Giant spider in downtown Dallas

So sorry I don't have a picture of a spider I saw in downtown Dallas many years ago. I was waiting for the walk signal at the intersection of Main and Akard. It was lunch time, so lots of pedestrians. When the signal changed, no one stepped off the curb. I moved forward to see what the holdup was. There was a huge spider crossing in front of the crowd '. It was not a tarantula, at least not as I know them, with stocky, hairy body and hairy legs. Rather, this was grey, about 8-10 inches from front legs to back. Large abdomen, small thorax and head, long thin legs. No visible hair. I have always wondered what it was, and just recently found this site. It literally stopped (pedestrian) traffic! When the light changed to green, it was squished by cars.
Surely someone knows what kind of spider this might have been. I never knew anything other than a tarantula could be so big.
Any ideas, anyone?

What a shame it got squasged!! Did you look through my photos at www.spiderzrule to see if you could see it?
glen

I have seen a couple of photos that resemble, as closely as I can remember, the spider that I saw. The problem is that few of the photos have anything to scale the size of the spider by. That was the main characteristic of this spider.

what spider did it look like?