Halperin Park, the Wild Horizons zoo masterplan, the South Garage, the 2024 bond program, and the DART Red Line all converge on one corner of Oak Cliff — nine-figure investment, one street corner. Yet there is still no continuous, legible, comfortable pedestrian route between the park, the zoo, and the train. This prototype shows how a Total Design approach turns that gap into a fundable near-term project, and how we score it against the RFP rubric.
Schematic of the ~20-acre study area (Halperin Park north, Marsalis west, Ewing east, DART Red Line south). Click a numbered pin for evidence. Toggle layers to compare today's failures with near-term and long-term responses.
The RFP asks for three near-term concepts. Our strategy: pair every near-term move with the long-term asset it protects, so nothing we build in 2026 is throwaway when the masterplan and Phase 2 arrive.
Cost bands: $ < 100K · $$ 100K–1M · $$$ > 1M (rough order of magnitude, planning-level only). PILOT = test cheaply first · CAPITAL = one-time build · OPS = recurring operating commitment.
Every workshop theme, mapped against the four Total Design practices and the rubric points it earns. This is the difference between "we brainstormed value-adds" and "we have a scoring thesis."
| Theme | Curiosity | Broadest context | Technical excellence | Collaboration | Rubric target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighting | Why is the entrance dark? Audit before fixtures. | Safety and orientation first; animal-themed identity as the placemaking layer, not the lead. | Photometric audit, glare and maintenance criteria, energy and controls. | Local artist competition with Oak Cliff community; internal AV/lighting team. | Approach 30 · Innovation 20 |
| Acoustics | How loud is the walk, actually? Measure before mitigating. | Highway noise shapes whether anyone lingers between park and zoo. | Baseline noise survey; barrier/buffer options sized to data. | Partner with local acoustic studios — community draw, not just subconsultants. | Approach 30 |
| Heat & shade | Where does the route actually bake? Map it. | Texas heat decides walking mode share more than distance does. | Tree inventory, shade-priority mapping, thermal comfort scoring; misters only where operations support them. | Civil + landscape + zoo operations on one canopy plan. | Approach 30 · Innovation 20 |
| Safety & security | Why do crashes cluster on Clarendon? Read the data. | 12+ crashes in 12 months; a council member has publicly called for fixes — a timely opening with the City. | Crossing design, sight lines, CPTED review, camera and personnel plan. | City of Dallas, DART police, zoo security on one map. | Approach 30 |
| Sidewalks & ADA | Walk the route ourselves — where does it actually end? | Grades, missing ramps, and sidewalk gaps make accessibility a first-order design issue, not a detail. | Grading survey, curb-ramp inventory, pedestrian counts to fill the data gap. | TxDOT and city ROW coordination flagged early, honestly. | Approach 30 |
| Mobility & transit | What would make a family choose the train? | Station-level ridership is unpublished — our counts become the baseline everyone cites. | Shuttle pilot designed as a data instrument, not just a ride. | DART co-promotion; zoo membership marketing tie-in. | Innovation 20 |
| Funding & delivery | What money already exists before we ask for new money? | $126M+ committed around the site; the corridor is the missing line item. | Phasing tied to grant calendars; ROM costs by band; TDC match strategy. | NCTCOG, TxDOT, city bond office, philanthropy — one integration table. | Approach 30 · Innovation 20 |
Multidisciplinary references: deck-park, transit-access, and microclimate work — the Klyde Warren class of project, three team references ready.
Clear phasing, monthly client cadence, named decision gates, and stakeholder map across Zoo / City / TxDOT / DART / NCTCOG.
Diagnosis → pilots → scalable concepts. Every near-term move protects a long-term asset; nothing precludes the masterplan.
The RFP's own margin notes suggest an interactive map and data portal. This page prototypes that suggestion, alongside measurable comfort and safety metrics.
Safari Trail opens 2027, the zoo masterplan completes around 2028, and Phase 2 design is mobilizing toward ~2032. Concepts decided in the next 12 months fix this corridor's form for a generation.
| Source | Status / size | Fit for this corridor |
|---|---|---|
| $21M RAISE "Connecting Communities" | Awarded — design/engineering | Explicitly funds design of a pedestrian bridge from rail to the Dallas Zoo. Align the proposal with that funded scope and position the team for follow-on design opportunities. |
| $25M Reconnecting Communities / NAE | Awarded — Halperin Phase 2 (part of NCTCOG's $80M) | Phase 2 includes the zoo walkway; near-term concepts must align with it, not duplicate it. |
| City of Dallas 2024 Bond | Authorized — Prop A $521M streets (incl. $12.4M Vision Zero, $162M Complete Streets); Prop B incl. $30M Dallas Zoo | Local capital for sidewalks, crossings, and zoo improvements through 2030+. |
| SS4A (Safe Streets & Roads for All) | Next cycle — planning grants $100K–$5M | The Clarendon crash record and the missing park-entrance crosswalk write this grant narrative themselves. |
| TxDOT Transportation Alternatives | ~$250M statewide FY27–29, via NCTCOG | Sidewalk gaps and station access; precedent: $25M for Cotton Belt Trail DART station access. |
| NCTCOG Transportation Development Credits | 994M+ credits regionally | Non-cash federal match — removes the local-match obstacle for the smaller grants. |
| TIF / philanthropy | ~$7M TIF used for Halperin Phase 1; $23M Halperin naming gift | Both mechanisms already proven on this exact site. |
$3B economic impact since 2012. Adjacent rents up 30–60%. M-Line trolley ridership up 61% after the deck park connected downtown to the Arts District.
San Diego Zoo pairs dedicated bus lanes with a free last-mile shuttle; the Bronx Zoo stitches an on-site trolley to express bus and subway. Both make a major zoo reachable without a car.
$1.4M planted 1,800 trees along quarter- to half-mile pedestrian segments. Research is blunt: shade is the one heat intervention that works; cool pavement cannot replace it.
"Total architecture implies that all relevant design decisions have been considered together and have been integrated into a whole by a well organised team empowered to fix priorities."— Ove Arup, Key Speech, 1970
Structures, transit, microclimate, equity history, placemaking, and funding strategy converge in one corridor. No single discipline solves it. That is not a complication — it is the reason this project is the right pilot.
We measured before we proposed: walk the route, count the riders, map the heat, read the crash data.
I-35E demolished 100+ homes in one of Dallas's first Freedmen's towns in 1956. Halperin Park restored 12th Street. This corridor finishes the reconnection.
Every soft idea is backed by a hard instrument: photometric audit, noise baseline, shade scoring, grading survey, ROM costs.
Zoo, City, TxDOT, DART, NCTCOG, Oak Cliff artists, local acoustic studios — engaged as co-authors, not review agencies.