Trolley's Back on Track

McKinney Avenue Trolley goes off rails but construction wraps up soon

McKinney Avenue Trolley is back on track. Good one, huh?

Photo courtesy of Dallas CVB

The McKinney Avenue Trolley system had a shutdown on November 9 after one of its trolleys went off the rails. McKinney Avenue Transit Authority posted a note of regret on its Facebook page announcing that, due to a problem on the line, the service would be out for the remainder of Sunday evening.

According to MATA business director Nancy Bannister, it was Matilda 369, the biggest trolley in MATA's fleet, that got derailed. "It was corrected quickly," she says.

Elmer Tindell, MATA's operations director, said that something got caught in the tracks.

"The car derailed at CityPlace and McKinney," he says. "Something got into the switch that caused the switch not to be able to swing back. It was a rock or some kind of foreign object.

"There's a lot of construction in that area right around there. If something gets lodged in one of those switches, it can send the trolley off track, and the operator doesn't know until it's already off."

The bigger issue on the trolley's routes are cars. "We do have quite a few accidents downtown, and 95 percent are not the trolley driver's fault," he says. "We can't just swing on and off the track."

Dallas city manager A.C. Gonzalez is newly converted to the benefits of trolleys: Initially resistant, he's advancing an ambitious plan to build a trolley network that would cover downtown and its periphery.

For MATA, their mission is to get better signs. "We're working with the City of Dallas to get the signage redone and help prevent accidents," Tindell says.

The downtown extension of MATA, forming a loop on Olive Street and circling back on St. Paul, is scheduled for completion by the end of December. The latest forecast for full operation is March 1, says Dallas assistant public works director Keith Manoy.

"It's safe to say by March," he says. "Construction should be finished by the end of December, but then they'll have to do testing of the system along with testing of the cars. That'll probably take a month or so.

"For sure by the beginning of March we should be running through downtown."

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Fugitive News

Dallas Police Department arrests 99 fugitives in summer crime program

Dallas Police/Facebook

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The Dallas Police Department has a new round of arrests in Operation Justice Trail, a coordinated effort led by Police Chief Daniel Comeaux to apprehend individuals with violent felony warrants, with 99 fugitives arrested and taken into custody during June.

The program is a partnership between the Dallas Police Department and the United States Marshals Service which began on May 1, with a goal to identify and take into custody violent criminals. During the firest month of May, a nearly-identical haul of 98 violent felons were arrested, and the initiative will continue through the summer.

“Our goal is simple: to make Dallas the safest large city in America,” Chief Comeaux says in a statement. “We know that a small percentage of violent criminals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. By focusing our efforts on these individuals, we are sending a clear message—violence will not be tolerated in our city.”

These 99 fugitives, who collectively have 616 total arrests for crimes such as Assault on a Public Servant, Manufacture/Delivery of a Controlled Substance, Murder, Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Sexual Abuse of a Child, Reckless Driving, and Stalking, were taken into custody by the Dallas Police Department Fugitive Unit and U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force between June 1–30.

Of those 99 fugitives, 22 were women and 77 were men. Three had arrests for Illegal Entry into the U.S., and one had an arrest for Alien Inadmissibility - Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Officials told Fox 4 that officers used "a combination of the city’s camera system and old-fashioned good police work" to make the arrests.

North Texas Crime Stoppers is offering a guaranteed $1,000 reward for tips submitted to the crime stoppers tipline that lead to the arrest of any individual with an existing felony warrant for specific crimes, until August 31.

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