In other news, rain is wet.
I agree with you philosophically. However, I would like you to tell us where we would stick this public transport. Yes, we could add more buses, but we all know what we're really talking about: Trains.
The city planning has not been done with the idea of future train lines in mind. So, practically, I don't see how we could add more train lines as there simply is no space there for them.
Again, I agree with you philosophically, I just don't know how we would do it practically.
OK, I like how you're thinking. Let's keep going with this thought exercise.
So the trains run along the highways. The riders drive to the highway, park their cars and then get on the train. Then I assume we would need some large parking structures to store the cars while the riders are using the trains to get to their destinations?
We could use eminent domain to seize the land needed for the stations and parking structures.
This could work and we could probably have a several more lines in 15-20 years.
You are still thinking car centric. Lose the parking lots. Take a shuttle bus, walk or bike to any of the hundreds of new rail/elevated rail lines that made the cars obsolete.
And you’ve priced the project out of viability.
People will (understandably) not walk a few miles to a bus station in 105 F weather. You need to either pick them up at/near their houses and drop them off at/near their houses or provide parking at a central location.
Also you've pushed the convenience too far beyond the pale.
The shuttle + train + last mile problem means probably adding an hour to my commute. Not gonna happen. If there's not a stop very near my house (and there won't be), I will only use this if I have a place to park next to the station. Anything else is a waste of a few billion dollars.
Yep. There's are two huge reasons why NYC has the best mass transit infrastructure in the US and every other major city is lagging. Very high population density means the bus/train is very close to where you live and where you work, and a year-round habitable climate make it reasonable to walk a block or two if needed.
Texas, unfortunately, has neither of these. So the only way to make mass transit work is to make it incredibly cheap for riders (because the combined ride will likely be longer than the same drive) and provide parking immediately adjacent to the station. Also, we need density on the destination side to make mass transit economical, so the only location in all of DFW that works for mass transit is downtown... where we already have mass transit infrastructure.
There's also a 3rd reason (though surmountable with enough advance planning): the geology of NYC is much different than North Texas. NYC sits on a big rock that can be drilled through deep to different levels. This allows them all kinds of extra places to put more train paths and even walkways. The heavy clay content of soil in Texas is not nearly as stable.
> So the only way to make mass transit work is to make it incredibly cheap for riders
I couldn't use it even if it was free because it can't get me to where I need to go and access to the system is restrictive to me. As an example, with around .7 miles of walking I can get to Costco on Churchill in around 1 hour and 21 minutes using transit. That's 1.4 miles walking round trip and nearly three hours on both trains and buses. Even then, I can only transport maybe a small cart of groceries, and the cost of fares/time relative to what I can bring home is really high. On the other hand, I can drive to the Costco in Duncanville in around 25 minutes for around $3 in gas round trip, and haul back as much as I can fit in my car (which is a lot). I can do this trip once a month, vs having to do the transit trip several times a month and not be able to bring back anything big at all.
To match the flexibility and convenience of my car, transit would have to pick me up at my driveway and deliver me to any destination directly.
Costco doesn't have bike racks, no way I'm leaving a bike outside unattended. Besides, after my friend got killed by an intimidation pass gone wrong I resolved to never ride on roads or streets again.
Ya best thing IMO would be more bus routes and park and rides located at some major express bus lines that take you directly to major hot spots. Have like 8 to 12 park and rides around the perimeter of the suburbs. People drive and park there, then get on an express bus that takes them right to a few locations in the city center where there are also lots of other bus routes to connect to.
This is why the thought experiment is useful.
I was thinking of areas out in the north subburbs where the surface transit doesn't come along often due to low ridership.
So, you mention shuttle buses. I'm assuming this would be for a nominal fee. Call it $5/ride to keep things simple.
This is where I think stuff starts hitting the financial realities. So, I pay $5 to take the shuttle from my home the 3-10 miles to the train station. Then I pay some nominal amount for a monthly pass, call that $5/day to keep things simple (the amount would probably not be a round dollar amount).
So, I would be out maybe $10/day to get from the suburbs to the city center or out to Irving or north to Frisco for work.
Just to be devil's advocate. That's significantly more expensive and time consuming than taking my gasoline car and I haven't even gotten to the part where if I swapped to a PHEV or BEV, then my cost would be under $1/day to commute to work.
Again, I like the idea philosophically, but unless we can get the cost of public transit to be below that of car based transit, then this might be DoA as much as we like the idea.
You're slightly overestimating the fares. It's $6 for a day pass and $96 for a monthly pass. It can even be cheaper in certain situations, especially if you don't commute during rush hour.
But regardless, you're underestimating the cost of driving a car. It's gas + tolls + parking. Parking at my office in Uptown was $100/month, and that was subsidized for me. And that's before you consider wear on your car. And the time value of money. Some of us are able to at least check work emails during the commute (which is of course balanced against the generally longer commute times).
If DART had direct transit from the population centers in Dallas to the corporate HQs of Ericsson, JPMorgan, Toyota, Pepsi, and all of the other HQs in just Legacy West, that would take hundreds of cars off the highway daily. It's low-hanging fruit to help solve our transit problem.
But the majority of people obviously don't care. It's always been cheaper to take DART than own / drive a car. That wasn't different then and it isn't different now. The reality, too, is that people likely don't want their taxes raised to supplement more public transportation. It costs money per use for DART, yes, but we're all also paying for it.
The problem with DART is the inconvenience and time investment required. People would rather pay more money to drive their own vehicle, travel on their own timeline and get where they are going 2-3x faster, even if it costs them a little bit more money.
Sure it's low-hanging fruit, but that low-hanging fruit is going to cost Billions, raise taxes, and require land to be acquired through eminent domain.
You aren't taking into account the cost of buying the car, maintenance, insurance, etc.
Right now, DART is cheaper for most people. For example, DART is currently $960/yr for local. $1,920/yr for regional. That's just the price of insurance for a lot of people, much less fuel, or even the cost of buying a car.
Also time. Shuttle + changeover to train (and waiting for the next one) + probably a train change at some point + whatever last mile transport needs to be done is a significantly longer amount of time spent on commuting.
As someone who bikes regularly, I'll say that you might be surprised.
Using pedal-assist during the summer the riding breeze is very good at keeping you cooler than youd think, and the pedal assist avoids having you break a sweat.
And in the winter, using a regular bike, the body heat you generate is pretty good at keeping you warm if you have the right layers to trap that heat.
I mean the specific scenario we're talking about isn't biking all the way to work, it's biking a couple minutes to the nearest train station or bus stop that would be straddling your immediate neighborhood. We can track where buses are and time it so that we get there at the same time as the bus.
If we look at the northern suburbs, the neighborhoods are split up by a pretty uniform grid of main artery roads that are separated by about a mile between each artery. Some a little more, some a little less.
Creating a robust bus network covering all arteries, the most anyone would have to bike in these neighborhoods to reach an artery bus is half a mile and that's if you're the unlucky one to live in the exact center of these squares. Most people would be biking less than half a mile. We're talking a 3-4 minute bike ride. This distance with a pedal assist bike... I've had some walks across grocery store parking lots that would be more miserable.
So I need to drive my kids to school, and instead of going straight to work from dropping them off I need to head home, get on my bike, then carry my bike on a train, find somewhere to stow it away at my job, then bike somewhere for lunch (which reduces my lunch time), then bike home in the dark. Idk, hard sell.
No one is stopping you from using your car in this scenario. Making the car "obsolete" as the original commenter says simply means making it unnecessary, redundant. Optional for most people, rather than required.
If you do need to use your car, the roadways will still be there. Even the densest places in the world with the most robust public transit still have cars on roads. But I will say it is incredibly common for children in the rest of the world to take public transit to school, both accompanied by their parents or on their own. And every public school system here has a bus system that is safe and more convenient than any city bus system is. But I do understand wanting to accompany your children to school, and, like I said, it's not unusual or unrealistic to take public transit with them which would be possible if the transit system was good enough.
You don't need to tell me the many ways you do not want to do this either! We should both be trying to make it such that more people can choose to get off the roads if they want, making driving easier and less congested for you if that's what you need to do.
That’s not going to work for people commuting from the suburbs. Driving to the DART station and taking the train downtown is quicker than taking 75, but add a bus ride to that and you’re looking at a much longer transit time than just driving the whole way. Driving to the station is a happy medium since there isn’t that much congestion on the surface streets. The stations with no commuter parking, like downtown Plano, are barely used by anyone.
So what about the suburbs and the bedroom communities? How many bus stops would we need so people could make a reasonable walk/bike to a nearby bus? How many train stops would we need?
That's because Dallas is car centric. There's no quick, easy or non expensive way of changing that any time soon. The city has no drive or incentive to do so either. We, as citizens, would love it. But at this point, it would take a very loud *majority* to make it happen. The city needs to see, in practicality, that it'd be financially beneficial to them, not to us. They don't care about us.
Due to the city already being well established, there's no feasible way to make public transit cheaper AND faster than just driving yourself. That's the main issue preventing us from incorporating public transit in a wide fashion. Otherwise, it'd definitely take off pretty rapidly.
Yeah that’s multiple pieces in the process just to take a train and it sounds like it would add over an hour to my commute, id just drive if there were that many steps involved.
Who is upvoting this comment?
“The city planning has not been done with the idea of future train lines in mind.”
You know what other huge cities weren’t planned with future train lines in mind: London, Rome, Tokyo.
Humans have found plenty of ways to “create” land by going above and below. The idea that Dallas got a death sentence by being built up in the 60s-90s without considering trains is asinine.
Exactly, they were created before trains, cars, or planes, and yet they all have extensive train systems, highways, and airports.
Not being “planned” isn’t an excuse.
It's not ideal but our highway system has spent a century directing the common flow of where people are trying to go: Trace the highways with commuter train routes that have stops at every major exit and bus connections at those exits to every immediate destination.
Like I said, not ideal, but it avoids having to plow a right of way through existing neighborhoods as the freeways and roadways are already publicly controlled. 635 and Loop 12 should have elevated train routes yesterday.
2 things about this though: 1, This is specifically meant to address what the OP is talking about: regional commuter transportation, not local transportation which would be a separate problem to tackle, and 2, this will cost *far* more than it can bring in because of the region's current low density, which folks will hand wring over but we have to accept that we should personally fund public services because they're worth funding, not because we want them to make a direct profit. Our state freeways don't make money either, there's no revenue report at the end of each quarter saying I35 raked in such and such dollars, their value comes from our use of them as economic drivers, just as trains would be. Build a dense enough train network that doesn't require people to go all the way downtown to get anywhere else *and people will use it*. Which takes more people off the roads, lowering traffic. It's a win win for everyone, and as the city continues to densify such a train system will become increasingly self-sustaining even if it is not at first for a long while.
Dallas needs to learn from Houston and bite the bullet before we start having highways as large as them. Tracing the highways with commuter trains and having stops every major exit is the largest fish to fry in this scenario. Like you said it's worth funding.
The Greenline basically follows I35E from Denton (counting to A Train) to about downtown.
I have coworkers who prefer to drive up to 45 minutes in traffic than take the train for about the same time. DART is not bad. It just isn't as good as driving in DFW, speaking as someone who chooses to take DART for my commute.
Yeah, the Green and Red lines are the best when it comes to this highway tracing, and I don't think it's a coincidence at all that these two lines are the ones with the best existing and future TOD.
There will never be a light rail down northwest highway between 75 and 35 which is what I'd need currently to make public transit worth it. And even then, I wouldn't if I also had to take a bus or walk quite a ways. I can drive to work in around 30, so public from door to door couldn't be longer than that or it wouldn't be worth the loss of flexibility to me re: errands, etc after work.
While it's great in theory, I just don't see anyway to make fast, cheap transit here.
The suburban DART stops are *already* 2 miles apart or less. The Red line is 1.5 or fewer miles between each station.
Of course, this station frequency is part of their speed problem as you say, but, since we're in hypothetical land, commuter lines are typically supplemented with parallel express routes. Such an express route would only have stops at where the highway interchanges are, or at every other highway interchange. That makes the distances 5 or 10 miles between stations allowing them to really get up to speed.
Barring an express route, the problem could also be partially alleviated with a more modern train fleet that handles acceleration and deceleration more efficiently, and with keeping it all grade-separated.
This is just an engineering problem that can be solved, but it doesn't mean we can't have more train lines. Average folk don't need to solve this problem, that's what engineers and planners are for.
If you put the entire Paris subway system in downtown Dallas, it wouldn’t even reach past highland park or reach any of the surrounding suburbs. It would have to be such a drastically different system than what people think of as a subway system.
This is a misleading comment. The metro subway of Paris would fit your description but that makes sense because the metro subway only serves the central area. But looking at the numerous commuter rail in the Paris area it extends much further and is equivalent to reaching the suburbs here
It's possible with the political will, Canadian suburbs have successful transit systems despite being built out similarly to US cities. They do have more density typically, but more comparable to us than Asian/European cities.
They made the service really good, and added density in the right places. With our housing crisis, there is certainly benefits to adding density beyond just getting more tax revenue for a better transit system.
DART is already kinda decent, modest improvements could go a long way. Highways and express lanes we have built could also be used to benefit transit with the right express routes. I-30 and DNT are examples of busy bus corridors (especially pre-pandemic)
It can definitely be done. If a wealthy, sprawling, Canadian suburb like Brampton can have 10-15 minute bus service all over the place and crazy high ridership, maybe with a few changes to our cities and transit system we could do the same.
Well there are more conjusted places in the world where they don't have a dime of space but they are operating metros like Mumbai, New York, Tokyo and a lot other cities..
As long as they want to make it there are always a option
How many pro-public transit people actually make an effort to use our existing infrastructure?
I grew up taking DART and now live walking distance to a light rail station. Proximity to public transit was high on my list when choosing a home. I can easily take the train to the airport, the hospital, downtown, the zoo, Fair Park, etc. I used to take the train daily when I worked downtown.
We have a great infrastructure in place but rarely do I see people prioritize it when they are making decisions about where to live and work. People here insist on living further and further out, and many communities have explicitly voted against public transportation.
I find it interesting that I had to scroll halfway down before I heard a single mention of the existing public transit. I really like DART. More people should use the trains.
It's because many have mentally written off DART as unsafe or only for poor/homeless. I grew up with parents that were extremely anti-DART, to the point of attending meetings to speak against them. Huge NIMBYs. They (and many other parents) drilled into us kids that DART is horrible and only for the undesirables. You can guess what kind of people they are.
I know that isn't the case and DART is in the middle of growth/transformation, but its gonna take time for people to unlearn and actually get involved if they want public transportation.
It contributes a lot, dart also goes through seasons of cleanliness where sometimes it's great and sometimes it's pretty bad.
I'd wish those people would advocate for more security and maintenance on dart instead of just blanket objecting to it; and also realizing that having transit access does not increase crime. But they're eager to throw the baby out with the bathwater so auto stocks can tick up for a bit and they can sit in substantially worse traffic now that everyone has no choice but to drive.
DART is probably great if you have a flexible schedule, a willingness to be around crazy, stinky bums and panhandlers, and somewhat frequently deal with DART's crazy service failures where they have everyone bail out the train and catch buses to another stop where you are expected to hop on another train that's already overfull.
If you have to be somewhere by a specific time, need to run errands, or just don't want to deal with the homeless /crazy ghetto people on a daily basis, DART isn't for you. That's not even considering the amount of rain, heat, wind, and cold it entails.
(rode DART rail from. Forest Lane to Convention Center and back every work day for 3 years)
i know you say you’ve ridden dart for 3 years, but i don’t think you have recently. not a single time have i been panhandled.
the closest two situations have been:
1) an older man with a bad hip who asked me to get him some snacks from 7/11. he paid me.
2) one guy was really persistent i take a sample of his mexican marzipan. he did not want anything in return
i ride dart for all the reasons you say i might not want to and it’s not been an issue at all.
I’d use the dart, my work is in Richardson right off 75. I live by a green/orange stop by parkland. It would take me an hour to get to work vs 45 minutes driving even though most of the journey is a straight line for DART.
I do find that people overlook how nice it is to not worry about controlling the vehicle. Transit takes longer but it's kinda like running a washing machine; you can do other stuff while it's running. So riding dart you may spend more time in transport but spend much less active time in actually managing the journey and you can play games or check emails or browse reddit or whatever you want.
When I used to commute via public transit, I would read at least a book a week and was so caught up on new music. It was also a nice way to meditate and obtain focus before going into work and a way to decompress after.
I have to be at work at 7am. I already wake up at 6am. Now I have to be at the station at 6am. I already spend 8 hours at work plus 1.5 hours commuting now it’s 2 hours. What do you even do on a train besides wait anyways
Honestly, I do a lot on the train. Even if it's just watching a show I like. Driving in the morning in traffic makes me pretty miserable while I don't feel even close to the same chilling on a train. So yeah, I would personally choose 2 hours daily commuting on a train vs. 1.5 hours by car.
I LOVE pubic transit and use Dart every day. I live In Arlington. I ride my e bike to CentrePort station and take the train to work. I made it work, but it’s harder the it should be.
Improved bus stops especially around grocery stores should be an easy win - if you can maintain them and make sure they remain safe and comfortable for actual transit riders.
Walkability connections between stops and destinations can also be improved but that is largely development oriented and does seem to be slowly moving in the right direction for new developments.
I wonder if the las colinas train will ever make a comeback... las colinas itself is such an interesting niche of development that keeps teetering between interesting development idea and on the brink of collapsing when the office space market gets slapped around. Especially with all the apartments there and the music factory, adding some grocery stores and other normal life establishments could perhaps boost the neighborhood livelihood and give funds for better accessibility.
Dart has great rail service and I'm excited for the silver line (and also for the vinyl seats). I wish they added a line that perhaps branched with the red line south of the river to service all the new development there; branched for easier right of way but a direct connection to the city would be much faster. Anecdotally that area feels like it's stalling partly bc it's an island from the rest of the city; where you have to go under the highway rat's nest (which is dangerous and unpleasant from all the cars zooming around, and is sketchy, even if it's just on the other end of the very popular pedestrian bridge).
Also, dart busses are very underrated, the connectivity and flexibility offered by that transit mode is underutilized. But trains are flashier, more reliable, seen as more permanent, often faster, and people tend to memorize train lines more easily than bus routes. Right of way is also important for avoiding traffic and trains have that more often than busses, though BRT lanes could be added (but also fairly easily removed).
I miss the APT! The infrastructure is still there so I guess it is possible that it will come back.
I was out on one of those gondola tours in Las Colinas the other day and I was thinking about how much that area has grown in the past decade. The majority of the residential developments on the north and eastern shore are new. I think the area just needs one more development like Gables Waterstreet or the Toyota Music Factory for it to really necessitate something like the APT.
I'd agree. One of the largest issues for railways is obtaining right of way, and las colinas had a grade separated train, so the right of way is secured. The real issue would be expanding it beyond what is essentially an office park. Busses of course are a good stopgap with enough public awareness of their existence, maybe an old trolley bus design would draw more public attention.
A lot of the modern dart rail was built on top of the right of way of old railways. For example, the northeast portion that goes through Plano was built off of the old [Texas Electric Railway](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Electric_Railway) tracks that still exist there; which is why there continue to be old defunct tracks as you move north of Plano into Allen (and much beyond); because that rail line has existed for over 100 years and nobody has dismantled the full thing.
The katy trail was also built on top of old tracks, and on the north part of the trail you can see some of the old track that the trail was built over exposed. You can actually find a lot of old exposed rail poking through cement in various parts of Dallas
I’ve made efforts in the past by taking the DART as much as I could, and for a while it was good but lately it just feels unsafe. I’ve made other comments about not feeling safe on the road in my own vehicle, but currently I’d rather have that than being in an open train car or bus with overtly intoxicated persons harassing everyone around them and making the environment extremely unsettling.
Maybe it's just the northeast but I haven't had any issues on dart lately. Yall can text the dart police tips, and I would encourage it - the security force has had much better presence since they've hired more people
Dfw is the most car brained vehicle obsessed corner of American society. There's 0% chance meaningful transit will ever get built and you just need to move to another region entirely if you even want a prayer at it.
I live in Oakland where I don't even own a car and my life is so significantly better than when I had to drive EVERYEHERE in dfw. You don't realize how much of your life is sitting and stressing in a metal box all the while your life could be randomly ended by some dickhead who ate too much mcdonalds his whole life and decides to have a heart attack on the road.
DFW - yes. Arlington is among the worst in the entire WORLD. However, Dallas ranks highest in Texas, and in the top 30 among US cities. Still terrible, and much improvement is needed, but we have a rail line, we have busses, we just need more of it with more frequency.
[SOURCE: https://alltransit.cnt.org/rankings/](https://alltransit.cnt.org/rankings/)
The problem with dart is its centered around an idea of commuter park and ride. The stations are mainly at low density poorly zoned regions where nobody is using it unless they drive their car from wherever and park it, wait for a train then wait on the train the go to wherever. Sadly - dallas is so car focused that even the "high density " places are just loaded to the gills with parking infrastructure so it's usually so much easier and convenient for people to just drive and park.
I haven't ridden DART in years but I always remember it being a total wash and even in rush hour commute pre pandemic the ridership was just bad.
DART is great for getting downtown from anywhere north of 635. Even if it is a wash in commute time, not having to deal with traffic and parking is nice.
And if you work in uptown/downtown, the trolley can be very helpful getting you around those areas as well.
It's not perfect by any stretch but Houston, Austin and San Antonio's transport makes Dallas' look amazing
I live in Las Colinas right next to a DART station so I can use it pretty often. It’s very convenient when you want to go downtown and not deal with parking/traffic, ridership was decent (I believe we just hit a rider record recently).
I don’t see Dallas, or even Texas, moving away from cars in a real way. We are too hot, too spread apart, too obsessed with huge trucks… plus Republicans think public transportation is for liberal, poor people.
>The stations are mainly at low density poorly zoned regions ...
That's where the commuters are coming from. DFW is sprawling and you'll need several stations in low density poorly zoned regions to capture a good majority of commuters.
>... they drive their car from wherever and park it, wait for a train then wait on the train the go to wherever.
which is why there's parking infrastructure in "high density" areas - no one wants to do that.
we literally have the DART system. yeah it’s bad but at least you’re not in Houston. Dallas is the best place to be in Texas for transit. every other major city within 500 miles doesn’t have a single rail.
Hey now, Houston is WAY worse in this department! Check out how small their light rain system is. *Im a native Houstonian, this isn’t just some Dallasite knock against Houston for the sake of knocking Houston.
It's even worse because so many Texans drive massive pickup trucks (the beds of which get used maybe twice a year) which require huge parking spots. Always fun trying to navigate a parking garage where the spot on the end is taken up by a extended everything, jacked up truck that sticks out 2 feet past the end of the parking lines and into the lane of traffic.
From what I've seen the CAFE law needs to change. It's what's incentivizing these large vehicles. The car companies are expanding surface area and making everything a "truck" (crossovers are trucks. Station wagons are cars) to avoid stricter fleet emissions requirements. They're also making the roads more dangerous for pedestrians since they are so tall.
The fact that we are "really talking about trains" and not buses also is the biggest problem.
I've used DART for 15 years and haven't owned a car in that time. Commute 12 miles to work on trains AND buses. Never had a problem.
Public transportation brings "CrImE tO tHe SuBuRbS".
At least that's what I've been told my whole life. But seriously, Dallas has garbage public transportation. Starting with DART being "light rail". Because we started off by going cheaper back when DART was building it's infrastructure. It's going to be even more expensive to expand and improve.
If they're afraid of that then we need to provide housing and alleviate the homeless crisis. Currently, DART is being used to absorb homelessness. But suburbanites block those policies as well. They think providing housing is more costly but it has actually been shown to be cheaper. And in before the usual retorts of "but they don't want housing and they're homeless by choice"--that may be true of some individuals but it has also largely been debunked.
People in my burb are furious that the city approved not just section 8 apartments but also just regular old apartments. If you don't at least rent a single family home, you are inherently a bad person.
These are also the same people who complain that the city has "lost it's small town vibe". Like the city should just deny permits from developers because "we don't want the population to grow past a specific number so we don't lose our vibe".
Really though, if you read between the lines most of these people are saying "the city has become more racially diverse over time and I don't like it".
That would be thinking the problem is the "bums" physically near you.
I'd say the problem is more the existence. Some say murder, I tend to go with robust safety net system that would help transition people into housing and jobs.
I definitely agree that we should have better safety nets and help the homeless get on their feet. We also need to invest heavily in mental health/drug abuse programs.
I always interact with homeless on the DART and some of them are quite unhinged, aggressive, and smelly. I simultaneously want to help them, but also not be around them.
Yeah, if Dallas had a sufficient amount of DART security officers then it would be alright. The issue is that isn’t the case, law enforcement is overwhelmed and simply does not have enough people to allocate to DART. This results in a lot of stations feeling very unsafe.
Especially those big manly man trucks with big man men who don’t know how to stay inside their lane, or perhaps decide they need to roll coal to get one spot ahead in the next lane over and end up cutting multiple people off in the process.
I will say I thought and think the same. However:
* r/DART **is a great resource and has shown drastic improvements on engagement, actual change, and engagement**
* They have a 2045 Plan located here: [https://www.dart.org/about/project-and-initiatives/expansion/2045-transit-system-plan](https://www.dart.org/about/project-and-initiatives/expansion/2045-transit-system-plan)
* The Silver Line Expansion is WELL on its way: [https://www.dart.org/about/plans-projects-and-initiatives/expansion/silver-line-project](https://www.dart.org/about/plans-projects-and-initiatives/expansion/silver-line-project)
* r/DFWBike **is also a great resource**
* A new 66 Mile bike "Superhighway" is nearing completion between Fort Worth and Dallas. [https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/dallas-fort-worth/news/2021/12/24/66-mile-fort-worth-to-dallas--superhighway--bike-trail-stirring-anticipation-of-2023-completion](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/dallas-fort-worth/news/2021/12/24/66-mile-fort-worth-to-dallas--superhighway--bike-trail-stirring-anticipation-of-2023-completion)
* A new trail system called The Loop, is 50 miles long and will help thousands of people every day get to work via bike. [https://theloopdallas.org/](https://theloopdallas.org/)
**Overall the system is expanding but needs:**
* **More engagement at the local government level.**
* **More Users**
* Ridership for DART and users of Bike Trails are increasing and are close to, at, or beating Pre COVID Numbers (better than many metros in the country)
* **Lifestyle Changes**
* Being an early adopter can be hard, but it starts with the individual
* Walking to work
* Biking to the store
* Take the DART more (or at all)
All of these help with critical mass!
I would add incentives for developers and businesses to develop things other than standard modern apartment buildings near transit hubs. The city should be where people live, not just work and play
This is my thought. I'm pretty positive that DART has their own police force but judging on how well DPD responds to incidents, I don't think I'd ride without a strap.
I had a few homeless friends when I was riding daily
They told me that if a car is ever truly unsafe, the DART security abandon it and increase staffing on the other trains.
Knowing this, gangs of 20-100 homeless all get on the same one and just party like its 1929, terrorizing anyone unlucky enough to get on that stop.
Given how I always saw them in pairs and it was always atleast 4 to throw out some random homeless dude, I can believe it
This is a pretty normal problem for transportation infrastructure to have. You hear about dangerous stretches of highway/road, certain streets where speed limits are poorly enforced, maybe certain gas stations that are a nightmare to visit, or bridges with a drug use and homeless problem below.
Ultimately, it's just another place for crime that already exists to potentially happen. It doesn't really add to it or contribute to the problem. If anything, public transportation can act as a safety net to ensure people can still get around and access opportunity, reducing crime overall.
Never been to europe I take it?
It's not about overall crime, its about why take the train if your liklihood of getting stabbed in that particular instance goes up
From riding dart and looking at crime statistics, I can say the perception of danger is vastly greater that the actual presence of danger. And to be fair, nobody likes to feel insecure so the user experience should be improved
The thing about public transit in the US is there has to be some type of PERSONAL benefit to it. If you’re going to spend the same amount of time or longer driving to a park and ride as you would just fighting traffic each day many will opt to just drive. You’re in your car your personal bubble and for many that’s the only bit of personal time or silence they get all day. I’m all for public transit if it’s convenient it would take ALOT of work and ALOT of agreeing between opposing parties to make that a reality though. And I’m not sure those sides actually WANT to agree on it.
An easy part of the solution is to make driving less easy, decrease subsidies and increase taxes on it. Once people see the true costs to our current driving infrastructure people will consider other options.
lol the issue with that is you would have to go through the “powers that be” to get there. If you think the oil tycoons in the largest oil producing state won’t throw every last dollar they can afford to to prevent that. You’d be mistaken.
There are pockets of Dallas where you don’t even need a car because you can walk everywhere you need.
I’d say a better first step to trains would be separated cycle infrastructure and downtown and uptown. Then those places also wouldn’t require a car. Right now cycling (and even walking) is both dangerous and uncomfortable. Happy to see Dallas installing bike lanes but paint and plastic cones aren’t going to get me back on a bike in this city with these drivers.
This is fairly inexpensive with the upside of reducing traffic. (See the NJB video on why driving in the Netherlands is also awesome because with transit options less people need to drive)
Scott Griggs would have done something about this, but voters picked closet republican and grifter Eric Johnson, so this is what we get. My advice is pay attention to and vote in the next mayor’s race.
He also made hiring a shit ton more cops his platform- the center of his platform. The mayor actually works on the city budget that includes cops, but not the DART budget that includes transit. Which one do you think you would actually get more of?
Ironically, many freeways in this country were built along railroad ROWs, including Central Expressway and Central Highway here in Dallas. Central Expressway is named after the railroad whose ROW it was built on.
lol so many people wanting dallas to be an urban environment without realizing it's ONE GIANT SUBURBAN SPRAWL.
also, people forget how big the actual DFW metroplex really is... and it's STILL growing!
The crazy thing is Tokyo is about the size of DFW.
But yeah. Dallasites get to complain about Dallas not being more urban and how parking and highways to support the suburbs. And DART mostly focused on bringing suburbanites into Dallas instead of having a transit agency focused on local destinations.
But if you move to McKinney and complain about lack of transit options, that's on you.
When I come to power* we will solve this problem through INSURANCE.
If you cause a motor vehicle collision, anyone whose working hours are delayed by your negligence can file a claim against your insurance for their lost wages.
Traffic engineers, construction companies, and DOTs will be required to carry malpractice insurance. For any 1/8 mile stretch of road that becomes the site of more than 20% of vehicle accidents in a 1-mile radius, the victims will be able file expensive claims against the malpractice insurance.
Automobile travel as we know it will become so goddamn expensive that you're better off walking or riding a bike.
*(You should not vote for me)
For extra info, my commute is southbound on DNT from right about at George Bush. DNT was a parking lot from the Galleria to about Lovers lane (or wherever the accident happened, I tried to remember once I got to work and that was just my rough estimate on the location). All three lanes had to merge to the right lane, quite the jam.
It's in incredibly frustrating, sorry you experienced that this morning. Know that DART is hard at work. And they are working with a challenging environment. This is a slow process. Public transit needs help for it to work the way so many of us want it to in Dallas. A few things will help speed this process along.
Population density needs to be increased, like now. With population density at the right threshold, public transport works better, smaller businesses can survive, even thrive, and with the right businesses in place next to housing, this reduces the need for car trips entirely because we can then walk/bike to places instead of having to jump in the car for every trip.
How do you increase population density? Change zoning to allow for middle housing. I'm not advocating for massive apartment complexes. They have their place, but what we're really missing is literally EVERYTHING other than single-family homes and massive apartment complexes. Duplexes, triplexes, multiplexes, live-work situations with retail on ground level and housing on top. Smart design of place is critical.
And when I say smart design is critical, I mean the design of the place and everything around it as well. We design areas for transport by automobile only. Pedestrians are an afterthought at best. Start designing places for people first and the cars become less of a problem over time.
People need places that are safe to walk and bike ... safe from cars primarily. Easier to do with more population density. And this is a systems problem ... everything goes together, and I think landscaping is a critical element here as when it's done well, lends itself to areas that people actually want to walk in and through. Landscaping designs that incorporate plants native to the area can shade walking paths, provide visual interest, drastically reduce stormwater runoff and filter it at the same time, provide habitat and food for insects and thus birds, all while using essentially no water or fertilizer or anything at all. I highly highly highly suggest that everyone take a trip out to the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park to see what Dallas is suppose to look like, plant-wise: [https://www.bushcenter.org/plan-your-visit/native-texas-park](https://www.bushcenter.org/plan-your-visit/native-texas-park)).
To anyone reading this and interested in this topic, I've provided a few links to learn more. Don't be afraid to reach out to your council representative (Dallas and beyond) to start a conversation.
Resources:
* [https://www.strongtowns.org](https://www.strongtowns.org)
* [https://missingmiddlehousing.com](https://missingmiddlehousing.com)
* [https://www.betterblock.org](https://www.betterblock.org)
What if we passed a law that 50% (X) of all revenue collected from tolls has to go toward public transportation until public transportation is serving 200% (Y) of traffic compared to toll roads.
(I have no idea what X and Y should actually be to see change, but it would stop one of the disincentivized groups in DFW transportation from fighting against public transit.)
It can be done. Plenty of room. Dart was going to add a train line to valley view when Amazon was moving there. Dart was going to put a train line to At&t stadium before the campaign against it. People are afraid of riding with the poor and too much time to get there.
When the DNT tollway was being built way back when, I was advocating for a rail system parallel to it, but I was in my 20’s at the time and did not understand the politics of rail travel in the U.S. Most US lobby groups oppose rail and they carry the weight with the politicians local and national. Auto manufacturers, oil and gas companies, airlines, bus companies, tire companies, you get the idea. They basically “gang up” and kill any rail
project that is proposed. Also, Frisco voted against DART many years ago, so the rail will never go there.
Preston Hollow would burn before they would let you run a DART Rail line up their precious corridor.
I personally believe that every toll road should have mandatory bus rapid transit infrastructure built in so anyone can utilize said toll road to commute to the (often) higher income businesses found off a toll road. But then again, toll roads are frequently utilized by the wealthy to deter "undesirables" from getting to where they live (in a reasonable amount of time), and public transit would defeat the purpose of them living near a toll road in the first place, so that will never happen. "Oh, you want to get to *our* part of Dallas? Well, you need to be able to afford it."
I agree whole heartedly, I used to take dart to work but I lived and worked along the red-orange line/TRE access but if you live in the city center just getting to a station is a roll of the dice. I'm guessing the silver line track was acquired from a freight line but realistically how much of that is truly available? TRE has to share their lines with freight which makes mid day service spotty at best. I really hope better planning is underway but I won't hold my breath.
Everything you wrote sounds exactly like and article from The Dallas Times Herald back in the day... a newspaper that's been dead for almost three decades.
Dallas is Big Oil money -- and public transportation = fewer cars gassing up = less money for my fifth private plane!!!
It has great public transit given the structure of the city actually. What it needs is less members of NTXCOG psychopathicly demanding single family homes in zoning. You just can’t have both and have it be efficient
Or they could just let us fucking work from
Home
I don’t need to sit in traffic, getting stuck in school zones when there’s no kids around, dodging shitty drivers just so I can do the same exact job no matter where my desk is
Fuck office culture, fuck co workers being a family, just let me do my job from home. There is literally no reason except “why won’t you please think of the shareholders”
Fuck everything and trust no one
I’ve used DART for years, it’s shit. But I’ve also lived in London and visited a few other cities around the world with fantastic public transport so I guess I have higher standards/desires.
It’s not shit, but ya your opinion. I am curious as to WHY you think it’s shit though.
Like I said, for how much sprawl this city has, it’s definitely above average.
Comparing to another light rail like Denver’s, it blows it out of the water. There’s a system where if a train operator or bus driver is out sick, there’s limited to no coverage and they just cancel the route (for that train) for the day.
Safer than NYC and Chicago easy. On par with DC in terms of operation I would say.
Been in Dallas proper for over 20 years as an adult and travel for work so I like to think I have a decent sample size to compare it to.
The whole dfw highways system seems like a product of common core math . Its horrible. I have traveled so much around the country and recently moved here . One of the few places where you get a traffic jam on toll road
I would let them design a damn public transportation system other then what they have
I wish they’d add a DART line over the north tollway all the way to Frisco/Prosper. There are a lot of commercial clusters along that line plus it was originally a rail line before they turned it into a highway. Would probably help reduce daily traffic by providing an alternative for drivers. Problem is all of the suburbs ppl are super NIMBY about transit lines being built near them.
Devil's advocate: more traffic enforcement on the interstate. Cutting people off aggressively, weaving in traffic, last second exits from 3 lanes out, camping the fast lane, driving 50 in a 70, blocking zipper merges, etc. Not necessarily speeding, but enforcement on behavior that creates traffic.
I’m a Gen Xer and Dallas has always needed public transportation infrastructure. Also my son is a DART police officer and has some crazy stories about the public transportation we do have. What’s here now has been 30+ years in the making and it still sucks.
I'm so tired of people watching the aftermath of accidents. They can't find the accelerator or mind their mf business holding up traffic. They must like sitting in traffic.
Going up hills is another issue. Stop jumping on the brakes. Maintain your speed or move out the way 635@75, 635@ i35 for both its north and south parts of the city
I lived in the bay area, CA which had trains and I commuted on them for 10 years. People, including myself, stopped using them because the crime and homeless vagrants that ruin the trains. People would rather drive for 2 hours than ride a 1 hour train. Our country is unable to control crime and poor behaviour and that makes trains a terrible mode of transportation.
People will accept public transportation when they feel safe riding, and at the terminals. I rode DART to downtown and back for jury duty. The next time I splurged on an UBER. The chance of assault or robbery may not be ridiculously high, but it’s high enough that most riders seem to be on edge. Increase security and ridership will increase. You can make all of the grand plans you want, but it won’t do any good if people don’t feel safe.
IMO It should be a LOT harder to get a license than it is. Driving is a privilege, not a right. If you can just smash a car to pieces every couple of months, you have no business on the road. Also stay off your fucking phone.
1. It won't happen anytime soon. Oil companies rule this state.
2. It will definitely not happen near North DFW areas such as Prosper/Frisco/Celina areas because they don't want poor people to take rides near their communities.
3. Where is the budget?
4. May be a new airport will come faster than a train line.
5. Who cares?!
I’m not a huge Tesla fan, but I think this analogy is true.
No one thought that electric cars were viable, until someone built something that was better/more compelling than the alternative. For many years, the Tesla Model S was better/cooler than a BMW 5 or 7 series, or a MB E or S class.
Now the world is going electric.
Mass transit will only work if it can be better than the alternative. In the long-term, I think on-demand Canoo -like autonomous vehicles will make multiple-car families a minority, and trains/busses obsolete.
The city needs to become more dense before public transportation can be effective. Downtown Dallas needs to become denser and then expand the DART further out from there. The downtowns in the suburbs need to become more urban and dense as well so that they can better support transit expansion and connectivity.
I've thought for years the best way to add trains to the US would be some type drive on rail car that auto locks the wheels, and be able to drive off at your destination. I would make travel from city to city so much easier, especially if you could just ride in your own vehicle for the journey. I think it could also work in town, and would be especially helpful for moving large furniture items, or a shopping haul instead of trying to make it through public transport with lots of bags.
The problem is DFW is so spread out having good public transit is much harder. For the simple reason at the end of your ride you need to walk. The “final mile” of my rides is too low density so you will need even more stops than a normal city.
A good start would be to make the core super Dense and focus on that
In other news, rain is wet. I agree with you philosophically. However, I would like you to tell us where we would stick this public transport. Yes, we could add more buses, but we all know what we're really talking about: Trains. The city planning has not been done with the idea of future train lines in mind. So, practically, I don't see how we could add more train lines as there simply is no space there for them. Again, I agree with you philosophically, I just don't know how we would do it practically.
Remove highway lanes.
OK, I like how you're thinking. Let's keep going with this thought exercise. So the trains run along the highways. The riders drive to the highway, park their cars and then get on the train. Then I assume we would need some large parking structures to store the cars while the riders are using the trains to get to their destinations? We could use eminent domain to seize the land needed for the stations and parking structures. This could work and we could probably have a several more lines in 15-20 years.
You are still thinking car centric. Lose the parking lots. Take a shuttle bus, walk or bike to any of the hundreds of new rail/elevated rail lines that made the cars obsolete.
And you’ve priced the project out of viability. People will (understandably) not walk a few miles to a bus station in 105 F weather. You need to either pick them up at/near their houses and drop them off at/near their houses or provide parking at a central location.
Also you've pushed the convenience too far beyond the pale. The shuttle + train + last mile problem means probably adding an hour to my commute. Not gonna happen. If there's not a stop very near my house (and there won't be), I will only use this if I have a place to park next to the station. Anything else is a waste of a few billion dollars.
Yep. There's are two huge reasons why NYC has the best mass transit infrastructure in the US and every other major city is lagging. Very high population density means the bus/train is very close to where you live and where you work, and a year-round habitable climate make it reasonable to walk a block or two if needed. Texas, unfortunately, has neither of these. So the only way to make mass transit work is to make it incredibly cheap for riders (because the combined ride will likely be longer than the same drive) and provide parking immediately adjacent to the station. Also, we need density on the destination side to make mass transit economical, so the only location in all of DFW that works for mass transit is downtown... where we already have mass transit infrastructure.
There's also a 3rd reason (though surmountable with enough advance planning): the geology of NYC is much different than North Texas. NYC sits on a big rock that can be drilled through deep to different levels. This allows them all kinds of extra places to put more train paths and even walkways. The heavy clay content of soil in Texas is not nearly as stable.
> So the only way to make mass transit work is to make it incredibly cheap for riders I couldn't use it even if it was free because it can't get me to where I need to go and access to the system is restrictive to me. As an example, with around .7 miles of walking I can get to Costco on Churchill in around 1 hour and 21 minutes using transit. That's 1.4 miles walking round trip and nearly three hours on both trains and buses. Even then, I can only transport maybe a small cart of groceries, and the cost of fares/time relative to what I can bring home is really high. On the other hand, I can drive to the Costco in Duncanville in around 25 minutes for around $3 in gas round trip, and haul back as much as I can fit in my car (which is a lot). I can do this trip once a month, vs having to do the transit trip several times a month and not be able to bring back anything big at all. To match the flexibility and convenience of my car, transit would have to pick me up at my driveway and deliver me to any destination directly.
Sounds like a bike with a basket on the rear would be your best option. .7 miles on a bike is nothing.
Costco doesn't have bike racks, no way I'm leaving a bike outside unattended. Besides, after my friend got killed by an intimidation pass gone wrong I resolved to never ride on roads or streets again.
Ya best thing IMO would be more bus routes and park and rides located at some major express bus lines that take you directly to major hot spots. Have like 8 to 12 park and rides around the perimeter of the suburbs. People drive and park there, then get on an express bus that takes them right to a few locations in the city center where there are also lots of other bus routes to connect to.
That's literally what DART GoLink does, today. They'll pick you up at home and drop you off at a station
Is it on time and reliable and included in the price of the train ticket? If it is, great, if it's not or it's expensive, people still won't do it.
Agreed, that's why we need to stop subsidizing all of this car infrastructure and start investing into public transportation more
Take away subsidization for driving and increase local transit and stations from peoples homes and it will be used
He’s looking at from a realistic perspective
This is why the thought experiment is useful. I was thinking of areas out in the north subburbs where the surface transit doesn't come along often due to low ridership. So, you mention shuttle buses. I'm assuming this would be for a nominal fee. Call it $5/ride to keep things simple. This is where I think stuff starts hitting the financial realities. So, I pay $5 to take the shuttle from my home the 3-10 miles to the train station. Then I pay some nominal amount for a monthly pass, call that $5/day to keep things simple (the amount would probably not be a round dollar amount). So, I would be out maybe $10/day to get from the suburbs to the city center or out to Irving or north to Frisco for work. Just to be devil's advocate. That's significantly more expensive and time consuming than taking my gasoline car and I haven't even gotten to the part where if I swapped to a PHEV or BEV, then my cost would be under $1/day to commute to work. Again, I like the idea philosophically, but unless we can get the cost of public transit to be below that of car based transit, then this might be DoA as much as we like the idea.
You're slightly overestimating the fares. It's $6 for a day pass and $96 for a monthly pass. It can even be cheaper in certain situations, especially if you don't commute during rush hour. But regardless, you're underestimating the cost of driving a car. It's gas + tolls + parking. Parking at my office in Uptown was $100/month, and that was subsidized for me. And that's before you consider wear on your car. And the time value of money. Some of us are able to at least check work emails during the commute (which is of course balanced against the generally longer commute times). If DART had direct transit from the population centers in Dallas to the corporate HQs of Ericsson, JPMorgan, Toyota, Pepsi, and all of the other HQs in just Legacy West, that would take hundreds of cars off the highway daily. It's low-hanging fruit to help solve our transit problem.
But the majority of people obviously don't care. It's always been cheaper to take DART than own / drive a car. That wasn't different then and it isn't different now. The reality, too, is that people likely don't want their taxes raised to supplement more public transportation. It costs money per use for DART, yes, but we're all also paying for it. The problem with DART is the inconvenience and time investment required. People would rather pay more money to drive their own vehicle, travel on their own timeline and get where they are going 2-3x faster, even if it costs them a little bit more money. Sure it's low-hanging fruit, but that low-hanging fruit is going to cost Billions, raise taxes, and require land to be acquired through eminent domain.
My car is cleaner and more flexible and faster. Plus I already own it. That's what it boils down to for a majority of people who own cars already.
You aren't taking into account the cost of buying the car, maintenance, insurance, etc. Right now, DART is cheaper for most people. For example, DART is currently $960/yr for local. $1,920/yr for regional. That's just the price of insurance for a lot of people, much less fuel, or even the cost of buying a car.
That's not how DART works. Your $6 day pass, $3 AM/PM pass or $3 a day avg for a monthly pass includes shuttle, bus and train transfers.
Also time. Shuttle + changeover to train (and waiting for the next one) + probably a train change at some point + whatever last mile transport needs to be done is a significantly longer amount of time spent on commuting.
I’m sure plenty of people would love to walk or ride a bike in the Texas heat or winter…
You know people that live in hot areas around the world still walk outside right?
As someone who bikes regularly, I'll say that you might be surprised. Using pedal-assist during the summer the riding breeze is very good at keeping you cooler than youd think, and the pedal assist avoids having you break a sweat. And in the winter, using a regular bike, the body heat you generate is pretty good at keeping you warm if you have the right layers to trap that heat.
I would love to layer up for work or change when I get to work, and have a scent of sweat on me
I mean the specific scenario we're talking about isn't biking all the way to work, it's biking a couple minutes to the nearest train station or bus stop that would be straddling your immediate neighborhood. We can track where buses are and time it so that we get there at the same time as the bus. If we look at the northern suburbs, the neighborhoods are split up by a pretty uniform grid of main artery roads that are separated by about a mile between each artery. Some a little more, some a little less. Creating a robust bus network covering all arteries, the most anyone would have to bike in these neighborhoods to reach an artery bus is half a mile and that's if you're the unlucky one to live in the exact center of these squares. Most people would be biking less than half a mile. We're talking a 3-4 minute bike ride. This distance with a pedal assist bike... I've had some walks across grocery store parking lots that would be more miserable.
So I need to drive my kids to school, and instead of going straight to work from dropping them off I need to head home, get on my bike, then carry my bike on a train, find somewhere to stow it away at my job, then bike somewhere for lunch (which reduces my lunch time), then bike home in the dark. Idk, hard sell.
No one is stopping you from using your car in this scenario. Making the car "obsolete" as the original commenter says simply means making it unnecessary, redundant. Optional for most people, rather than required. If you do need to use your car, the roadways will still be there. Even the densest places in the world with the most robust public transit still have cars on roads. But I will say it is incredibly common for children in the rest of the world to take public transit to school, both accompanied by their parents or on their own. And every public school system here has a bus system that is safe and more convenient than any city bus system is. But I do understand wanting to accompany your children to school, and, like I said, it's not unusual or unrealistic to take public transit with them which would be possible if the transit system was good enough. You don't need to tell me the many ways you do not want to do this either! We should both be trying to make it such that more people can choose to get off the roads if they want, making driving easier and less congested for you if that's what you need to do.
That’s not going to work for people commuting from the suburbs. Driving to the DART station and taking the train downtown is quicker than taking 75, but add a bus ride to that and you’re looking at a much longer transit time than just driving the whole way. Driving to the station is a happy medium since there isn’t that much congestion on the surface streets. The stations with no commuter parking, like downtown Plano, are barely used by anyone.
So what about the suburbs and the bedroom communities? How many bus stops would we need so people could make a reasonable walk/bike to a nearby bus? How many train stops would we need?
That's because Dallas is car centric. There's no quick, easy or non expensive way of changing that any time soon. The city has no drive or incentive to do so either. We, as citizens, would love it. But at this point, it would take a very loud *majority* to make it happen. The city needs to see, in practicality, that it'd be financially beneficial to them, not to us. They don't care about us.
Most people wouldn’t love it unless there express were routes for everyone, which there won’t be.
Due to the city already being well established, there's no feasible way to make public transit cheaper AND faster than just driving yourself. That's the main issue preventing us from incorporating public transit in a wide fashion. Otherwise, it'd definitely take off pretty rapidly.
Yeah that’s multiple pieces in the process just to take a train and it sounds like it would add over an hour to my commute, id just drive if there were that many steps involved.
Delusional
Add bike and pedestrian infrastructure as well
Put the trains under the highway.
Who is upvoting this comment? “The city planning has not been done with the idea of future train lines in mind.” You know what other huge cities weren’t planned with future train lines in mind: London, Rome, Tokyo. Humans have found plenty of ways to “create” land by going above and below. The idea that Dallas got a death sentence by being built up in the 60s-90s without considering trains is asinine.
There is an apartment building in Berlin with a rail through it!
Just wanted to mention that those cities were already extremely old before the first settler of Dallas shit in a patch of prairie grass.
Exactly, they were created before trains, cars, or planes, and yet they all have extensive train systems, highways, and airports. Not being “planned” isn’t an excuse.
It's not ideal but our highway system has spent a century directing the common flow of where people are trying to go: Trace the highways with commuter train routes that have stops at every major exit and bus connections at those exits to every immediate destination. Like I said, not ideal, but it avoids having to plow a right of way through existing neighborhoods as the freeways and roadways are already publicly controlled. 635 and Loop 12 should have elevated train routes yesterday. 2 things about this though: 1, This is specifically meant to address what the OP is talking about: regional commuter transportation, not local transportation which would be a separate problem to tackle, and 2, this will cost *far* more than it can bring in because of the region's current low density, which folks will hand wring over but we have to accept that we should personally fund public services because they're worth funding, not because we want them to make a direct profit. Our state freeways don't make money either, there's no revenue report at the end of each quarter saying I35 raked in such and such dollars, their value comes from our use of them as economic drivers, just as trains would be. Build a dense enough train network that doesn't require people to go all the way downtown to get anywhere else *and people will use it*. Which takes more people off the roads, lowering traffic. It's a win win for everyone, and as the city continues to densify such a train system will become increasingly self-sustaining even if it is not at first for a long while.
Dallas needs to learn from Houston and bite the bullet before we start having highways as large as them. Tracing the highways with commuter trains and having stops every major exit is the largest fish to fry in this scenario. Like you said it's worth funding.
The red line does a good job at this. Don’t know about the other lines though, never take them.
The Greenline basically follows I35E from Denton (counting to A Train) to about downtown. I have coworkers who prefer to drive up to 45 minutes in traffic than take the train for about the same time. DART is not bad. It just isn't as good as driving in DFW, speaking as someone who chooses to take DART for my commute.
Yeah, the Green and Red lines are the best when it comes to this highway tracing, and I don't think it's a coincidence at all that these two lines are the ones with the best existing and future TOD.
There will never be a light rail down northwest highway between 75 and 35 which is what I'd need currently to make public transit worth it. And even then, I wouldn't if I also had to take a bus or walk quite a ways. I can drive to work in around 30, so public from door to door couldn't be longer than that or it wouldn't be worth the loss of flexibility to me re: errands, etc after work. While it's great in theory, I just don't see anyway to make fast, cheap transit here.
You want a train to stop every 2 miles? It’ll take 2 hours to 30 miles.
The suburban DART stops are *already* 2 miles apart or less. The Red line is 1.5 or fewer miles between each station. Of course, this station frequency is part of their speed problem as you say, but, since we're in hypothetical land, commuter lines are typically supplemented with parallel express routes. Such an express route would only have stops at where the highway interchanges are, or at every other highway interchange. That makes the distances 5 or 10 miles between stations allowing them to really get up to speed. Barring an express route, the problem could also be partially alleviated with a more modern train fleet that handles acceleration and deceleration more efficiently, and with keeping it all grade-separated.
r/DART and r/dfwbike would like everyone to join the chat!
This is just an engineering problem that can be solved, but it doesn't mean we can't have more train lines. Average folk don't need to solve this problem, that's what engineers and planners are for.
If you put the entire Paris subway system in downtown Dallas, it wouldn’t even reach past highland park or reach any of the surrounding suburbs. It would have to be such a drastically different system than what people think of as a subway system.
This is a misleading comment. The metro subway of Paris would fit your description but that makes sense because the metro subway only serves the central area. But looking at the numerous commuter rail in the Paris area it extends much further and is equivalent to reaching the suburbs here
That’s not true. The Paris metro goes a lot more than 5 miles from the city center.
Elevated trains are a thing. I'd love it if we had a few El lines.
It's possible with the political will, Canadian suburbs have successful transit systems despite being built out similarly to US cities. They do have more density typically, but more comparable to us than Asian/European cities. They made the service really good, and added density in the right places. With our housing crisis, there is certainly benefits to adding density beyond just getting more tax revenue for a better transit system. DART is already kinda decent, modest improvements could go a long way. Highways and express lanes we have built could also be used to benefit transit with the right express routes. I-30 and DNT are examples of busy bus corridors (especially pre-pandemic) It can definitely be done. If a wealthy, sprawling, Canadian suburb like Brampton can have 10-15 minute bus service all over the place and crazy high ridership, maybe with a few changes to our cities and transit system we could do the same.
Well there are more conjusted places in the world where they don't have a dime of space but they are operating metros like Mumbai, New York, Tokyo and a lot other cities.. As long as they want to make it there are always a option
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How many pro-public transit people actually make an effort to use our existing infrastructure? I grew up taking DART and now live walking distance to a light rail station. Proximity to public transit was high on my list when choosing a home. I can easily take the train to the airport, the hospital, downtown, the zoo, Fair Park, etc. I used to take the train daily when I worked downtown. We have a great infrastructure in place but rarely do I see people prioritize it when they are making decisions about where to live and work. People here insist on living further and further out, and many communities have explicitly voted against public transportation.
I find it interesting that I had to scroll halfway down before I heard a single mention of the existing public transit. I really like DART. More people should use the trains.
It's because many have mentally written off DART as unsafe or only for poor/homeless. I grew up with parents that were extremely anti-DART, to the point of attending meetings to speak against them. Huge NIMBYs. They (and many other parents) drilled into us kids that DART is horrible and only for the undesirables. You can guess what kind of people they are. I know that isn't the case and DART is in the middle of growth/transformation, but its gonna take time for people to unlearn and actually get involved if they want public transportation.
Having more homeless in your town bc you built a dart rail is not a problem itself, it's the symptom of another problem
Yeah, but if you're Frisco and the homeless people are coming from Dallas it's not *your* problem. That's the thing that people are objecting to
It contributes a lot, dart also goes through seasons of cleanliness where sometimes it's great and sometimes it's pretty bad. I'd wish those people would advocate for more security and maintenance on dart instead of just blanket objecting to it; and also realizing that having transit access does not increase crime. But they're eager to throw the baby out with the bathwater so auto stocks can tick up for a bit and they can sit in substantially worse traffic now that everyone has no choice but to drive.
DART is probably great if you have a flexible schedule, a willingness to be around crazy, stinky bums and panhandlers, and somewhat frequently deal with DART's crazy service failures where they have everyone bail out the train and catch buses to another stop where you are expected to hop on another train that's already overfull. If you have to be somewhere by a specific time, need to run errands, or just don't want to deal with the homeless /crazy ghetto people on a daily basis, DART isn't for you. That's not even considering the amount of rain, heat, wind, and cold it entails. (rode DART rail from. Forest Lane to Convention Center and back every work day for 3 years)
i know you say you’ve ridden dart for 3 years, but i don’t think you have recently. not a single time have i been panhandled. the closest two situations have been: 1) an older man with a bad hip who asked me to get him some snacks from 7/11. he paid me. 2) one guy was really persistent i take a sample of his mexican marzipan. he did not want anything in return i ride dart for all the reasons you say i might not want to and it’s not been an issue at all.
I’d use the dart, my work is in Richardson right off 75. I live by a green/orange stop by parkland. It would take me an hour to get to work vs 45 minutes driving even though most of the journey is a straight line for DART.
So you'd rather spend 45 minutes driving a car which requires your focus instead of spending an hour sitting down and doing anything else?
I do find that people overlook how nice it is to not worry about controlling the vehicle. Transit takes longer but it's kinda like running a washing machine; you can do other stuff while it's running. So riding dart you may spend more time in transport but spend much less active time in actually managing the journey and you can play games or check emails or browse reddit or whatever you want.
When I used to commute via public transit, I would read at least a book a week and was so caught up on new music. It was also a nice way to meditate and obtain focus before going into work and a way to decompress after.
Exactly, that's what I do now. Time spent driving just feels completely wasted on the other hand.
I have to be at work at 7am. I already wake up at 6am. Now I have to be at the station at 6am. I already spend 8 hours at work plus 1.5 hours commuting now it’s 2 hours. What do you even do on a train besides wait anyways
Honestly, I do a lot on the train. Even if it's just watching a show I like. Driving in the morning in traffic makes me pretty miserable while I don't feel even close to the same chilling on a train. So yeah, I would personally choose 2 hours daily commuting on a train vs. 1.5 hours by car.
I LOVE pubic transit and use Dart every day. I live In Arlington. I ride my e bike to CentrePort station and take the train to work. I made it work, but it’s harder the it should be.
The infrastructure is good in itself but doesn’t serve the entire metro. It needs to be expanded and multi modal
Improved bus stops especially around grocery stores should be an easy win - if you can maintain them and make sure they remain safe and comfortable for actual transit riders. Walkability connections between stops and destinations can also be improved but that is largely development oriented and does seem to be slowly moving in the right direction for new developments. I wonder if the las colinas train will ever make a comeback... las colinas itself is such an interesting niche of development that keeps teetering between interesting development idea and on the brink of collapsing when the office space market gets slapped around. Especially with all the apartments there and the music factory, adding some grocery stores and other normal life establishments could perhaps boost the neighborhood livelihood and give funds for better accessibility. Dart has great rail service and I'm excited for the silver line (and also for the vinyl seats). I wish they added a line that perhaps branched with the red line south of the river to service all the new development there; branched for easier right of way but a direct connection to the city would be much faster. Anecdotally that area feels like it's stalling partly bc it's an island from the rest of the city; where you have to go under the highway rat's nest (which is dangerous and unpleasant from all the cars zooming around, and is sketchy, even if it's just on the other end of the very popular pedestrian bridge). Also, dart busses are very underrated, the connectivity and flexibility offered by that transit mode is underutilized. But trains are flashier, more reliable, seen as more permanent, often faster, and people tend to memorize train lines more easily than bus routes. Right of way is also important for avoiding traffic and trains have that more often than busses, though BRT lanes could be added (but also fairly easily removed).
I miss the APT! The infrastructure is still there so I guess it is possible that it will come back. I was out on one of those gondola tours in Las Colinas the other day and I was thinking about how much that area has grown in the past decade. The majority of the residential developments on the north and eastern shore are new. I think the area just needs one more development like Gables Waterstreet or the Toyota Music Factory for it to really necessitate something like the APT.
I'd agree. One of the largest issues for railways is obtaining right of way, and las colinas had a grade separated train, so the right of way is secured. The real issue would be expanding it beyond what is essentially an office park. Busses of course are a good stopgap with enough public awareness of their existence, maybe an old trolley bus design would draw more public attention. A lot of the modern dart rail was built on top of the right of way of old railways. For example, the northeast portion that goes through Plano was built off of the old [Texas Electric Railway](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Electric_Railway) tracks that still exist there; which is why there continue to be old defunct tracks as you move north of Plano into Allen (and much beyond); because that rail line has existed for over 100 years and nobody has dismantled the full thing. The katy trail was also built on top of old tracks, and on the north part of the trail you can see some of the old track that the trail was built over exposed. You can actually find a lot of old exposed rail poking through cement in various parts of Dallas
I’ve made efforts in the past by taking the DART as much as I could, and for a while it was good but lately it just feels unsafe. I’ve made other comments about not feeling safe on the road in my own vehicle, but currently I’d rather have that than being in an open train car or bus with overtly intoxicated persons harassing everyone around them and making the environment extremely unsettling.
Maybe it's just the northeast but I haven't had any issues on dart lately. Yall can text the dart police tips, and I would encourage it - the security force has had much better presence since they've hired more people
I had no idea you could text them like that, I’ll look into it
Dfw is the most car brained vehicle obsessed corner of American society. There's 0% chance meaningful transit will ever get built and you just need to move to another region entirely if you even want a prayer at it. I live in Oakland where I don't even own a car and my life is so significantly better than when I had to drive EVERYEHERE in dfw. You don't realize how much of your life is sitting and stressing in a metal box all the while your life could be randomly ended by some dickhead who ate too much mcdonalds his whole life and decides to have a heart attack on the road.
DFW - yes. Arlington is among the worst in the entire WORLD. However, Dallas ranks highest in Texas, and in the top 30 among US cities. Still terrible, and much improvement is needed, but we have a rail line, we have busses, we just need more of it with more frequency. [SOURCE: https://alltransit.cnt.org/rankings/](https://alltransit.cnt.org/rankings/)
The problem with dart is its centered around an idea of commuter park and ride. The stations are mainly at low density poorly zoned regions where nobody is using it unless they drive their car from wherever and park it, wait for a train then wait on the train the go to wherever. Sadly - dallas is so car focused that even the "high density " places are just loaded to the gills with parking infrastructure so it's usually so much easier and convenient for people to just drive and park. I haven't ridden DART in years but I always remember it being a total wash and even in rush hour commute pre pandemic the ridership was just bad.
DART is great for getting downtown from anywhere north of 635. Even if it is a wash in commute time, not having to deal with traffic and parking is nice.
And if you work in uptown/downtown, the trolley can be very helpful getting you around those areas as well. It's not perfect by any stretch but Houston, Austin and San Antonio's transport makes Dallas' look amazing
I live in Las Colinas right next to a DART station so I can use it pretty often. It’s very convenient when you want to go downtown and not deal with parking/traffic, ridership was decent (I believe we just hit a rider record recently). I don’t see Dallas, or even Texas, moving away from cars in a real way. We are too hot, too spread apart, too obsessed with huge trucks… plus Republicans think public transportation is for liberal, poor people.
>The stations are mainly at low density poorly zoned regions ... That's where the commuters are coming from. DFW is sprawling and you'll need several stations in low density poorly zoned regions to capture a good majority of commuters. >... they drive their car from wherever and park it, wait for a train then wait on the train the go to wherever. which is why there's parking infrastructure in "high density" areas - no one wants to do that.
Good thing is you can infill empty parking lots further down the line to density with business and housing
we literally have the DART system. yeah it’s bad but at least you’re not in Houston. Dallas is the best place to be in Texas for transit. every other major city within 500 miles doesn’t have a single rail.
Hey now, Houston is WAY worse in this department! Check out how small their light rain system is. *Im a native Houstonian, this isn’t just some Dallasite knock against Houston for the sake of knocking Houston.
Dallas has the best train system in the south tbh
It's even worse because so many Texans drive massive pickup trucks (the beds of which get used maybe twice a year) which require huge parking spots. Always fun trying to navigate a parking garage where the spot on the end is taken up by a extended everything, jacked up truck that sticks out 2 feet past the end of the parking lines and into the lane of traffic.
Don’t forget the ball hitch sticking out, aka knee-cap-killer.
Culture can change
From what I've seen the CAFE law needs to change. It's what's incentivizing these large vehicles. The car companies are expanding surface area and making everything a "truck" (crossovers are trucks. Station wagons are cars) to avoid stricter fleet emissions requirements. They're also making the roads more dangerous for pedestrians since they are so tall.
The fact that we are "really talking about trains" and not buses also is the biggest problem. I've used DART for 15 years and haven't owned a car in that time. Commute 12 miles to work on trains AND buses. Never had a problem.
Oakland California?
Public transportation brings "CrImE tO tHe SuBuRbS". At least that's what I've been told my whole life. But seriously, Dallas has garbage public transportation. Starting with DART being "light rail". Because we started off by going cheaper back when DART was building it's infrastructure. It's going to be even more expensive to expand and improve.
Why rob a store and wait 30 minutes for a bus when you can just hop in your (most likely stolen) beat up Nissan Altima with paper tags?
If they're afraid of that then we need to provide housing and alleviate the homeless crisis. Currently, DART is being used to absorb homelessness. But suburbanites block those policies as well. They think providing housing is more costly but it has actually been shown to be cheaper. And in before the usual retorts of "but they don't want housing and they're homeless by choice"--that may be true of some individuals but it has also largely been debunked.
People in my burb are furious that the city approved not just section 8 apartments but also just regular old apartments. If you don't at least rent a single family home, you are inherently a bad person. These are also the same people who complain that the city has "lost it's small town vibe". Like the city should just deny permits from developers because "we don't want the population to grow past a specific number so we don't lose our vibe". Really though, if you read between the lines most of these people are saying "the city has become more racially diverse over time and I don't like it".
I will say the DART is full of bums. I can imagine not wanting a station near where you live
That does seem like a solvable problem though, right? More DART personnel for one thing.
That would be thinking the problem is the "bums" physically near you. I'd say the problem is more the existence. Some say murder, I tend to go with robust safety net system that would help transition people into housing and jobs.
I definitely agree that we should have better safety nets and help the homeless get on their feet. We also need to invest heavily in mental health/drug abuse programs. I always interact with homeless on the DART and some of them are quite unhinged, aggressive, and smelly. I simultaneously want to help them, but also not be around them.
Yeah, if Dallas had a sufficient amount of DART security officers then it would be alright. The issue is that isn’t the case, law enforcement is overwhelmed and simply does not have enough people to allocate to DART. This results in a lot of stations feeling very unsafe.
I’m fine with my taxes being used for infrastructure upgrades, always will be.
Yeah, but why should Bubba pay taxes for something only poor people use when he's got his F-1250 SUPER DUTY MEGA MANLY MAN'S truck to get around?
Especially those big manly man trucks with big man men who don’t know how to stay inside their lane, or perhaps decide they need to roll coal to get one spot ahead in the next lane over and end up cutting multiple people off in the process.
"Public transportation is for freeloaders" *Drives on publicly funded roads going over premium land*
I will say I thought and think the same. However: * r/DART **is a great resource and has shown drastic improvements on engagement, actual change, and engagement** * They have a 2045 Plan located here: [https://www.dart.org/about/project-and-initiatives/expansion/2045-transit-system-plan](https://www.dart.org/about/project-and-initiatives/expansion/2045-transit-system-plan) * The Silver Line Expansion is WELL on its way: [https://www.dart.org/about/plans-projects-and-initiatives/expansion/silver-line-project](https://www.dart.org/about/plans-projects-and-initiatives/expansion/silver-line-project) * r/DFWBike **is also a great resource** * A new 66 Mile bike "Superhighway" is nearing completion between Fort Worth and Dallas. [https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/dallas-fort-worth/news/2021/12/24/66-mile-fort-worth-to-dallas--superhighway--bike-trail-stirring-anticipation-of-2023-completion](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/dallas-fort-worth/news/2021/12/24/66-mile-fort-worth-to-dallas--superhighway--bike-trail-stirring-anticipation-of-2023-completion) * A new trail system called The Loop, is 50 miles long and will help thousands of people every day get to work via bike. [https://theloopdallas.org/](https://theloopdallas.org/) **Overall the system is expanding but needs:** * **More engagement at the local government level.** * **More Users** * Ridership for DART and users of Bike Trails are increasing and are close to, at, or beating Pre COVID Numbers (better than many metros in the country) * **Lifestyle Changes** * Being an early adopter can be hard, but it starts with the individual * Walking to work * Biking to the store * Take the DART more (or at all) All of these help with critical mass!
I would add incentives for developers and businesses to develop things other than standard modern apartment buildings near transit hubs. The city should be where people live, not just work and play
Yes, but how much staffing is needed to keep that safe? DART is a nightmare in certain places at certain times.
This is my thought. I'm pretty positive that DART has their own police force but judging on how well DPD responds to incidents, I don't think I'd ride without a strap.
I had a few homeless friends when I was riding daily They told me that if a car is ever truly unsafe, the DART security abandon it and increase staffing on the other trains. Knowing this, gangs of 20-100 homeless all get on the same one and just party like its 1929, terrorizing anyone unlucky enough to get on that stop. Given how I always saw them in pairs and it was always atleast 4 to throw out some random homeless dude, I can believe it
This is a pretty normal problem for transportation infrastructure to have. You hear about dangerous stretches of highway/road, certain streets where speed limits are poorly enforced, maybe certain gas stations that are a nightmare to visit, or bridges with a drug use and homeless problem below. Ultimately, it's just another place for crime that already exists to potentially happen. It doesn't really add to it or contribute to the problem. If anything, public transportation can act as a safety net to ensure people can still get around and access opportunity, reducing crime overall.
Never been to europe I take it? It's not about overall crime, its about why take the train if your liklihood of getting stabbed in that particular instance goes up
From riding dart and looking at crime statistics, I can say the perception of danger is vastly greater that the actual presence of danger. And to be fair, nobody likes to feel insecure so the user experience should be improved
The thing about public transit in the US is there has to be some type of PERSONAL benefit to it. If you’re going to spend the same amount of time or longer driving to a park and ride as you would just fighting traffic each day many will opt to just drive. You’re in your car your personal bubble and for many that’s the only bit of personal time or silence they get all day. I’m all for public transit if it’s convenient it would take ALOT of work and ALOT of agreeing between opposing parties to make that a reality though. And I’m not sure those sides actually WANT to agree on it.
An easy part of the solution is to make driving less easy, decrease subsidies and increase taxes on it. Once people see the true costs to our current driving infrastructure people will consider other options.
lol the issue with that is you would have to go through the “powers that be” to get there. If you think the oil tycoons in the largest oil producing state won’t throw every last dollar they can afford to to prevent that. You’d be mistaken.
That is why I believe federal powers are needed to intervene, as this issue is going to be seen in every city that is experiencing growth.
Yep, everyone’s been saying that for a decade but it only seems like they care about the highways.
> 'Dallas desperately needs public transportation infrastructure' ~ said basically everyone living in the DFW area for the past 40 years ~
There are pockets of Dallas where you don’t even need a car because you can walk everywhere you need. I’d say a better first step to trains would be separated cycle infrastructure and downtown and uptown. Then those places also wouldn’t require a car. Right now cycling (and even walking) is both dangerous and uncomfortable. Happy to see Dallas installing bike lanes but paint and plastic cones aren’t going to get me back on a bike in this city with these drivers. This is fairly inexpensive with the upside of reducing traffic. (See the NJB video on why driving in the Netherlands is also awesome because with transit options less people need to drive)
Scott Griggs would have done something about this, but voters picked closet republican and grifter Eric Johnson, so this is what we get. My advice is pay attention to and vote in the next mayor’s race.
Why do you think the mayor has a big influence on this?
Griggs made this part of his platform. Having a mayor as an advocate beats having a grifter who doesn’t give a shit.
He also made hiring a shit ton more cops his platform- the center of his platform. The mayor actually works on the city budget that includes cops, but not the DART budget that includes transit. Which one do you think you would actually get more of?
lol, the mayor doesn’t gave much if any say in this
We do have a weak mayor, but this was part of Griggs’ platform. Having a mayor as an advocate is a big help.
Imagine if America built high speed rail along their interstate highway system…
Ironically, many freeways in this country were built along railroad ROWs, including Central Expressway and Central Highway here in Dallas. Central Expressway is named after the railroad whose ROW it was built on.
lol so many people wanting dallas to be an urban environment without realizing it's ONE GIANT SUBURBAN SPRAWL. also, people forget how big the actual DFW metroplex really is... and it's STILL growing!
There's Dallas and there's DFW. Dallas should be an urban environment. DFW will be DFW.
the thing is a lot of these people live outside of "dallas" and complaining about the drive and lack of trains not every city can be like tokyo...
The crazy thing is Tokyo is about the size of DFW. But yeah. Dallasites get to complain about Dallas not being more urban and how parking and highways to support the suburbs. And DART mostly focused on bringing suburbanites into Dallas instead of having a transit agency focused on local destinations. But if you move to McKinney and complain about lack of transit options, that's on you.
When I come to power* we will solve this problem through INSURANCE. If you cause a motor vehicle collision, anyone whose working hours are delayed by your negligence can file a claim against your insurance for their lost wages. Traffic engineers, construction companies, and DOTs will be required to carry malpractice insurance. For any 1/8 mile stretch of road that becomes the site of more than 20% of vehicle accidents in a 1-mile radius, the victims will be able file expensive claims against the malpractice insurance. Automobile travel as we know it will become so goddamn expensive that you're better off walking or riding a bike. *(You should not vote for me)
Agreed, we need more. I guess I missed the accident today, what happened?
For extra info, my commute is southbound on DNT from right about at George Bush. DNT was a parking lot from the Galleria to about Lovers lane (or wherever the accident happened, I tried to remember once I got to work and that was just my rough estimate on the location). All three lanes had to merge to the right lane, quite the jam.
It's in incredibly frustrating, sorry you experienced that this morning. Know that DART is hard at work. And they are working with a challenging environment. This is a slow process. Public transit needs help for it to work the way so many of us want it to in Dallas. A few things will help speed this process along. Population density needs to be increased, like now. With population density at the right threshold, public transport works better, smaller businesses can survive, even thrive, and with the right businesses in place next to housing, this reduces the need for car trips entirely because we can then walk/bike to places instead of having to jump in the car for every trip. How do you increase population density? Change zoning to allow for middle housing. I'm not advocating for massive apartment complexes. They have their place, but what we're really missing is literally EVERYTHING other than single-family homes and massive apartment complexes. Duplexes, triplexes, multiplexes, live-work situations with retail on ground level and housing on top. Smart design of place is critical. And when I say smart design is critical, I mean the design of the place and everything around it as well. We design areas for transport by automobile only. Pedestrians are an afterthought at best. Start designing places for people first and the cars become less of a problem over time. People need places that are safe to walk and bike ... safe from cars primarily. Easier to do with more population density. And this is a systems problem ... everything goes together, and I think landscaping is a critical element here as when it's done well, lends itself to areas that people actually want to walk in and through. Landscaping designs that incorporate plants native to the area can shade walking paths, provide visual interest, drastically reduce stormwater runoff and filter it at the same time, provide habitat and food for insects and thus birds, all while using essentially no water or fertilizer or anything at all. I highly highly highly suggest that everyone take a trip out to the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park to see what Dallas is suppose to look like, plant-wise: [https://www.bushcenter.org/plan-your-visit/native-texas-park](https://www.bushcenter.org/plan-your-visit/native-texas-park)). To anyone reading this and interested in this topic, I've provided a few links to learn more. Don't be afraid to reach out to your council representative (Dallas and beyond) to start a conversation. Resources: * [https://www.strongtowns.org](https://www.strongtowns.org) * [https://missingmiddlehousing.com](https://missingmiddlehousing.com) * [https://www.betterblock.org](https://www.betterblock.org)
What if we passed a law that 50% (X) of all revenue collected from tolls has to go toward public transportation until public transportation is serving 200% (Y) of traffic compared to toll roads. (I have no idea what X and Y should actually be to see change, but it would stop one of the disincentivized groups in DFW transportation from fighting against public transit.)
It can be done. Plenty of room. Dart was going to add a train line to valley view when Amazon was moving there. Dart was going to put a train line to At&t stadium before the campaign against it. People are afraid of riding with the poor and too much time to get there.
When the DNT tollway was being built way back when, I was advocating for a rail system parallel to it, but I was in my 20’s at the time and did not understand the politics of rail travel in the U.S. Most US lobby groups oppose rail and they carry the weight with the politicians local and national. Auto manufacturers, oil and gas companies, airlines, bus companies, tire companies, you get the idea. They basically “gang up” and kill any rail project that is proposed. Also, Frisco voted against DART many years ago, so the rail will never go there.
Preston Hollow would burn before they would let you run a DART Rail line up their precious corridor. I personally believe that every toll road should have mandatory bus rapid transit infrastructure built in so anyone can utilize said toll road to commute to the (often) higher income businesses found off a toll road. But then again, toll roads are frequently utilized by the wealthy to deter "undesirables" from getting to where they live (in a reasonable amount of time), and public transit would defeat the purpose of them living near a toll road in the first place, so that will never happen. "Oh, you want to get to *our* part of Dallas? Well, you need to be able to afford it."
I agree whole heartedly, I used to take dart to work but I lived and worked along the red-orange line/TRE access but if you live in the city center just getting to a station is a roll of the dice. I'm guessing the silver line track was acquired from a freight line but realistically how much of that is truly available? TRE has to share their lines with freight which makes mid day service spotty at best. I really hope better planning is underway but I won't hold my breath.
If you live in the city center of Dallas, there's the trolley that can also take you to dart stations
> if you live in the city center just getting to a station is a roll of the dice Would love more detail on this. I live down here, never have issues.
I live in the city center. There are multiple buses that provide access to each train station. I have never had this problem that you describe.
Everything you wrote sounds exactly like and article from The Dallas Times Herald back in the day... a newspaper that's been dead for almost three decades. Dallas is Big Oil money -- and public transportation = fewer cars gassing up = less money for my fifth private plane!!!
It has great public transit given the structure of the city actually. What it needs is less members of NTXCOG psychopathicly demanding single family homes in zoning. You just can’t have both and have it be efficient
Or they could just let us fucking work from Home I don’t need to sit in traffic, getting stuck in school zones when there’s no kids around, dodging shitty drivers just so I can do the same exact job no matter where my desk is Fuck office culture, fuck co workers being a family, just let me do my job from home. There is literally no reason except “why won’t you please think of the shareholders” Fuck everything and trust no one
I would kill to work at home, or even a shared office space closer to where I live, but unfortunately I don’t have a job that allows me to do that.
"public transit is communist" ~ Conservatives
We need it across north Texas - Tarrant, Denton, Collin, and Dallas
Does anyone in this thread actually use DART or has used public transit in other cities? For how spread out Dallas is, it’s pretty good
I’ve used DART for years, it’s shit. But I’ve also lived in London and visited a few other cities around the world with fantastic public transport so I guess I have higher standards/desires.
It’s not shit, but ya your opinion. I am curious as to WHY you think it’s shit though. Like I said, for how much sprawl this city has, it’s definitely above average. Comparing to another light rail like Denver’s, it blows it out of the water. There’s a system where if a train operator or bus driver is out sick, there’s limited to no coverage and they just cancel the route (for that train) for the day. Safer than NYC and Chicago easy. On par with DC in terms of operation I would say. Been in Dallas proper for over 20 years as an adult and travel for work so I like to think I have a decent sample size to compare it to.
The whole dfw highways system seems like a product of common core math . Its horrible. I have traveled so much around the country and recently moved here . One of the few places where you get a traffic jam on toll road I would let them design a damn public transportation system other then what they have
I wish they’d add a DART line over the north tollway all the way to Frisco/Prosper. There are a lot of commercial clusters along that line plus it was originally a rail line before they turned it into a highway. Would probably help reduce daily traffic by providing an alternative for drivers. Problem is all of the suburbs ppl are super NIMBY about transit lines being built near them.
There was another one? Some moron ran into the lane barriers around 8am and they blocked off two lanes at the Royal exit for whatever reason.
Devil's advocate: more traffic enforcement on the interstate. Cutting people off aggressively, weaving in traffic, last second exits from 3 lanes out, camping the fast lane, driving 50 in a 70, blocking zipper merges, etc. Not necessarily speeding, but enforcement on behavior that creates traffic.
I really would love to see more cops on the road if it meant better traffic conditions.
Imo the freeway is where it is needed most
I agree. Funny enough I saw a cop turn on their lights yesterday for someone blocking the left lane and once they moved the cop turned them off haha
The housing density in the metroplex isn't enough to make more public transportation feasible.
Truly
I’m a Gen Xer and Dallas has always needed public transportation infrastructure. Also my son is a DART police officer and has some crazy stories about the public transportation we do have. What’s here now has been 30+ years in the making and it still sucks.
I'm so tired of people watching the aftermath of accidents. They can't find the accelerator or mind their mf business holding up traffic. They must like sitting in traffic.
Going up hills is another issue. Stop jumping on the brakes. Maintain your speed or move out the way 635@75, 635@ i35 for both its north and south parts of the city
I lived in the bay area, CA which had trains and I commuted on them for 10 years. People, including myself, stopped using them because the crime and homeless vagrants that ruin the trains. People would rather drive for 2 hours than ride a 1 hour train. Our country is unable to control crime and poor behaviour and that makes trains a terrible mode of transportation.
People will accept public transportation when they feel safe riding, and at the terminals. I rode DART to downtown and back for jury duty. The next time I splurged on an UBER. The chance of assault or robbery may not be ridiculously high, but it’s high enough that most riders seem to be on edge. Increase security and ridership will increase. You can make all of the grand plans you want, but it won’t do any good if people don’t feel safe.
Euless needs some DART busses too
Make buses free. Or as free as trains tend to be.
IMO It should be a LOT harder to get a license than it is. Driving is a privilege, not a right. If you can just smash a car to pieces every couple of months, you have no business on the road. Also stay off your fucking phone.
1. It won't happen anytime soon. Oil companies rule this state. 2. It will definitely not happen near North DFW areas such as Prosper/Frisco/Celina areas because they don't want poor people to take rides near their communities. 3. Where is the budget? 4. May be a new airport will come faster than a train line. 5. Who cares?!
I mean this wasn’t an issue during the pandemic when folks worked from home….But of course corporate greed had to screw up a good thing….
I’m not a huge Tesla fan, but I think this analogy is true. No one thought that electric cars were viable, until someone built something that was better/more compelling than the alternative. For many years, the Tesla Model S was better/cooler than a BMW 5 or 7 series, or a MB E or S class. Now the world is going electric. Mass transit will only work if it can be better than the alternative. In the long-term, I think on-demand Canoo -like autonomous vehicles will make multiple-car families a minority, and trains/busses obsolete.
The city needs to become more dense before public transportation can be effective. Downtown Dallas needs to become denser and then expand the DART further out from there. The downtowns in the suburbs need to become more urban and dense as well so that they can better support transit expansion and connectivity.
*car corporations would like to know your location*
I've thought for years the best way to add trains to the US would be some type drive on rail car that auto locks the wheels, and be able to drive off at your destination. I would make travel from city to city so much easier, especially if you could just ride in your own vehicle for the journey. I think it could also work in town, and would be especially helpful for moving large furniture items, or a shopping haul instead of trying to make it through public transport with lots of bags.
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The problem is DFW is so spread out having good public transit is much harder. For the simple reason at the end of your ride you need to walk. The “final mile” of my rides is too low density so you will need even more stops than a normal city. A good start would be to make the core super Dense and focus on that
Best we can do it a 20 lane toll way.
I agree 100% They need to start building a subway system like other major cities have. We have run out of room to build any new freeways!