Real Cars, GM A, B, G Bodies, the Trucks, some nice Ford and Mopar alternatives as well. The only exception to this rule is the Corvette, all eight generations of being nothing but simply a beauty on wheels.
0:38 turns out it did take (about) two decades from the time of this footage in 1978; the North Central Expressway reconstruction south of I-635 was completed in 1999. The High Five Interchange between I-635 and US-75 was completed in 2005.
I did too starting in '79 on a '78 XT500. I had a ton of close calls then. Later, I had a Suzuki GS 750 so keeping up and passing traffic back then was easy. I'd be a little nervous now to ride on Central these days.
I lived off of the Meadow exit off of Central in '79-'80. 2br apt back then was $185pm. I was just down the street from the first Chili's on the corner of Meadow and Greenville. What a blast from the past!
Wow, at 1:34 that is the famous Scott Pelley who would later be on CBS News. I knew it right when he started talking. The transcript has his name misspelled as he clearly says his name is Scott Pelley when the segment concludes. This is cool. You don’t see network level TV personalities in their old roles very often.
I remember getting stuck 4 hours on 75 while under the new expansion in the late 80s. Bunch of us played hacky sack until they removed center gaurd rail.
I remember Central in the 80s with those short on ramps. I was living in Houston by the time it was rebuilt in the 90s. It was much better when I moved back in 2008 but ended up leaving Texas a few years later and I hear it's backed up a lot now.
The entire time I lived in Plano 1980-1993 there was consistent construction on I75 and that didn't include the California style sweeping off and on ramps or the Bush tollway project. One big improvement was lengthening of the sudden on and off ramps. and redesigning the two way service roads.
I remember the construction started around 93 or 94 from downtown up to Walnut Hill Lane exit. Central Expy was rebuilt from Walnut Hill through Plano by then.
You know those people who say they were "born in the wrong generation" and "wish they could live back in the 80's or 90's"? Well, I'm not really one of those people in the slightest sense of the word, but if someone asked me if I wanted to visit the 70's, 80's, and 90's each for a week respectively (with a car, ability to legally drive, and bring back anything from then with me back to now) I'd take that up in a heartbeat. I'd love to drive down the old freeways with colourful and unique traffic, visit the Twin Towers and see the stunning views from the top, maybe even buy a 32x and a copy of Knuckles Chaotix before they both became expensive and rare. If only...
If they did, then it was rebuilt east of the freeway. The Dart rail was built on it in 1995 when Southern Pacific stopped running through freights on it after a large washout occurred south of Lake Lavon in 1992. An army corp of engineers screw up at the dam. I have heard that the North Dallas Tollway was built on an old cotton belt line that went south from Addison to Dallas. You can easily see that one on satellite maps. A short spur of it still exists from just north of Beltline Road southward maybe a mile and a half.
@@MFXdump OK - the H&TC was merged into the T&NO in 1934 and I have a 1936 map of Dallas showing it as such. The line was abandoned from Ellsworth Ave. (just south of Mockingbird Ln.) to downtown and US 75 a/k/a Central Expressway which was so named in honor of the H&TC which was built on the grade. At the time of the construction, we lived next to the SMU campus on the east side and I remember seeing the excavations for the overpasses. As an aside, there was a mechanical interlocking tower which controlled the crossing of the H&TC and M-K-T. Many years later, we lived on Park Lane between Midway and Inwood, and I would ride my bicycle over to Preston Center, crossing the Cotton Belt track. There was a concrete passenger platform on the east side of the line just south of Northwest Highway and I remember seeing a passenger train with a steam locomotive stopped at it. Years after the tollway was built, the track remained in Lovers Lane for quite some time. And yes, the toll road is built on the Cotton Belt grade to just south of 635. As another aside, I had a little part-time job with a friend of mine in the ‘70s on a derailment crew with a 100-ton Holmes high-rail wrecker. We had a job in Addison picking-up and rerailing some box cars that had gone on the ground on a curve on what remained of the Cotton Belt line. The things we do when we are (kinda) young and stupid… As yet another aside, before DUT was built in 1916, the H&TC had a depot just east of downtown (it was still there into at least the '60s - maybe ‘70s). There is or was a brick commercial building whose west wall was curved to accommodate the line going into the east-west yard and depot. As I seldom get to Dallas these days, I don’t know what remains or how things have changed. In the '60s, I was a Towerman at DUTCo and worked both the North and the South towers (ran some of the last passenger trains into and out of Dallas). The track board in the North Tower had the SL-SWofT (Cotton Belt) terminal lead tracks and occupancy lights painted out. An old Towerman told me that the Cotton Belt trains had to come in fast over the double-slips or the long-wheelbase 4-8-4 locomotives would derail if the engineers were overly-cautious and came in too slow. I have some Cotton Belt passenger ticket stubs someplace salvaged from the trash. There: More than you ever wanted to know… By the way, there is an excellent channel devoted to regional railroad historical photos and videos: www.youtube.com/@timetable5245 I have more comments there.
Thanks for the history and information,My father had told me some of what you printed but over time I've forgotten, Thanks,My memory has been refreshed
People commonly drove 5-10 over the speed limit just like they do now. There was less traffic back then so commute times would be shorter then they are now.
They had relative number back then with the rush hour frequency. Today a whole central is needed just for the three wheelers and to add to it they gave it a go go look last winter. If these numbers keep coming up you will need a commute rail tracker and a low dive steeper cliff just to get to the downtown.
So funny watching this. 2 things always come true: 1: by the time they come up with a good "plan", that plan is 20 years out of date by the time the changes are implemented. 2: they always take away the things that actually work, I.E. those two ladies who took the Lovers Lane ramp. Anyone remember the left exit off 30 for Industrial/Riverfront? Best way to get to Sterrett when you had jury duty. Now it's gone, and they force you to jump thru hoops to get there. 🙄
I remember those terrible short on ramps on Central Expy. It was 3 lanes on each side until you got past Mockingbird Ln. Then it went to 2 lanes on each side. It sucked.
Ah yes, I remember that well! I was driving up and down Central every day for work from '78-'89. It was absolutely horrible! And now it's still horrible but at least it looks really nice. Lol
texashistory.unt.edu/ Play around with the search functions. If you search for "Central Expressway" a lot of news and videos come up. It's amazing how many news stories there were about it.
Big hoop earrings, giant curly hair, big round sunglasses, looong collars, yup... this was the 70's for sure. I lived really close to the 635 and 75 mixmaster and went to the Gemini Drivein movie theater a LOT. Had a whole lot of fun there as a young adult back in the late 70's and early 80's. I was 17 and had my own apartment. I was growing weed in the creek behind my apartment.
Think that's bad, they used to have stoplights on those on ramps. Also, Dallas drivers have never grasped the concept of the "zipper merge." There're always too many scaredy-cats, that just don't understand that accelerating to get on the freeway is both far safer and more practical than slowing down and/or breaking. We all learn this in Drivers Ed but for whatever reasons, that just doesn't seem to compute here with Dallas drivers.
@@jaylucien669 They showed the stoplights in the video, yeah that's quite bad compared to Minnesota ramps, you get plenty of room to accelerate even with the ramps that have stoplights, nothing like this video shows.
I rremember those short onramps. It was the big joke in Dallas back then. Try merging with a '65 Chevy farm truck with a straight 6 and 3 on the tree like I had..At least there wasn't nearly as much road rage in the 70s/80s...
@@telcobilly I moved to Dallas Summer '84 from Atlanta, Tx. (south of Texarkana). Dallas was the first big city I'd driven in; '56 Chevy, straight 6, three on the tree. I was mortified...I learned real quick..go! Especially on-ramps. I'll never forget merging I-30 to LBJ that day!
@bb-gc2tx, it sounds VERY SCARY to be getting followed by him, regardless of whether it's day or most nerve-wracking, night time.🚘😨🤠 J.R. Ewing would highly likely follow you on the road, so in such a case, you're TEXAS-SIZED EFFED! 😮
My Dad used to ride his scooter from north Dallas to south Dallas on Central Expressway back in '55 or so. He said there was very little traffic on it back then, and the land was all farmland north of Lovers Lane. So Dallas ended at that point, just past University Park, and after that it was nothing but crops and fields.
@@trevorjameson3213 True. I'm sure they're better than many other places. I'm no longer in Dallas, but when I first moved there years ago, they were working on I-75. When I left 11 years later, they were still working on it. It seems they were perpetually working on many roads. By the time they got from one end to the other, it was time to turn around and start working back in the opposite direction. A lot of infrastructure is falling apart in some other states I've visited.
What I think is maybe more needed is better mass transit infrastructures, no matter how many freeways you build, you will still have big traffic jams.probably too late now for most major urban areas in the US
I read somewhere that "expressway" was an early term for what most now call and label as "freeway"s. The original part of Central pre-dates the other big highways in the area. If Central had come along later, like most of the rest of the big highways, it probably would have had a "freeway" name.
