What do you think of the DART?

[austinnetx]

Here is the 2030 Mobility plan for DFW including rail.

http://www.nctcog.org/trans/mtp/2030/FinRec.pdf

9+ billion estimate for rail. I imagine that it will cost more than that to do what they want.

[austinnetx]

Originally Posted by aceplace

Very true. The easiest way to get out of an arena is to ride public transportation. The alternative is to wait forever in an endless line of cars trying to get on the freeway.

I'd think that one of the causes of low attendance at Ranger games is the horrible traffic jam on I30 when everybody is trying to leave at once.

Yes, the proce of gas will have a sobering influence on the use of a car. It will also change the design of our suburbs, where a supermarket is sited 4 miles from its customers. We may have smaller shopping districts, but more of them, closer to their customers.

I have taken rail from DFW out to Richardson and also drove. Its faster to drive a car to get home after public events than take transit. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, which has a FANTASTIC transit system, about 2/3 of the time we drove.

As for price of gas - I doubt that. Most of my gas goes for commuting, not shopping. We drive 11 miles a week for shopping and 150 for commuting.

If you add in the fact that you can stop and shop on the way home from work, then the whole shopping thing is a moot point.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by austinnetx

I have taken rail from DFW out to Richardson and also drove. Its faster to drive a car to get home after public events than take transit. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, which has a FANTASTIC transit system, about 2/3 of the time we drove.

As for price of gas - I doubt that. Most of my gas goes for commuting, not shopping. We drive 11 miles a week for shopping and 150 for commuting.

If you add in the fact that you can stop and shop on the way home from work, then the whole shopping thing is a moot point.

Ye Gads! If 5 or 10 minutes is so important to me that I have to struggle to make every minute count, I'm missing something out of life. I usually take the option that is most comfortable, rather than the one that is most frenzied.

For occasional trips around a small radius of your home, driving is a better option. Maybe someday, a personal mobility device like a Segway will work out better. For more extensive and regular travel through a densely crowded corridor, a train is a better option. Even if the social and governmental costs of travel are not factored in.

Portland? Yes, the MAX is OK as far as it goes, and the acceptance and use of buses in Portland is moderated by the fact that it is 90% Caucasian, so racial disparities in the use of bus versus rail are not a factor. And yes, I'm personally very sorry that we are still a very race-oriented society.

[lh_newbie]

My wife and I took DART to the Dallas Arts Festival a few weekends ago. Adding up the time it took to wait for the rail, to ride downtown, then walk to the event was probably roughly what it would have taken to drive my vehicle, find a parking spot, then walk to the event. Not that the cost is a big deal to us, but it cost us $6 to ride DART to the same event; if we were to drive, it would have been about a gallon of gas ($4) + $5 parking, or $9 - excluding wear/tear on the vehicle - so DART technically saved us a few bucks.

I used to also live near the Plano station and work in downtown. The drive -vs- DART times were close, but it took me about 10 minutes total (round trip) longer by DART, but on the other hand, I never got caught in traffic jams which could save me 45 mintues on a bad day, and always got home without the stress of dealing with the traffic. Since I was at the last stop - many times, I caught a nap.

Brian

[Grainraiser]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

My wife and I took DART to the Dallas Arts Festival a few weekends ago. Adding up the time it took to wait for the rail, to ride downtown, then walk to the event was probably roughly what it would have taken to drive my vehicle, find a parking spot, then walk to the event. Not that the cost is a big deal to us, but it cost us $6 to ride DART to the same event; if we were to drive, it would have been about a gallon of gas ($4) + $5 parking, or $9 - excluding wear/tear on the vehicle - so DART technically saved us a few bucks.

I used to also live near the Plano station and work in downtown. The drive -vs- DART times were close, but it took me about 10 minutes total (round trip) longer by DART, but on the other hand, I never got caught in traffic jams which could save me 45 mintues on a bad day, and always got home without the stress of dealing with the traffic. Since I was at the last stop - many times, I caught a nap.

Brian

Thats my exact experience with DART. I only save about 5 minutes taking DART but the stress of not being stuck in traffic and being able to read the paper on the work is well worth it. Not to mention I can go 2 weeks on a tank of gas and only put about 8k a year on my car. I didn't work Downtown I would not give a flip about DART. Since I do it's the greatest thing since slice bread.

[Sugacoles]

Are there express buses that transport downtown workers from the suburbs?

[lpepping]

Yes there are some express buses. I have taken the one from Carrollton to downtown years ago and assume they still have that. Check DART.org - Dallas Area Rapid Transit

[Grainraiser]

Originally Posted by Sugacoles

Are there express buses that transport downtown workers from the suburbs?

Yes there are some express buses. The ones I am familar with service Garland, Rowlett, Glenn Heights and Oak Cliff. I am sure there are others.

[t.e.sumner]

Originally Posted by austinnetx

I have taken rail from DFW out to Richardson and also drove. Its faster to drive a car to get home after public events than take transit. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, which has a FANTASTIC transit system, about 2/3 of the time we drove.

As for price of gas - I doubt that. Most of my gas goes for commuting, not shopping. We drive 11 miles a week for shopping and 150 for commuting.

If you add in the fact that you can stop and shop on the way home from work, then the whole shopping thing is a moot point.

D/FW airport, as with all airports, is a special case. When you go to the arena for a game, you don't lug along 2 suitcases. The vehicles for airports and train stations for inter-city traffic need to be different. Luggage storage and longer stops are crucial for acceptance by riders. At the suburban end the local transport from a train also has to be different for the same reason. You just can't let a family with 4 suitcases off on a busy arterial blocks from their home.
So, yes, I would agree that DFW to Richardson constitutes a different case. But the ballpark, arena or stadium, where you might have a small cooler with you or cushions is much faster on public transport than parking (and paying through the nose for that privilege) and creeping along in the lines of cars of similar-minded individualists. For most people shopping en route after an event doesn't make sense -- you're tired, you just spent half a week's pay, and you want to unwind.
The drawbacks of public transport, such as DART, can be mitigated in order to gain acceptance by riders. Clean, safe transport that fits work schedules is essential, but also places to stow carry-on items and larger pieces are needed on different routes plus end-point consideration for travel onward to specific points.
A mixed local point destination system with high-capacity longer haul segments connecting those points would allow riders to get on within a hundred meters of origination with all their stuff, transfer painlessly to a medium-haul vehicle, and re-transfer to local loops at the far end to their final point destination or within a hundred meters. Yes, this is a dream. How can transfers be made painless? Dismount one bus and alight a train and then the reverse at the other end?
NY Port Authority operates like this -- we just have to think on a smaller scale: medium-haul lanes or tracks adjacent to short-haul bus lanes.
Fort Worth has a free continuously running downtown loop bus (or they did) with easy access, like those theme park multi-car open vehicles. So, we can find solutions to increase acceptance and use of public transport, but we are considerably short of that at present.
If you could hop on a local transport down the block from your house to go to strip center within 3 km and not have to wait the better part of an hour to get back, people would shun their personal vehicle use, instead of driving 2/3 of the time.

[tallscot]

Plano has cut 50 positions, including police officers and fire, in response to its $17 million dollar deficit. The city is expected to raise property taxes for the second time in two years. It is looking at doubling the fee to use the recreation centers that taxpayers have already paid for. It is going to delay the construction of its regional park, Oak Point Park, which is already three years behind schedule.

If Plano was not a DART member city, it would have a surplus right now, not a deficit, and none of these increases in taxes and fees, and none of these cuts in police and fire, would be necessary.

Frisco, McKinney and Allen are all doing fine. They are not DART member cities.

DART's ridership numbers for March 2008 are reported to the American Public Transportation Association as 62,000 trips per weekday. A single rider using light rail round trip creates two trips. Some riders transfer, thus creating a third or forth trip. So the APTA states that you take the total trips and multiply it by .45 to get an approximate ridership figure. That means all of DART has 27,900 riders on light rail on a weekday, out of a member city population of approximately 2.1 million. So about 1.32% of the DART member cities' population uses light rail.