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There was an underground rail access to downtown Dallas.  Part of it still exists and is used by delivery trucks.  I cannot remember whether it ran under Pacific or Elm Street.  In fact, it may have run under Jackson Street.  The Santa Fe had a freight station on Jackson Street.  It has been converted into condos.The DART tunnel under Central Expressway was built because of Dallas politics.  It was not part of the original game plan.  Initially, DART planned to run the northbound line from downtown Dallas along the former Katy right of way to Mockingbird Lane.  It goes through what is now Uptown Dallas, and it also borders Highland Park.  The Highland Park folks, as well as others, objected to the plan and were able to use their considerable political clout - money - to force DART to abandon this part of their plan and build the very expensive tunnel under Central Expressway.  The Highland Park residents did not want transit running on the old Katy route, which has been converted into a nice hike and bike trail.  However, they did not object to having the Katy service Highland Park Station in the 1950s when traveling by streamliner was popular.The tunnel under Central Expressway cost heaps.  As a result, DART did not have the money to put the trains under ground in downtown Dallas.  Instead, it had to build a transit way.  Moreover, in car crazed Dallas, it was not able to get the city and state to agree to give the trains priority over cars and trucks at the cross streets.  Thus, DART's light rail trains crawl through downtown Dallas.  According to DART's chief executive officer, DART's light rail trains will get the capability to control the cross street traffic signals in a couple of years.  Houston's light rail system has traffic signal priority, which means, as I understand it, that the signals are set to favor the trains as opposed to vehicles on the cross streets.  I have ridden on the Houston light rail system.  It gets through town faster than DART's light rail trains.
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