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If you live here you know where the stations are......If you are visiting you grab one of the Dart Brochures or your phone to pull up a SYSTEM MAP to see what train gets you to where you wanna go....And as far as placement goes...Less interaction with traffic the better. That's why DART has a lot of elevated stations.
Busses are KING in Houston so why would taking a bus a couple of blocks to the front side of the airport be a problem anywhere in this conversation?
It ruins the experience of riding the trains to the airport. MARTA goes right into Hartsfield Jackson airport. DART goes right into DFW airport but doesn’t go right into Lovefield my favorite airport in the country? If your going to do it than do it right.
I don't like the idea of just extending the green line down Hobby.
I would extend lines from Gessner along Westminster and and along Richmond to UH and TSU respectively.
I would have another along McGowen from Bagby to the Purple line.
Another along Montrose from Herman Park/Red Line to the Heights.
Another along Kirby from NRG stadium to Allen parkway, then along Allen Parkway into downtown.
I think the Green line was a foray into trying to copy DART's goal of creating TOD's. It is slow in working for DART and is slow in working for the Greenline.
It goes to every business center and important place in Dallas..The only thing that misses connection directly is the Galleria...But North Park is the mall of choice and its connected by train and a shuttle bus.
The Cowboys stadium is the only thing you could be talking about......And football games are not the only thing going on in Dallas...Trust me.
Literally the entire mid-cities area and Ft. Worth. These are major activity centers in DFW. Acting as if it just doesn't matter that you can't get to JerryWorld, Globe Life, or Six Flags on public transit is a good example of the Dallas attitude that bigger is better no matter what. This event-based usage is a huge driver of use (especially in Texas) and in that context that's why DART is extremely underwhelming despite it's size.
Size will never overcome poor design. Who really wants to use that ridiculous Love Field station? Who is using stations like LBJ/Skillman or Walnut Hill/Denton for example? DART looks good on a map, but at ground level you can clearly see the major flaws in the system.
With that said the D2 should help in-town ridership by decreasing headways. That's a good start. But overall, the design will always hold this system back imo.
Literally the entire mid-cities area and Ft. Worth. These are major activity centers in DFW. Acting as if it just doesn't matter that you can't get to JerryWorld, Globe Life, or Six Flags on public transit is a good example of the Dallas attitude that bigger is better no matter what. This event-based usage is a huge driver of use (especially in Texas) and in that context that's why DART is extremely underwhelming despite it's size.
Size will never overcome poor design. Who really wants to use that ridiculous Love Field station? Who is using stations like LBJ/Skillman or Walnut Hill/Denton for example? DART looks good on a map, but at ground level you can clearly see the major flaws in the system.
With that said the D2 should help in-town ridership by decreasing headways. That's a good start. But overall, the design will always hold this system back imo.
Ft.Worth has a transit system and train of its own and it ALSO takes you to DFW airport...Dart Is not responsible for the whole DFW metroplex......There are additional systems to take care of what Dart doesn't.
Literally the entire mid-cities area and Ft. Worth. These are major activity centers in DFW. Acting as if it just doesn't matter that you can't get to JerryWorld, Globe Life, or Six Flags on public transit is a good example of the Dallas attitude that bigger is better no matter what. This event-based usage is a huge driver of use (especially in Texas) and in that context that's why DART is extremely underwhelming despite it's size.
Size will never overcome poor design. Who really wants to use that ridiculous Love Field station? Who is using stations like LBJ/Skillman or Walnut Hill/Denton for example? DART looks good on a map, but at ground level you can clearly see the major flaws in the system.
With that said the D2 should help in-town ridership by decreasing headways. That's a good start. But overall, the design will always hold this system back imo.
There are certainly inefficiency and poor planning issues with DART. But how is it Dallas´s fault if the city of Arlington chose to opt out of public transit entirely and Jerry specifically built the Cowboys stadium away from DART? It´s a real challenge building an efficient metro system when you have places like Arlington and Frisco luring professional sports to their cities without connecting any of them to public transit.
There are certainly inefficiency and poor planning issues with DART. But how is it Dallas´s fault if the city of Arlington chose to opt out of public transit entirely and Jerry specifically built the Cowboys stadium away from DART? It´s a real challenge building an efficient metro system when you have places like Arlington and Frisco luring professional sports to their cities without connecting any of them to public transit.
All true. It's not Dallas (or even DART's) fault that these decisions were made by the Cowboys and Rangers any more than it's Houston's fault that Culberson and Tom DeLay torpedoed Houston's west side rail lines two decades ago. With that being said, both cities have the systems they have and DART, decades ago, made a conscious decision to maximize line length by building DART lines largely where existing defunct rail lines were over the more expensive option of building them on new, denser ROWs. Their rationale was that eventually nodes would build up around them. They even got the Federal money that Houston gave up to do a lot of the early 2000s expansions. So far that strategy has had mixed success at best.
I think MetroRail is underwhelming too, for the record. But the difference is it's more useful for your average resident than DART is since the current system hits most of the city's activity areas and all of the high-demand areas. The ones it misses (Washington Ave corridor and the airports mainly) are planned to be connected in upcoming expansions. The BRT near the Galleria will be much more useful as well, once those expansions are complete. Overall, in general, public transportation will probably always be a little more successful in Houston (regardless of mode) than DFW because the region is just more centralized.
But like I said, I do think the DART D2 subway will boost ridership in the in-town areas by getting that frequency up and making it a more attractive choice.
All true. It's not Dallas (or even DART's) fault that these decisions were made by the Cowboys and Rangers any more than it's Houston's fault that Culberson and Tom DeLay torpedoed Houston's west side rail lines two decades ago. With that being said, both cities have the systems they have and DART, decades ago, made a conscious decision to maximize line length by building DART lines largely where existing defunct rail lines were over the more expensive option of building them on new, denser ROWs. Their rationale was that eventually nodes would build up around them. They even got the Federal money that Houston gave up to do a lot of the early 2000s expansions. So far that strategy has had mixed success at best.
I think MetroRail is underwhelming too, for the record. But the difference is it's more useful for your average resident than DART is since the current system hits most of the city's activity areas and all of the high-demand areas. The ones it misses (Washington Ave corridor and the airports mainly) are planned to be connected in upcoming expansions. The BRT near the Galleria will be much more useful as well, once those expansions are complete. Overall, in general, public transportation will probably always be a little more successful in Houston (regardless of mode) than DFW because the region is just more centralized.
But like I said, I do think the DART D2 subway will boost ridership in the in-town areas by getting that frequency up and making it a more attractive choice.
Neither is great though, no doubt about that.
What areas did Dart miss in Dallas...so we can discuss the options for those areas.
What areas did Dart miss in Dallas...so we can discuss the options for those areas.
It would be nice to see DART have more direct service in established neighborhoods where you can easily walk to a station. Expanding the streetcar may be the best way to do this at this point. The Dallas Streetcar while currently small in coverage has a similar set-up to Metro rail in Houston running on streets with traffic.
It would be nice to see DART have more direct service in established neighborhoods where you can easily walk to a station. Expanding the streetcar may be the best way to do this at this point. The Dallas Streetcar while currently small in coverage has a similar set-up to Metro rail in Houston running on streets with traffic.
No. Metrorail Houston is more similar to DART Downtown than Dallas street car. Dallas street car shares lanes with cars for the majority of its system. Other than a couple of turning lanes, Metrorail Houston has its lane that run on streets in individual lanes (in other words like Dart downtown)
Two large southern cities whose raw municipal density numbers probably don't tell the real story of how dense/urban they are.
Houston has the taller buildings, Dallas has the bigger interurban rail system.
Which has the more urban streetscape?
Native Houstonian here who now lives in DFW. Sorry but I give the latter more feel, especially with what's been done with the reclaimed 75 acre brownfield now known as Victory Park a development valued at more than $3 billion, then the downtown Farmer's Market, the Klyde Warren Deck Park, new opera house and related facilities. Houston downtown has had its success/growth with the Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park. Dallas weakness is that its a twin center, more or less, with Fort Worth. Whereas Houston competes basically with Katy Highway corridor which lacks density and 99% car dependent. Dallas has 4 light rail lines and two trolley lines in its core. Houston has one.
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