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[quote user="daveklepper"] If it were not for the tunnel, then I would say the economics probably favored the light rail approach over buses.  If buses had been the alternative, would the tunnel still have been encessary?  If not, then buses probably would have made more economic sense, but not if usage of the line through the tunne exceeds say 80,000/day, 20,000 heaviest hour.  This is of course a very very rough guess. [/quote] Had DART stayed with express buses the tunnel would not have been necessary. Moreover, if the powers that be in the Park Cities had not been able to change the original plans, the tunnel would not have been necessary. Only the Red, Blue, and Orange trains run through the tunnel.  As per Page 23 of DART's 2014 reference book, the average weekday ridership on these trains is 70,700 passengers.  Assuming that most of the passengers are round trippers, i.e. they take the train from Point A to Point B and then subsequently take it from Point B to Point A, approximately 35,300 people use these trains. However, it is impossible to say how many go through the tunnel.  Many of the passengers on the Red, Blue, and Orange trains are boarding them downtown for trips to South Dallas or Oak Cliff or along the Orange line to Irving. As a side note, in my posting on the light rail miles re: use of freight railroad or former freight railroad rights-of-way, the Red and Blue line from Union Station to Cedars runs along part of the Texas Electric right-of-way, which was part of the north Texas Interurban System.  It is approximately a mile of track.  Also, the Red Line from Mockingbird Station to just south of Forest Lane, uses in part the former interurban right-of-way.  This portion of the line is approximately four miles. These corrections don't change the percentages significantly. Had the former railroad rights-of-way not be available for the light rail system, is seems improbable that it would have been built. All this is a moot point, of course.  The DART light rail system has been built out, with a few possible exceptions, and it is seen as a success by many.  I use it frequently.  Whether it was the optimum decision will be debated for decades, I suppose, but it is what it is.
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