Dallas: Where steel rails grow amidst a sea of asphalt

I’m proud to say that I have now ridden the rail transit systems in all but four of the US metropolitan areas that have them. I ticked a major one that I had been missing off my list this past weekend when I traveled to Dallas (my first time spending more than an hour on the Dallas side of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex) to sample the nearly 20-year-old Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail system, the five-year-old Denton County Transportation Authority A-train DMU commuter rail line, DART’s brand-new modern Dallas Streetcar, and the heritage streetcar operation of the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority (MATA), the M-Line. (I had traveled on Trinity Railway Express, the commuter rail line connecting Dallas to Fort Worth, on a previous trip.)

My overall impression of these systems, more so than many other cities, is one of a first attempt to fit rail transit into an urban area that is nearly completely designed around the automobile and has copious volumes of stroads (a term coined by Charles Marohn at Strong Towns) and overbuilt highway infrastructure. Outside of the stops in The Big D’s downtown core, nearly all the DART light rail stations, and all of the A-train stations, are surrounded by expansive surface park and ride lots with very little within walking distance (at least that can be walked to with an attractive, safe pedestrian environment). Even the Dallas Streetcar feels retrofit into non-transit-oriented neighborhoods (though development is only starting to occur around stops, and the heart of the very walkable Bishop Arts District is a short distance from its southern terminus). Nevertheless, DART maintains at least 15-minute headways on all lines throughout the day on weekdays, 20-minute headways on weekends, and 30-minute headways late nights. The Dallas Streetcar, currently fare-free, runs every 20 minutes daily. (Neither TRE nor the A-train run on Sundays, but A-train maintains at least 30-minute headways all other days, with TRE trains running at least hourly the other six days.)

I met up with fellow Trains correspondent Hayley Enoch, a long-time resident of the area. She explained that, compared to other rail transit systems, daily commuters constitute a relatively small portion of both DART and the A-train’s ridership. Instead, DART’s bread and butter is special events at the stadiums, arenas and downtown destinations near its core stops, which are served by trains packed with attendees from the suburbs, most of whom drive and park at outlying stations. Thus, DART enables these events to attract even bigger crowds while making traffic around them a little less nightmarish. 

Many of the A-train’s passengers are commuter students at the two major university campuses in Denton (the line’s northern terminus) who take the train (which connects with DART’s light rail Green Line at its southern terminus, Trinity Mills, with timed transfers) between classes and homes in other parts of greater Dallas. The 21-mile line, equipped with quiet and fuel-efficient Swiss-built Stadler Flirt DMUs generally running in 2-car trains (and using the same track as Dallas, Garland and Northeastern Railroad freight trains under temporal separation), connects Denton, Lewisville and Carrollton, with the downtown Denton terminus being the only one within walking distance of a significant activity center. Free buses connect this terminus with the university campuses. The line also passes through the small municipality of Corinth without stopping (8.4 miles between the last Lewisville stop and the first Denton stop), due to political opposition to adding stops there.

The M-Line heritage streetcar, by contrast, is a very different type of operation. It is not designed to offer a speedy ride or frequent service (it took my car nearly 50 minutes to cover the entire 4.6-mile route, for an average speed of 5.5 mph), but rather to be a destination in and of itself and part and parcel of the greater dining and shopping destination of the McKinney Avenue/Uptown corridor. It is fare-free (subsidized by both DART and the Uptown Improvement District, whose funds come from businesses along the corridor) and MATA is an entirely volunteer-run organization. 

The two 70 to 80-year-old cars that were running on approximate 30-minute headways on a warm late October Sunday afternoon were completely packed. The vast majority of passengers boarded and alit at Klyde Warren Park, which was abuzz with families enjoying the outdoors. The streetcars were also well-decorated for Halloween. It felt like a tourist or museum trolley, but running in mixed traffic in actual streets and still serving as a functional part of a city’s transit system. Only San Francisco, New Orleans, Memphis, Tampa and Kenosha WI (and arguably Boston and Philadelphia) have similar operations.

Operationally, the M-Line is completely analog and very hands-on. At stops where the tracks are in the center of the street, the operator must leave his or her seat and step outside to make sure traffic behind the streetcar stops so that passengers may enter and exit. At the north end of the route, trains serve a single-track dog leg to the Cityplace-Uptown light rail station. At that station, the car stops on a turntable, which the operator then exits the train to operate while passengers remain onboard as the car is turned 180 degrees, the whole process taking up to five minutes.

Dallas enjoys a larger modern rail transit network than many cities of similar size and larger (Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, comes to mind). There remains considerable room for Dallas’s still-nascent modern rail transit network to expand, both in terms of route mileage and in terms of frequency and capacity. Two years ago, DART’s Orange Line was extended 14 miles to serve Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The Dallas Streetcar — only a 2.45-mile starter line with 1.08 miles of battery-powered off-wire operation over the Houston Street viaduct crossing the Trinity River — is certainly poised for extension on either end. One possibility would be to connect its track with that of the M-Line through downtown, which would likely involve a significant upgrade of the M-line’s trackage, but could allow for a mix of modern and heritage streetcars to be used on the line. The streetcar line’s successful use of Brookville Liberty modern streetcars with off-wire capability also sets the stage for the wider adoption of this technology, which is next coming to Oklahoma City and may come to cities like Washington, DC that have historic viewshed concerns.

As cities consider how to design rail transit networks, one important stakeholder perspective that sometimes gets overlooked is that of the visitor to the city who wants to visit different neighborhoods and take advantage of all the cultural opportunities the city has to offer without having to deal with renting, driving and parking a car. On this score, Dallas does quite well, in part because it is designed to get suburbanites to and from center city attractions, which also (perhaps unintentionally) helps car-free visitors. Though part of what drives the competition among cities to have modern rail transit is the desire to attract large conventions and year-round visitors to infuse outside cash into the local economy. I chose to stay at a downtown hotel, but had I chosen to stay near one of the outlying DART stations, my ability to get to museums, restaurants and nightlife would have been only slightly diminished. 

When I visit Dallas again in 10 or 20 years (I’ll probably be back sooner than that, though), I expect to find an expanded and interconnected rail network that is used by more residents for everyday transportation and more walkable neighborhoods around stations. As ridership grows and development follows, the region should start to right-size its overgrown road network, saving residents money both as travelers and as taxpayers.