To be fair, the area served by DART has seen large changes in business districts (moving north along DNT), whereas DC is still centered around government buildings. That plus our insanely hot weather for half the year makes it a bad fit for fixed rail.

TriAg2010 said:

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Kellso said:

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People should also be patient with DART.
The reason that NYC, Washington DC, Paris, London.....etc all have such great public transportation and train systems is that those systems have all been around a lot longer.
The DART rail is still a baby. It's only been around since 1996. Those other systems have been around closer to 100 years.

If you are a struggling UTD college student with limited funds....you now have the ability to take a train to DFW airport if you are needing to go home for Thanksgiving Break.

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Those cities don't have "great public transportation" because their systems have been around longer. They have high ridership because they offer an easier way to get around those towns. A common denominator between all of the cities you list are urban street grids that were plotted more than a century before the automobile. This simply isn't true of the Metroplex, which was built almost entirely in the era of automobiles. DART will never be an easier or faster way to get around town for the vast, vast majority of trips; like a rounds-to-zero small number.

The DART Rail (opened 1996) isn't substantially older than the DC Metro (opened 1976) if you're using the standard that nearly 30 years of operation makes it "a baby." When the DC Metro was 30 years old, it was carrying over 250,000 people per day and growing compared to DART Rail at 65,000 people per day - with about the same amount of track miles (93 vs 102). Each time a new segment of DART rail is opened, the ridership will grow and then plateau within a few years. There's no need to wait decades to see what will happen. DART is more-or-less at its ceiling today.

It's just so damning that a noteworthy use-case for a $1.1 billion dollar fixed infrastructure investment is "help college students at a campus with 92% Texas residents, 75% of whom commute daily by car, get to the airport cheaply approximately once per semester." You can take DART from UTD to the airport today if cost is your primary consideration.

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Ok,

What's your plan?
How could you do this better?

Thanx.

The only way this was ever going to work was running it up and down the DNT. It's the lifeblood of Dallas and where ALL of the new SQFT of significant size is going up

Stops at the Star, legacy west, Belt Line, fields development, galleria, NW HWY, love field (bus to terminal), AAC, uptown, downtown.

Frisco shut it down because they didn't want undesirables coming up to StoneBriar and scaring rich white housewives.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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The only way this was ever going to work was running it up and down the DNT. It's the lifeblood of Dallas and where ALL of the new SQFT of significant size is going up

Stops at the Star, legacy west, Belt Line, fields development, galleria, NW HWY, love field (bus to terminal), AAC, uptown, downtown.

Frisco shut it down because they didn't want undesirables coming up to StoneBriar and scaring rich white housewives.

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Frisco is not a member of DART. They couldn't shut down anything in your made up scenario here.

I do agree with you though.....In a perfect world I would love your scenario. An underground train that could potentially take you from the Dallas Convention Center to the Shops of Legacy in Plano alongside the Dallas North Tollway would be fantastic for commuter rail.

My ex lives in Tyson's Corner in the DC Suburbs and she loves to brag about how she can get to downtown DC and all these others boutique neighborhoods without having to get in her car. She lives in an area near the Tyson Center Mall that is very similar to Shops of Legacy in Plano.

Shut it down as in wanted no part of it. They were certainly approached.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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Shut it down as in wanted no part of it. They were certainly approached.

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You don't have to lie to kick it.

To my knowledge Frisco has never been approached to be a part of Dart.
If you could show any sort of article or proof to back up you claim of them being "Certainly approached" I would appreciate it.

Frisco has no power over DART because Frisco is not a member city. The most powerful Suburban members of Dart are Plano, Richardson and Irving.

This is from the Frisco Chamber of Commerce Website.

Quote:

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In Frisco
In Frisco, for example, which is not currently served by DART, there is less demand for transit than there is in Richardson, which does have DART service.

"The fact that any area or region is talking about traffic issues is a good thing because that means there's a lot of growth to the area, a lot of people coming in and growth to the economy," says Tony Felker, president and CEO of the Frisco Chamber of Commerce. But Felker does not feel DART expansion makes sense for his city based on the current sales tax model because making the required contributions could affect other economic development funding in Frisco.

"When would we see the benefit of that public transportation?" Felker asks. "You have some communities that have been paying in for 30, 40 years and they're just seeing the benefits right now. Most public leaders think there's a better solution than joining DART."

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https://friscochamber.com/blog/the-future-of-transportation-in-collin-county/

I believe his response would affirm my notion. Doesn't want it in Frisco.

Of course no article is going to be written that basically says "we're too white and rich to want public transport here"

Cmon man.

Also, because it wasn't published in an article you can google doesn't mean it wasn't said.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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I believe his response would affirm my notion. Doesn't want it in Frisco.

Of course no article is going to be written that basically says "we're too white and rich to want public transport here"

Cmon man.

Also, because it wasn't published in an article you can google doesn't mean it wasn't said.

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Dude,

What is your obsession with Frisco?
Who gives a f*** about Frisco?

Frisco is only like 20 years old and is way out in the country. Most of Frisco's development happened after the opening of StoneBriar Mall in 2000. Plano, Richardson and Irving have all been around a lot longer, and they all owe a lot of their suburban business success to the money they invested in DART decades ago.

Arlington doesn't have the business community that Plano, Richardson or Irving has because they have no public transportation. Arlington is by far the largest suburb in the Dallas area, and its economy is largely based on General Motors.

Most of Frisco is not going to be optimum for public transportation because the city is largely rural and suburban.

Public transportation is geared towards people that want to live without a car, or limit the use of their own personal vehicle.

You're the one writing diatribes.

But Frisco will have more office space than downtown dallas when built out. Seems like a good place to include in a DNT expansion?

Just saying.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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Of course no article is going to be written that basically says "we're too white and rich to want public transport here

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Quoted from the lifelong Prosper resident

ChoppinDs40 said:

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You're the one writing diatribes.

But Frisco will have more office space than downtown dallas when built out. Seems like a good place to include in a DNT expansion?

Just saying.

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You are the one making up things as you go along.
Plano is a member of DART, not Frisco. This discussion is like someone talking about the SEC, and some person constantly bringing up Florida St and Georgia Tech.

Frisco does not have the business population that Las Colinas, Plano or Downtown Dallas has to support light rail or public transportation.

The Silver line was a bone thrown to the suburban members of DART because it now connects Addison, Richardson, Carrollton, and Plano to DFW airport as well as gives the DART RAIL its first East-West train line.

Frisco has never paid into DART....so bringing them up is pointless.

It is also disingenuous to pretend that DART wouldn't jump at the opportunity to add the City of Frisco and their $0.01 sales tax required to join. We aren't talking about the City of Balch Springs with a relatively low business population…

Damn skippy.

Exactly. Nowhere in there did I say Frisco was part of dart. I merely said, at the beginning, that for it to ever be successful it needed to go up and down DNT, of which Frisco is a lot of real estate along the DNT and Frisco has expressed it does not want any part of dart.