Back to that Houston-to-Dallas bullet train for a second …Erik Noriega, manager of communications for the Greater Houston Partnership, was kind enough to send me Central Japan Railway Company’s PowerPoint referred to below. Says Noriega, GHP just hosted Monday’s event, which was attended, for the most part, by Harris County…
About a year ago there was some big back-and-forthing over the viability of a high-speed rail connecting Dallas and Houston. But since then, we’ve heard next to nothing. Except: Our sister paper in Houston directs our attention this morning to news of a Monday-morning meeting during which Yoshiyuki Kasai, the…
Truth told I wasn’t aware the state’s vehicle registration sticker was so hideous and hard-to-read. But it is. It is! Hence the new-and-improved version just debuted in Arlington at the Tarrant County tax office, where Texas Department of Motor Vehicles higher-ups gathered to birth with much pride and pomp the…
Back in May, you may recall, JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker kinda gave it to American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey during a first-quarter earnings conference call. Said Baker to Arpey, following a discussion of dwindling earnings and a vague “flight plan” for the future, “I guess you just don’t sound…
Back in March, you may recall, cab drivers at Love Field were none too pleased with the city council’s decision to give compressed natural gas-powered taxis front-o’-the-line privileges at the airport. A month later, the Association of Taxicab Operators went to federal court to block the city from implanting the…
It’s no secret the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the AT&T Performing Arts Center are “facing some financial challenges,” as AT&TPAC chair Howard Hallam told Unfair Park a few weeks ago, following the resignation of president and CEO Mark Nerenhausen. Not long after Nerenhausen turned in his adios so too did…
On an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that aired, oh, about a year ago, Larry David lectured an airplane seatmate about what not to wear on a flight. “A little traveling tip: Try not to wear shorts. Not all that attractive to look at for five hours.” Which I mention…
On June 22, Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s higher-ups sent the bad news: Three projects had been derailed by that $3-billion drop in sales tax receipts: the section of the Orange Line that’s supposed to run from Irving to Terminal A at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the Blue Line extension from…
On the other side is the full announcement from Dallas/Fort International Airport concerning Virgin America’s decision to go west, young man: On December 1, the just-turned-3-year-old carrier considered by many to be the Best Domestic Airline will start flying from DFW to Los Angeles twice a day; five days later,…
We can’t all fly with small children or require special assistance at the gate, but for the last few years, thanks to Neville Aga and his website CheckinSooner.com, we’ve been able to bounce to the general boarding zone of our dreams — for the low, low annual price of $79…
I mentioned this in passing Sunday: The Arizona Daily Star discovered, or so it thought, that Southwest Airlines’s attorneys snuck into its contract of carriage a new definition of “act of God” should you find yourself delayed: “mechanical difficulties.” To which the Love Field-based airline responded that those two words…
Some random notes while I attempt to get myself out of a murky land deal:Dallas Theater Center’s revisal of It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman closes today, following the 2 p.m. matinee. Which prompts this New York Post piece that wonders: “It’s a big hit in…
Yesterday Luke Metzger at Environment Texas passed along the group’s latest look at the good things DART’s doing for the air. The most interesting nugget’s right there in the lead: the group calculated that DART’s annual ridership accounts for 8.8 million gallons of gasoline saved — as much as 15,000…
A little light lunchtime reading …To begin with, the U.S. Census Bureau released its population estimates today, and, as usual, Texas — and the DFWA (as in, Arlington) — fared bestest in all the land. “Star of the Sun Belt,” says here. And that means you, Frisco and McKinney and…
A few weeks ago, you no doubt recall, The New York Times wondered whether American Airlines was becoming “a waning star of air travel.” To which many Friends responded, as they often do when the subject of the Fort Worth-based carrier comes up: Why, yes, yes it is. Among the…
This morning’s New York Times wonders: How much longer can Fort Worth-based American Airlines limp along without merging with another airline, a la Delta-Northwest and, more recently, the proposed United-Continental union? AA, which held a “sparsely attended” shareholders meeting in New York yesterday, is in danger of becoming the nation’s…
That ad you see at right — that’s on Page 13A of this morning’s Morning News courtesy the Transport Workers Union of America, which wants you, dear reader, to text “EXCESS” to a number that will “register” you for upcoming protests. Like the one planned today at Terminal D of…
Say what you will about Kenneth Copeland, but the Wise County televangelist isn’t one to over-share. Copeland, with wife Gloria, was one of six televangelists hand-picked by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley back in November 2007, over concerns Kenneth Copeland Ministries was enjoying the privileges of its tax-exempt status a little too much. In…
A Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention to this Adweek blog item from today about a pissing contest involving Love Field-based Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways — though, from the looks of the Google Machine, this first became a thing at the end of last week. In short, Southwest…
Before I head out for the day, a little housekeeping …First off, if you live near Hillcrest and Alpha Roads, mazel tov! Not only do you live next to Temple Shalom and the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, but according to this list, you also reside in Dallas’s safest neighborhood…
So, let’s see … Larry King now wants Kevin Smith to come on his show to talk about getting booted off a Southwest flight Saturday. Smith would rather go on Jon Stewart with a row of Southwest seats to prove, yeah, he can fit just fine, thanks. Meanwhile, the locally…
A Friend of Unfair Park intimately familiar with the doings at Southwest Airlines says, yeah, today was hell at the Love Field-based airline, but Monday’s sure to be worse as SWA attempts to overcome the PR nightmare caused when director Kevin Smith got kicked off an Oakland-to-Burbank flight yesterday. The…
