DART. Your Thoughts?

I am a fan of public transportation. I use the McKinney Avenue Trolley to get to work most every day, and my fiancée uses the DART train to get into work. I rode the Metro when I lived in D.C., and use MetroNorth and the subway every time I go home to New York.

I know most of you don’t use public transportation (the bus stops in Highland Park and University Park are usually full of men in work boots, and housekeepers), but what’s stopping you? I’m not judging, I’m actually interested.

Is it the location of the stations? The need for a vehicle during the day? Safety?

By Bradford Pearson Feb. 8, 2012 | 10:39 am | 13 Comments | Comments RSS
13 comments to "DART. Your Thoughts?"
  1. Coral C @ February 8, 2012 at 11:39 am
    Now Bradford, if I’m sittin in a DART bus, how the heck am I going to run anyone down with my Hummer on Hillcrest?

  2. J @ February 8, 2012 at 11:54 am
    It’s inconvenient. I ride the DART rail every day, but it’s a pain. The Lovers station is too far to walk to, and there’s no parking, so I drive to Mockingbird Station, park there, and take the rail in. I’m with you – I love public transportation, it saves a lot of money in downtown parking and keeps me from having to sit in traffic, but it doesn’t surprise me that it’s underused in the Park Cities.

  3. 1Zima2Many @ February 8, 2012 at 12:10 pm
    I was excited about taking the DART rail to work when I first heard about it. But once it was built, I figured out it takes me less time (significantly less) to drive to work than it would for me to drive to the DART station, park, wait for the train, and ride it downtown. Otherwise, I’d be all over it.

  4. Matt @ February 8, 2012 at 12:49 pm
    Used to take the bus to Love Field 2-3 times a week for business trips when it ran down Lovers. Very convenient directly to the main entrance, and DART took the route away and replaced it with the rail which goes downtown and then dumps you at their Inwood station rather than Love Field. Maybe will use the rail when goes directly to DFW in two years.

  5. Uppercase Matt @ February 8, 2012 at 1:20 pm
    DART rail isn’t built for anyone but the downtown-and-back commuter. The “hub and spoke” arrangement doesn’t work for most people outside of going to an office downtown, or for the south-dallas housekeeper to get to HP. The bus lines really don’t help. We need more stations where you can easily change lines and modes of transportation, and we really need a couple of “circle” train lines, such as around Loop 12 and LBJ so there’s an effective way to move laterally between rail lines.

    I occasionally have the DART “trip planner” give me its plan for my 6-mile, 10 minute commute — its best solution is generally around 2 hours with a mile or more of walking.

  6. busfan @ February 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm
    Used to be a bus route down Baltimore that took you right to the Middle school. (WAY before your time, Bradford) but actually only about 7 years ago. Kids could ride it to school – then catch the Hillcrest bus back home. It was brilliant. Frankly there is no public transport in HP/UP. I’d love it. We need a trolley to connect Preston center (both sides), Snider Plaza, HP Village and Uptown. That would be cool.

  7. Neal @ February 8, 2012 at 5:09 pm
    I’m generally fan of public transportation, but can you imagine a trolley line moving up and down Hillcrest between Lovers and Mockingbird at 6 pm? Horrible. I’d rather build that crazy sci-fi tunnel under Mockingbird everyone was freaking out about 10 or 15 years ago.

    When I worked downtown, I took the train from Mockingbird station once and never again. It was a 45 minute trip door to door, I had to park outside instead of the underground garage at my office and the car was searing hot at the end of the day. There was a puddle of pee in the parking lot. My usual commute was 10 – 15 minutes in my own car. Different story if I lived at Mockingbird Station, but I’m not 25 anymore.

    And I agree with Matt – DART’s online trip planner might be the worst, most discouraging thing on the internet.

  8. Dan Brantley @ February 8, 2012 at 5:42 pm
    I think the entire issue with DART can be summed up by the “Love Field” station. One would think that the best place for a transit stop at an airport, would be at the terminal, where people actually want to go. But that makes too much sense, I suppose, since the DART line stops on Denton Drive. Now a million or so dollars have to be found to install a people mover to get people from the transit station to the terminal. Calling DART brain-dead would be an insult… to idiots everywhere.

  9. T-Bone @ February 9, 2012 at 9:55 pm
    I dont use any public transportation because that’s exactly what Obama would want me to do……..NOBAMA

  10. Colin @ February 10, 2012 at 10:24 pm
    Ive really tried to use public trans but heres a list of reasons why I won’t be anymore:

    1. To make it from home to work I have to take a car to dart rail, to TRE, to FW bus to a mile walk to work. Unless you live near and work near a station, it’s not worth it.

    2. Safety. We’ve just had 3 different instances where death occurred recently. A good percentage of people that ride dart are not ones to be comfortable around. Not to mention the fact tou’d probably get sick being around half the people in closed quarters, coughing.

    3. It takes me 2 and 1/2 hours one way instead of an hour and I have my car in case I need it during the day.

    4. Cost. It cost me 18 a day to drive vs (I think) 12 a day to ride. Not worth it.

    The fact is while I enjoy New York and London, for their transportation, Texas/Dallas is just too spread out. So when I see a “stick it up your tailpipe’ billboard I just laugh. Sorry Dart.

  11. jb @ February 10, 2012 at 10:34 pm
    I take DART rail to work most days from the Lovers Lane Station to Love Field. Most days the service is good, but the rail cars are already crowded.

  12. Pigskinnie @ February 11, 2012 at 7:59 pm
    People generally have paid more to live in the Bubble, and a primary reason is they want a shorter commute than those who live farther out. It also means they generally can afford a car. So high % of car ownership plus short commute equals low DART ridership.

  13. Miss J at SMU @ February 20, 2012 at 3:54 pm
    DART has updated the trip planner, but DART is still far behind other cities. Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio all have nicer buses. As for the Love Field Station, I remember reading a few years ago that the FAA (or maybe Homeland Security) had denied the request to build a light rail train tunnel under Love Field so that the Love Field Station could be directly under the terminal.

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