Properties For Sale Near the Katy Trail in Dallas
The Katy Trail is a three and a half mile stretch of paved and soft-coated pathways for biking, jogging, walking, strolling, rollerblading, etc. The path stretches from Airline Road on the north end (just south of the SMU campus) to The American Airlines Center at Victory Park.
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between the American Airlines Center and Bowen Street.
You can access the Katy Trail at any of the seven access points along the route but you can also access the trail by riding DART rail to Mockingbird Station and walking or biking via the on-street connection to Airline Road. Starting in September, DART will start daily service to Victory Station which will allow DART riders access to both the north and south entrances of the trail.
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between Bowen Street and Blackburn Street.
In November of 2008, Friends of the Katy Trail unveiled a plan to connect the Katy Trail to Downtown via existing and planned streets. This comprehensive plan incorporates constructing a pathway into the existing city streets. Similar cities like New York, Austin, Portland and San Francisco have all implemented similar plans with much success. Complete Streets, as it’s called, turns existing “speeding traffic only” streets into corridors everyone can use whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper!
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between Blackburn Street and Fitzhugh Avenue.
Eric Van Steenburg of Lakewood, executive director of the Friends of the Katy Trail, had this to say about the Complete Streets concept and Dallas to the Dallas Morning News in December 2008.
To view more details of this plan, check out the PDF File: Katy Trail Uptown-Arts District Feasibility Study – Recommended Alignment. CAUTION: This PDF file is 7.88MB and will take some time to download.
Dallas Morning News Editorial: Dallas ready for Katy Trail expansion
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between Fitzhugh Avenue and Knox Street.
I am very excited to see the city of Dallas get on the city trails bandwagon. When I lived near Denver for seven years, I used the trail system nearly every day. The success of the Katy Trail is proof that Dallasites are more than ready to use such a system of trails. We just need to remind our city leaders to help us build them!
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between Knox Street and Airline Road.
Interested in becoming a Friend of the Katy Trail?
History of the Katy Trail
In 1993 the Union Pacific Railroad donated a stretch of track to the city of Dallas as part of a nationwide rails to trails program. Later on, in 1997, The Friends of the Katy Trail was established.
The trail is named after the railway company that used to operate a line where the path now lies - the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The railroad was commonly referred to as the K – T and was affectionately referred to as the Katy. The railway was created in 1865 and later joined the Union Pacific Railroad in 1988. The MKT was a very important north-south link between the Midwest and Texas and was the first to enter the state from the north.
The MKT served six Midwestern states with more than 3,300 miles of track, had a primary office center in Denison, Texas and was headquartered in Dallas. Did you know that there’s a place called the Red River Railroad Museum located in a restored historic Katy Depot in downtown Denison just an hour and a half north of Dallas?
On September 15, 1896 one of the most famous, or rather infamous, publicity stunts involved two MKT locomotives near Waco. Know as the Crash at Crush, it was an elaborately planned and heavily promoted train wreck event which attracted over 40,000 spectators. Luckily the company never repeated such an event.
After a hundred years of providing passenger and freight services to and from the city of Dallas, the MKT rails were abandoned. It is on that abandoned rail bed the rails were removed and the Katy Trail was built. The city of Dallas has similar plans to connect White Rock Lake to the Trinity River in a county-wide network of trails. I’m glad to see the city realize the value of hiking and biking trails. Why not come out and enjoy the trail with us? I can be found there nearly every afternoon and I’d be delighted to help you find a home near there.
Interested in learning what happened on this day in Texas’ history?
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