Transportation improvements, along with flood control, open space, lakes, and recreation were included in the Trinity River Corridor Citizens Committee Report (May, 1996). It said that the a reliever route "could be implemented as a toll road funded by the Texas Turnpike Authority."

The Citizens Committee recognized that Interstates 30 and 35 near downtown Dallas are among the most congested in the area carrying 484,750 vehicles per day today and 633,680 in 2025 (assuming 100,000 vehicles per day are using the Parkway).

Mayor Laura Miller raised private funds to reexamine the Parkway. County Judge Lee Jackson joined her and they engaged nationally recognized experts Alex Krieger from Boston and Bill Eager from Seattle to determine if the Parkway was needed and, if so, could it be constructed outside of the levees. After months of work, the eminent consultants concluded that The Trinity Parkway was needed and could not reasonably be located anywhere but inside the levees.

Dallas owns the right of way inside the levees and would have to purchase it anywhere else. Alignments along Industrial or Stemmons would increase the cost by at least $300 million and add years to the timetable.

The Dallas voters approved $84 million for the Parkway in the 1998 bond election. The balance of the cost of the Parkway will be financed through tolls, federal funds and state funds.

Before the 1998 election, The Dallas Morning News mentioned the tollway 40 times. The opponents of the bond election included an "eight lane tollway" in both their newspaper ads and their flyers as a reason to vote against the bond package.

As a result of Mayor Miller, the City Council and dedicated volunteers, we now have the Balanced Vision Plan for the Trinity. It has taken what was an eight-lane tollway and made it a Parkway with six lanes from U. S Highway 183 to Continental Avenue and four lanes from Continental to U. S. Highway 175. They reduced the number of tollbooths and ramps. They increased and enhanced landscaping.

The commitment of all involved with the planning of the Trinity Parkway is to build a true Parkway that is compatible with a park and designed to the same level of excellence as North Central Expressway.