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Old Posted Mar 7, 2012, 6:54 AM
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Location: Granbury, Texas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanactivist View Post
I'm hoping that increased rail transit (at least in the case of Houston) will help to improve that image. But it still shocks me that DART overall ridership is as low as it is given the amount of rail transit in operation there.
Well, it isn't that low within the DART member cities.
Instead of using the Metro population figures, use DART member cities....
Dallas 1,197,816
Plano 259,841
Garland 226,876
Irving 216,290
Carrollton 119,097
Richardson 99,223
Rowlett 56,199
Farmers Branch 28,616
University Park 23,068
Addison 13,056
Glenn Heights 11,278
Highland Park 8,564
Cockrell Hill 4,193
DART Total (2010) = 2,264,117
Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton MSA (2010) = 6,371,773
That's approximately one third of the total, therefore ridership within the DART member cities should be three times more than listed earlier.

If we account for DCTA and FWTA member city populations....
Denton 113,383
Lewisville 95,290
Highland Village 16,996.
Fort Worth 741,206
Richland Hills 63,343
Blue Mound 2,394
Sub Total = 1,032,612
New Total = 3,296,729

That's approximately half the MSA total, therefore ridership is doubled in transit agency member cities. That 1.56% is over 3% now, which is higher than the less than 3% indicated for all other Texas cities.
When only half the population is subsidizing public transit with taxes within regions, only half the population is serviced by them - whether that service is good or poor. But even poor service is better than none.
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