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Tuesday, November 6, 2007

UPDATED: Dallas County election results

The Nos have it: Trinity Tollway wins with 53% of the vote

Updated 11:11 p.m., November 6, 2007

by PegNews wire

Vote No! Save the Trinity won, meaning a tollway will be built in the park as planned. Angela Hunt now says her group will act as a watchdog to make sure campaign promises are kept.

View complete results for bond elections, wet/dry decisions, and other ballot measures here.

Posted by ccuellar

Staff
Verified User
Anonymous

Live blog available over at Dallas Progress of the Dallas Prop 1 (Tollway).

Michael Davis Verified

2 years ago
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http://dallasprogress.blogspot.com/ Thanks Michael!

Catherine Cuellar Verified

2 years ago
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Does anyone know if there is any Dallas county historical data on early voting numbers versus election day numbers? Do the early voting numbers usually provide a good indication of how the election will end up?

Rob Shearer Verified

2 years ago
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Rob,

I know this is late (since it's over), but on the Dalcoelections.com website there are archive stats. You can also purchase CD-ROM at the County office.

Usually, early voting is a predictor if the numbers are large. Tonight, most all the precincts stayed the same (early vs. final tallies).

Michael Davis Verified

2 years ago
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Thanks Michael. I'll check it out.

Rob Shearer Verified

2 years ago
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Perhaps we can use some of the 3 billion dollars in cancer research funding to eradicate the festering malignancy found in the Council Chambers at Dallas City Hall. Apparently sunlight is an insufficient disinfectant, and reason and truth are inconvenient and unnecessary participants in the public debate about the future of the DCC and its' pocketlining athletic supporters for the expansion of their wealth through taxpayer funding of their new tollway ingress and egress along the new Industrial Tollway.

Tartare

Tartare Anonymous

2 years ago
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I'm beginning to think that Dallas is just a lost cause. This will never be a great city. It will always just be a center for commerce. Money talks. Nobody walks. That's the way it is in Dallas.

writerinthesky Anonymous

2 years ago
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I do think it's somewhat encouraging that in addition to the Trinity park project, construction starts on the Woodall Rogers park in Q1 of 2008. There's no question that Dallas is a center for commerce, but adding a little green space around that commerce will be nice.

Rob Shearer Verified

2 years ago
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There are a lot of good things in the works for Dallas. The new Dart expansion, UNT Dallas, Fair Park renovations and downtown revitalization. I still believe that this is bad transportation policy and that this road will prevent the Trinity River Project from becoming a 'world class destination', but you don't win em all.

Nathan Anonymous

2 years ago
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I'd much sooner see the Trinity monies beef up our public transit system. The Dart "expansion" is far overdue and isn't going to help much without major infrastructure changes.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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With the talk on here about DART, check out today's DMN. Lynn Flint Shaw, the new DART Chair, has an op-ed on the need for transit-oriented development as a way to get cars off of the road.

Michael Davis Verified

2 years ago
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Writerinthesky: "Nobody walks"? Sorry Dude, but I live two blocks from a 17 mile inner city forest (the one closer to DT than Inwood that you may or may not know about or where it is) and I 'walk' in it with my dog for hours daily.

Meanwhile, Dallas is a city that essentially was built AFTER the car was king.... unlike, say, Chicago, etc. So it's an apples/oranges world of comparison.

That said: DART has had huge success despite (in the 70s when we voted yes/no for mass transit which Houston has yet to do) NObody except me believed Dallasites would buy into it. Soon I will, less than a mile from me, be able to take DART to Love Field, Deep Ellum, DT, Irving, Carrollton..........

Wake up and smell a young city (already #6 in size) that has an incredible future. Trust me. I know. I grew up here and used to believe it was a lost cause. Today? Dallas IS the future. (And Pegasus News is another prime exhibit for that jury) If you are missing that, then let me take you a few places and tell you more because I have never been so encouraged in my wildest dreams as I am for this city's future. It's not wishful thinking. I've been right for 40 years in my predictions about this city. Truly. And it was always against the grain of conventional thinking by those who insisted Dallas would "always be" this or that, etc.

Rawlins Gilliland Verified

2 years ago
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Rawlins, simply having the ability to take the DART somewhere doesn't mean it'll magically alleviate problems. When it takes a fraction as long to drive somewhere versus using DART, nobody's going to bite unless they can't drive. I don't have an hour and a half one-way to travel 6 miles to work. 3 hours a day total travel time versus half an hour? I'm fine paying for gas and maintenance on a vehicle if it saves 2.5 of my 17 waking hours each day.

So screw it, let's just build more roads!

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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Article Mike D references:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedconte...

Mike Orren Staff

2 years ago
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Rawlins, I had no idea that you lived next to the Great Trinity Forest. Do you walk in it every day?

Nathan Anonymous

2 years ago
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<a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/48113.html">Population</a> of Dallas County old enough to vote: 1,677,258 (out of 2,345,815)

<a href="http://dallasprogress.blogspot.com/2007/11/final-blows.html ">Total number</a> of toll road proposition voters: 77,296 (For: 36,313 - 46.98% Against: 40,983 - 53.02%)

<a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2007/07/in_the_hunt_trinityvote_has_it.php">Number</a> of signatures Hunt gathered three months ago, placing referendum on toll road: 80,000+

Divide 77,296 by 2,345,815 and you'll find that only 4.6% of Dallas County cared to vote on this issue. And more than half of those who signed Hunt's petition didn't either.

...Democracy?

Chad Jones Verified

2 years ago
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Scott, I was talking on a broad broad range of thought ideas. All I can tell you is that yes you are correct but yes, you are the master of where you live and how it works for you. It is relatively ez to get anywhere for me sorta quickly because I know this city backwards and forward and can cut and slice across. But make no mistake; you're right. But so am I.

My feeling is in a nutshell: We need more mass transit convenience and less dependence on cars. But we also need to stop paying a ton to live in 'hot' areas of town that are cramped and absurdly congested. I made no mistake along those lines.

And yes, Nathan, I have lived in SOUTHEAST DALLAS in the Piedmont neighborhood--- (2 miles south of I-30/ north of the neighborhood of Pleasant Grove, south of Urbandale/Parkdale, west of Pleasant Mound for those still clearly dazed and confused) less than two blocks from the northeastern corner of the Trinity Forest (as it became known in '99) for almost 1/4 century...24 years this month. In a 'lesser' diverse racially and economically and any other way... neighborhood where I have seen and felt great harmony and sense of comfort community.

Rawlins Gilliland Verified

2 years ago
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Didn't mean to be crude towards you, Rawlins - I'm off my soapbox. Simply frustrated as I feel our priorities in the metroplex are quite jumbled and need some rearrangin'.

I'd happily sacrifice a reasonable amount of time to use public transit rather than my car...both for work and night life. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll have that option within the next 5 years.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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Chad just because somebody thought it was a good idea to vote on the toll road, doesn't mean they would be opposed to it in the end. That is democracy. All the media coverage and stuff is what was needed, imo there will definitely be a higher level of accountability now than if nobody had noticed in the first place.

luniz Anonymous

2 years ago
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Actually Chad, democracy is exactly what we've got hiyah.

Honestly I thought it was a shoe-in to pass given the amount of signatures gathered, but there I go presuming people who petitioned for the proposition would actually vote for it themselves. Nobody's fault but their own that not even the majority made it to the polls.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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Yeah, yeah, I know. In other news, this close vote was apparently a "<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jragland/stories/110707dnmetragland.34412d1.html">smackdown</a>."

Chad Jones Verified

2 years ago
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The future is NOT based around the gasoline powered internal combustion engine. Global warming, dirty air, and expensive gas make that a certainty. Too bad Dallas doesn't seem to have the foresight to plan for that.

Crispin Reedy Verified

2 years ago
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The News has a neat breakdown map of which precincts voted which way: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedconte...

Chad Jones Verified

2 years ago
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I salute you, fellow comrades of the People's Republic of East Dallas! (tm FB) Hee.

Crispin Reedy Verified

2 years ago
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Awwwwwwwww why'd you do it, Chad?

I was one of only 131 people in my precinct who voted. =( Pretty sure we have that much just in my apartment building. Granted, it was a 9% turnout, still makes me sad.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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Sorry, folks...

The Dallas Elections site is

http://dalcoelections.org/

Michael Davis Verified

2 years ago
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While local elections where a vote has real meaning and effect are ignored, people pay far too much attention to the presidential election where your vote is essentially meaningless.

Coincidence? Who knows. But if people would pay more attention to local elections and less to the circus of national politics we'd be in much better shape.

Clay213 Anonymous

2 years ago
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Am I the only one who questions the way the election ballot was worded? If you voted "for", then you were actually voting AGAINST the toll. But if you voted "against," you were voting FOR the toll. Doesn't anybody wonder if those voting "against" knew what they were actually voting for (or "against")?

Frankly, the election results did not surprise me. The whole affair reeks of manipulation of the wording by the for-toll road side with the intent to purposely confuse voters.

Howard Wen Verified

2 years ago
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While Lynn Flint's article (linked above by Mike O) well described the need for mass transit, I'm failing to see how anything said there will spark change in the immediate future. Yes, lots of cars = poor air quality. Now that we've recognized a need, what's the solution? Obviously DART is under-utilized and (in my opinion) is quite an inefficient means of transit from an opportunity-cost standpoint. Not enough people use it, and if more start...it's certainly not going to speed up routes.

howardhwen, in the event you see this, the ballot issue has been discussed <a href="http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2007/nov/08/final-analysis-dallas-elections/">hiyah</a>.

Scott Doyle Verified

2 years ago
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Toll roads will be built. You will pay for it with your taxes and you will pay for it when you drive on it. You will enjoy the exhaust and the noise. This is the mantra you must repeat.