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I think if D2 happens that will be awesome for DART. I personally don't think expanding to more suburban areas moves the needle much. The focus really ought to be on fully serving the central core. Suburban use cases on systems like this will almost always be niche. (For people who happen to live near a park and ride and work directly next to a station, or for people going to a sporting event, etc.)
I'm not super familiar with MARTA but the nice thing for Atlanta is that the infrastructure is in place, and they can expand ridership with TOD infill in a way that will be more challenging for Dallas.
I don't think it would move it much either, but seeing it expand some in Collin County would be nice.
Cities like Dallas and Denver seem to be building rail for the sake of building rail with zero foresight in terms of TOD.
Atlanta built its initial MARTA heavy lines exceptionally well, but now struggles on continuing its plan. Atlanta has a lot of good plans and struggles on execution. Dallas is good at execution, but bad at plans.
If only Dallas and Atlanta could combine their powers. The resulting transit system would be great.
MARTA is the worst transit agency in the country. It has been 23 years since the agency has done any type of expansion. And all the new recent proposals get turned into useless BRT. and the streetcar is useless too. They keep taking the city tax dollars with nothing to show with it. Dallas at least is actively expanding its light rail network.
MARTA is the worst transit agency in the country. It has been 23 years since the agency has done any type of expansion. And all the new recent proposals get turned into useless BRT. and the streetcar is useless too. They keep taking the city tax dollars with nothing to show with it. Dallas at least is actively expanding its light rail network.
So MARTA, a system that hasn't expanded in 2 decades, still has more ridership than DART? Why is that?
So MARTA, a system that hasn't expanded in 2 decades, still has more ridership than DART? Why is that?
Yeah, it's not saying much but MARTA is one of the best transit systems in the south.
There might not be "new" rail additions, but at least MARTA has real deal rail.
Also, they complain about rail plans changing to BRT, but a lot of cities are going that route. Cities that don't even have the infrastructure Atlanta already has.
San Antonio, for example had plans for rail from the airport to downtown and beyond to the Missions, but has changed plans to BRT. I like the plan, it uses dedicated lanes, the busses look cool and it connects important areas.
Atlanta getting new BRT lines is progress, why make it out to be a bad thing?
Apart from MARTA, and San Antonio's ART, Miami’s SMART proposes an extensive BRT system. Tampa's HART has new BRT proposals, but they are not all that. And the list goes on and on.
When I first started reading comments here people were looking down on light rail simply because it was not heavy rail, now they are doing the same with BRT.
Sometimes BRT is the more logical choice for the time, and BRT lines may be replaced with rail in the future
So MARTA, a system that hasn't expanded in 2 decades, still has more ridership than DART? Why is that?
Because it's currently a better and more useful system. It may not always be that way without growth.
Lots of bad publicity for MARTA recently regarding why nothing has been built or is even close to groundbreaking since the 2016 tax was passed and whether they can build what was promised. The articles that I read were unfair and never mentioned how every transit agency has been faced with the same struggles due to skyrocketing construction costs over the last few years.
DART is only expanding to please its suburban member cities. Some threaten to leave if they didn’t get a train. This is the exact same time when the City of Dallas wanted its D2 subway line. The downtown subway is needed to relieve traffic on the single track that carries all 4 lines. Both sides were advocating for their project to be done first. The DART board decided to do both and start the Silver Line first. The City of Dallas got mad and removed the board members who represented Dallas on the DART Board for voting in favor of the Silver Line. Basically, the City knows (hell everyone knows) that the Silver Line’s projected ridership is horrible. So, the City felt like DART should focus on Dallas where rail is actually needed in a denser area. Suburbanites aren’t gonna use rail as much as someone in the core of Dallas would. Also…the argument was, there’s no guarantee that the D2 subway will be funded due to the current Silver Line project.
Oh, dear me.
City-suburb animosity, and the suburbanites gain the upper hand.
I think I've seen this script acted out before. OTOH, Philadelphia's Commuter Tunnel was actually useful, just not as useful as the Northeast subway would have been and still would be.
Dallas DART and Cleveland's Red Line suffer from the same problem: they used existing rail ROW rather than built the lines to serve the places where the people actually were, as has already been noted here. That got things up and running for less money but also greatly diminished the bang for the transportation buck spent.
But to back 2Easy up, that general anti-bus bias among many transit advocates, planners and even riders causes many to overlook the potential of buses as a first step towards robust rapid transit. Two cities in other countries —*Ottawa in Canada and Curitiba in Brazil — began their rapid transit journeys by building busways and BRT systems. then adding or supplanting them with rail lines when ridership began to hit their capacity limits.
The sad thing here is, as not only Dallaz but others on this thread have noted, limited funding combined with high costs and drawn-out approval processes means we may well never get as much rail transit, light or heavy, as we could or even should have. And I don't see the prospects for reforming our system of evaluating, approving and building rail transit as all that high.
DART’s D2 subway has been delayed for 10 years. The new CEO wanted to stop the Sliver Line, but it’s already U/C. SMH! This isn’t a surprise to me at all. I’m not trying to talk crap about DART, just being completely honest. Now, we’re gonna be stuck with all four lines on one track in downtown. Without an increase in frequency and capacity. The current downtown transit mall has a problem with cars hitting the trains, causing delays throughout the entire system. DART regrets ever having the downtown transit mall on the surface, instead of a subway (tried to be cheap). The Sliver Line isn’t needed like I’ve mentioned earlier. They now realize improved bus service is what the suburbs need (D2 advocates have been saying this), not rail. Again, there isn’t enough density to support the Sliver Line. Just another continuation of DART building lines just for the hell of it. That money could’ve been spent building D2! One good thing, it seems like the new CEO is trying to change the way DART has been operating.
Edit: The Sliver Line will be DART’s last expansion for the foreseeable future.
But to back 2Easy up, that general anti-bus bias among many transit advocates, planners and even riders causes many to overlook the potential of buses as a first step towards robust rapid transit. Two cities in other countries —*Ottawa in Canada and Curitiba in Brazil — began their rapid transit journeys by building busways and BRT systems. then adding or supplanting them with rail lines when ridership began to hit their capacity limits.
I agree 100%! I've often said that cities that are building trains before providing decent bus service are doing it backwards. Especially a city building a streetcar, which imo is inferior to a bus when it comes to reliability.
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Dallas is pretty good with plans... most, if not all of the time......Unless you're talking about Dallas, GA?
