, because of advanced technology, it isn't considered as dry docked as it once was).
The main problem hindering the city of Dallas today in developing the Trinity River is a 14 trillion dollar national deficit. So, in order to accomplish its goal, the city needs to be extremely efficent by killing as many birds as it can with as few stones as possible.
Rather than just rebuild the levees along the Trinity River, the city should consider raising up two channel levees on each side of it to the extent that, within each, people can be transported in watercraft that are guided along rails.
To make this work, two sets of pumps would need to be constructed. The first set of pumps, the ones that exist presently, pump flood water towards the middle into the main channel of the river. As the main river begins to fill up and overflow, other sets of pumps built higher up within the river itself lift flood water up even further into the two channel levees running along both sides of the river. In essence, the two channel levees running along the sides of the river serve as reservoirs for storing water. At the same time, the flood waters within the channel levees add to the integrity of the levee itself. At the same time, they can be used as yet another transportation artery into the downtown and Uptown area.
Before ridiculing this idea, please understand that I do understand a little about it:
1) Levees do need to be constructed out of a foundation of clay. Clay is molecular with living organic material mixed in which is something that causes it to mutate and become sticky while sand is more mineral that will just wash away (clay sticks to the bottom of the feet, sand doesn't).
2) Water is incompressible. So, stationary water does not deliver a force horizonally towards the side. Rather, it delivers force vertically towards the bottom.
3) Water in motion will deliver force horizonally in the direction it is moving.
4) Darwin recognized a paradox a long time ago. As rock is eroded away by water, the water has to have sand in it to do so. I thought I'd add this last bit just to help people think.
The city of Dallas looks quite a bit different than any other southern city because of the levee system it built long ago. After finishing them, a lot of prime real estate was freed up for development. Just check it out on a satellite view in and around downtown Dallas. The Stemmons corridor just to the northeast of downtown Dallas is a massive business district in and of itself employing over a 100,000 people.

In the 1960s there was an effort to turn the Trinity River into a navigable inland waterway for seagoing vessels from Dallas all the way to the gulf. The environmental damage that was occurring from the work that was begun as well as the costs of doing it stopped the plan in its tracks. To reconstruct the area as a recreational and commercial centerpiece, the city should build deep catchment reservoirs along the basin to hold floodwaters for pumping into the main river in dry months and focus mostly on localized redevelopment along the river and not on channelizing the entire river. The barriers to revisiting those old plans are just too enormous.

In the 1960s there was an effort to turn the Trinity River into a navigable inland waterway for seagoing vessels from Dallas all the way to the gulf. The environmental damage that was occurring from the work that was begun as well as the costs of doing it stopped the plan in its tracks. To reconstruct the area as a recreational and commercial centerpiece, the city should build deep catchment reservoirs along the basin to hold floodwaters for pumping into the main river in dry months and focus mostly on localized redevelopment along the river and not on channelizing the entire river. The barriers to revisiting those old plans are just too enormous.

Well, I didn't mean building a channel all the way to Houston. I meant build channel like levees on both sides of the river in and around downtown Dallas. The water in these channels would add to the integrity of the levee itself. The idea of using them for watercraft to transport people around in just seemed like another potential way to relieve traffic going in and out of downtown.

As wonderful, and cool as the idea is (I would love seeing something like this done for many southern cities looking for flood control) financially it is too much of a burden. Dallas can hardly get enough funding for the signature bridges (the I-30 Calatrava bridge design has reportedly been scrapped for the usual highway bridge) nonetheless an extensive canal system downtown. It would simply cost too much with so much politics involved by the time anything gets done, the economic landscape would have changed, ala Trinity River Project. And for the record something like this does exist, San Antonio! But they were smart enough to embed SA river as an asset early on and were able to invest in it slowly over time.

1) Levees do need to be constructed out of a foundation of clay. Clay is molecular with living organic material mixed in which is something that causes it to mutate and become sticky while sand is more mineral that will just wash away (clay sticks to the bottom of the feet, sand doesn't).
2) Water is incompressible. So, stationary water does not deliver a force horizonally towards the side. Rather, it delivers force vertically towards the bottom.
3) Water in motion will deliver force horizonally in the direction it is moving.
4) Darwin recognized a paradox a long time ago. As rock is eroded away by water, the water has to have sand in it to do so. I thought I'd add this last bit just to help people think.


Maybe it was just the way I was taught in college but the difference between clay and sand is primarily grain size. Sands tend to be comprised of materials that resistant to erosion (quartz) and materials that are still being broken down. The stickiness property of clay is due to grain size and shape affecting its capacity to hold water.

Well, I didn't mean building a channel all the way to Houston. I meant build channel like levees on both sides of the river in and around downtown Dallas. The water in these channels would add to the integrity of the levee itself. The idea of using them for watercraft to transport people around in just seemed like another potential way to relieve traffic going in and out of downtown.

Sure, that sounds like a great idea and I'd love to see Dallas develop the Trinity into a major urban amenity. Already the starchitect bridges are being put up so of course the river should be transformed to complete that vision. :)

As wonderful, and cool as the idea is (I would love seeing something like this done for many southern cities looking for flood control) financially it is too much of a burden. Dallas can hardly get enough funding for the signature bridges (the I-30 Calatrava bridge design has reportedly been scrapped for the usual highway bridge) nonetheless an extensive canal system downtown. It would simply cost too much with so much politics involved by the time anything gets done, the economic landscape would have changed, ala Trinity River Project. And for the record something like this does exist, San Antonio! But they were smart enough to embed SA river as an asset early on and were able to invest in it slowly over time.

See, my idea is to scrap constructing the Toll Parkway inside the levees. Instead of moving people by highways, come up with something totally novel and unique to Dallas. Having a mode of transportation along the Trinity River that carries passengers in some kind of floating craft that runs on rails would become a tourist attraction as well as attract further development in that particular area. And just consider that a split levees with channels running down the middle of them won't erode away because it will always be wet having water to keep creatures from digging holes through them like the problem they have with those large rodents down in New Orleans. It is time to change focus. Think about it. The signiture bridges aren't smart because they get in the way. It makes absolutely no sense. In fact, it is lunacy. I mean, aren't the peripheral views of downtown Dallas, Uptown, Turtle Creek, the Market Center, and the Southwestern Medical District dramatic enough? Why block them by adding something phony? It would seem to me that thirty story suspension bridges will only get in the way. Just build a bridge that won't collapse thank you very much!

Sure, that sounds like a great idea and I'd love to see Dallas develop the Trinity into a major urban amenity. Already the starchitect bridges are being put up so of course the river should be transformed to complete that vision. :)

I think the one bridge is suffient. Figure it connects the prime area of Central Dallas to the poorest area in Dallas. I consider it a bridgehead to mending a divided city. But, I ask you, why block the dramatic views of an ever expanding skyline with fancy bridges? I mean, when has downtown Dallas never appeared dramatic the way it rises and sits above the bottoms of the Trinity River? The city of Houston only wishes it had such dramatic views of its skyline. In my opinion, over zealous leaders of Dallas can't just muck up a good thing, but they also have to figure out how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars while doing it.
I will agree about the rest of the River being developed, but it shouldn't be a horizonal development. Such kinds of developments running parallel with the river is only going to divide the city more than it was before. In comparison, that one signiture bridge is an excellent example of a vertical development. Such kinds of developments stitch the city together.
If the city of Dallas just has to build a casino, I think a good idea would be to allow them to be constructed over the Trinity. This would not only furnish bridges across the river, but the casinos would also become tourist attractions as their bright colors would be clearly apparent.
Now, why doesn't the city do that? They would be free in comparison to a bridge.

Maybe it was just the way I was taught in college but the difference between clay and sand is primarily grain size. Sands tend to be comprised of materials that resistant to erosion (quartz) and materials that are still being broken down. The stickiness property of clay is due to grain size and shape affecting its capacity to hold water.

Maybe so. I do know one thing for certain. Sand does not mutate while clay does. If one is building in sand, freeways can be built a lot quicker and cheaper. If one is building in clay, one has to account for the mutations of it.
Isn't that why they build concrete foundations to float atop sand? The reasons for watering the foundation is to keep the clay beneath the sand from drying out and cracking. When that happens, then the sand above beneath the foundation will loosen up and fail by falling into them.

Maybe so. I do know one thing for certain. Sand does not mutate while clay does. If one is building in sand, freeways can be built a lot quicker and cheaper. If one is building in clay, one has to account for the mutations of it.
Isn't that why they build concrete foundations to float atop sand? The reasons for watering the foundation is to keep the clay beneath the sand from drying out and cracking. When that happens, then the sand above beneath the foundation will loosen up and fail by falling into them.

I am not debating that clay expands and sand does not. I am debating your definition of clay and sand.

Here is a very informative link:
http://soils.missouri.edu/tutorial/page8.asp

I am not debating that clay expands and sand does not. I am debating your definition of clay and sand.

Here is a very informative link:
http://soils.missouri.edu/tutorial/page8.asp

Thank you. I am not arguing. I said levees need a foundation of clay. The problem now with the levees in Dallas is they found sand in them. The core samples taken weren't what the Corp of Engineers were hoping to find.

[/IMG]http://www.trinityrivercorridor.com/html/vision_plan.html

http://www.trinityrivercorridor.com/html/project_timeline.html

[/IMG]http://www.trinityrivercorridor.com/html/vision_plan.html

http://www.trinityrivercorridor.com/html/project_timeline.html

Thank you for the link. Let me see if I can explain this better. We always think of reservoirs as round things distant from the river. Instead, build reservoirs as slivers between the levees right next to the river itself. One can do this by building half of a levee, the concrete reservoir itself, and the other half of the levee on the other side. While the clay has to be there, the weight of the water contained with the elevated reservoirs on both sides of the river would add weight to the overall structure damming in anye flooding conditions.
The idea that people could be transported within these streaming reservoirs is just another option.
So, it isn't that expensive if you think about what you get.
1) You get two flood control reservoirs.
2) You get a levee system to hold back flood waters.
3) You get a unique mass transit system.