Dallas l DART Light Rail Expansion Updates
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http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2875/37714746.jpg http://www.dart.org/about/expansion/greenline.asp |
Can't wait until it reaches Pleasant Grove in 2010. Now I can really go around the city with ease without a car when I visit some of my cousins. I have taken the bus from this neighborhood to downtown and the train beyound to the north side. Although its not that bad of a ride to downtown, the train is more to my liken.
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A better map depicting both new lines as well as the blue line extension...
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9766/...transitmap.jpg |
Looking great. But... all lines sharing the same tracks through the heart of the city? Any plans for shifting half to another street in the future if/when capacity is maxed out?
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Looking good. Off-hand, this will make downtown Dallas much more attractive/competitive as a services employment center due to the drastically increased accessibility and capacity to get workers there. Good for the city.
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Amazing... I can't wait to ride the Green line!!
I wish Houston had (would) have built a "hybrid system from the start (one that can behave as both light rail and commuter rail). It's very smart, and the expansion opportunities are limitless. Hopefully we'll consider this model once our commuter rail phases become a reality. G-O D-A-L-L-A-S!!! Next stop, the Orange Line :) |
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Here are the current options being studied (from DART's website): http://www.dart.org/images/expansion...b2009large.gif More about it here: http://www.dart.org/about/expansion/downtowndallas.asp |
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http://forum.dallasmetropolis.com/showthread.php?t=6792 I don't think DART has officially settled on an alignment yet. This is the latest map I could find showing the proposals, but I could be way off... http://pcms.company39.com/dart/pcms_..._align_map.gif |
They should do 87 now and then do 84B like 5 years later. 84B would obviously need to tunnel under the convention center and connect with the existing blue and red line station at the CC, and then continue southward and interline with the blue and the red just southeast of the CC.
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The Red & Blue lines already have a station under the Convention Center at grade level. It's impossible, even with the maximum 6% grade, to lower the rails in less than two blocks reach a station under the proposed Convention Center Hotel. And if it did, there's no way to get back to the Red and Blue lines heading north without reversing directions. The new Green & Orange lines are planned to eventually use the new downtown light rail corridor while the Red & Blue lines will remain on the old corridor. The Red & Blue line trains could interline with the Green & Orange line trains at the at grade wye between Union and Victory Stations and at the at grade wyes near the Deep Ellum station. The rail line with the most riders today, which would support interlined trains (meaning it could use more trains on it), is the Red line northern leg. |
I always thought that trains could solve a LOT of traffic problems. If you have them everywhere, you would see a lot more people take them.
Marquita Jensen click here |
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And regardless, I would still do the two lines, in whatever time frame it could be done. Quote:
Also, if it was going to align with the existing red/blue lines, I figured the new line would leave the CC hotel station southbound and sort of loop to the SW a bit, so that it could swing around and line up with the existing e/w orientation of the tracks, so that its platform could be aligned under the red/blue platform...Then the new line would actually come out of the ground downline from the CC station, but before the Cedars station. (according to Google maps there's an open lot near where Powhattan St crosses the line) Oh, and it wouldn't need to loop around to head north near the CC, because the people leaving the CC hotel station who want to go north on the red/blue would take trains bound for the eastbound (Marilla) alignment, not the southbound alignment (or alternately, they would head north from the CC hotel station and transfer at the West End station... or walk to it, or take a hotel shuttle). People already on the red/blue would stay there... Or, if DART wanted to add a connecting line from NB red/blue to EB 84B, thus making a much more direct 'bypass' connection to NB red/blue, that would be their choice to do so whenever a traffic study justified its construction. And if I'm wrong on that stuff, the point is that I'm sure it could be figured out, and I think it would be awesome to have downtown sort of 'gridded' with 3 lines. A rather large swath of the downtown area would be gridded with stations every few hundred yards, with a nice locational mix to serve existing development and encouraging new development. |
I don't think you've seen everything Dallas and Dart are planning for downtown Dallas.
The number UNO idea in all their planning is to reduce the construction costs as much as possible, without sacrificing too much on peak hour capacity. This of course means limiting the amount of tunneling. When Dart evaluation charts rank subways stations undesirable because the have security and safety issues, and commercially because of their low visibility; it is very apparent Dart doesn't want many miles of subway lines. Dart light rail trains can transfer to commuter trains at either Union or Victory Stations. All Dart light rail trains will be able to transfer at the West Side station and with their sister paired line for almost half their lengths. In Dart's phase III plans, Dart plans an Orange line branch along Scyene Road to Masters (Mesquite city limits), extending the Red line south to Red Bird (Duncanville city limits, and a new (?color?) line west towards Grand Prairie from downtown Dallas. How they plan to go over or under an expanded Stemmons Freeway (I-35E Pegasus Project) hasn't been looked at. In downtown Dallas, Dallas and Dart are looking at building streetcar lines. These streetcar lines will be able to transfer to Dart light rail trains at Dart light rail stations. That's how Dallas and Dart plan to achieve your proposed grid pattern in downtown Dallas. Most likely, there will be at least one streetcar line in both north-south and east-west directions in additional to Dart's planned two light rail corridors. http://www.dart.org/images/expansion...alignmenta.gif http://www.dart.org/images/expansion...lignmentb1.gif http://www.dart.org/images/expansion...lignmentb2.gif http://www.dart.org/images/expansion...lignmentb3.gif Therefore, when you add the streetcar lines to the two light rail corridors through downtown Dallas, they don't need an extended subway line. |
Looks like a nice system developing.
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Riders per mile math: 39,500 / 7.5 = ~5300 passengers per mile. 71,100 / 45 = ~1600 passengers per mile. Houston Metro's Red Line takes 30 minutes to travel a distance of 7.5 miles, Dallas Dart's Red Line takes 66 minutes to travel a distance of 27 miles. In 7.5 miles, Metro's line has 16 stations, averaging a station every 0.46 mile. In 27 miles, Dart's line has 25 stations, averaging a station every 1.1 mile. Why is it surprising Houston's Metro Red Line gets more ridership per mile? You're never further than a 1/4 mile between rail stations. But, lets now compare the average speeds of the trains. Dart's Red Line trains average 25 mph, Metro's Red Line trains average 15 mph. When you're building a rail line out to the second ring of suburbs around a major city, speed is more important than riders/mile. I would like to point out Metro's Red Line doesn't even reach Houston's city limits in either the northern or southern direction. Additionally, it doesn't reach north of downtown Houston yet. So, you're trying to compare Apples to Oranges. Dart has 13 member cities while Metro has 16 member cities. But, their Board of Directors are set up entirely differently. Metro has 7 Board Members, 5 appointed by Houston and 2 by the rest (15 cities). I think it is obvious Metro is set up to favor Houston unfairly. Meanwhile, Dart has 15 Board Members, split proportionally to member cities population. Presently, 8 represent Dallas, the remaining 7 represent the rest. I think it is obvious Dart isn't set up to favor Dallas unfairly. Because of how the two Boards are set up, it easy to understand why Dart builds rail lines to the suburbs while Metro doesn't. I suggest the reason why Dart has twice the number of daily passengers on its trains is because rail actually goes to the suburbs. |
It does seem a little disingenuous to try and compare Houston's red line, which is in all reality a street car system, to DART's red line which is over 3 and half times longer. Now, if you could isolate just the section of red line that runs through downtown from the Cedars station to the Pearl station, then you could compare that to Houston's line because for that short stretch, the two lines are similar in design and execution, but beyond that the DART red line leaves the city streets and becomes a true rapid transit line.
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Good explanation electricron.... the systems are only slightly comparable. I have to launch into similarly structured stuff when people ask why the Chicago L isn't more like the Washington Metro. Different technologies using different rights of way through areas that actually have quite different historical contexts.
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