Downtown Dallas Subway Proposal (final)

[RobertB]

Downtown Dallas Subway Proposal
Phase 1 and Phase 2
Note: for details of the discussions that brought this plan about, see this thread (http://forum.dallasmetropolis.com/showthread.php?t=2662).


By the end of the decade, DART will be well along in its plans to build rail lines to Carrolton, Irving, and Pleasant Grove. These lines, combined with the existing lines to South Dallas, Oak Cliff, Plano, and Garland, will severely tax the capacity of the Pearl/Bryan transit mall. Increased ridership already calls for more and longer trains, but longer trains won't fit in the stations, and downtown vehicle traffic will be adversely affected when seven lines converge on one stretch of track. If each line has a 10-minute schedule, that's as many as 14 trains every 10 minutes -- less than a minute between trains. This could bring vehicle traffic to a halt.

To support light rail expansion to the suburbs, DART must build a subway system through the downtown core.


Phase 1
The primary goal of Phase 1 will be to reduce the number of trains on Pearl/Brian. This phase will also connect with existing transit-friendly areas, such as the underground tunnel system.

The existing Red/Blue subway line from Plano/Garland no longer exits the ground as it enters downtown. Instead, it continues under San Jacinto to Lamar, with a major station and transfer point just south of the existing West End Station and West Transfer Center.

From there, the line runs south under Lamar, then turns east at Young St. There's a hill in this area, but angled roads and large park areas give planners some flexibility. The station between City Hall and the east end of the Convention Center gives southern downtown a taste of the subway. The line stays underground under I-30, avoiding the Ramada with no problem, and rejoins the surface tracks a block north of Lamar Station.

Cathedral Station
* Under San Jacinto, east of Pearl.
* New walkways to basements of Plaza of the Americas and Chase Tower.
* Street-level access points at Leonard St and Pearl cover the Arts District.

Fairmont Station (or perhaps Church Station)
* Under San Jacinto between Akard and St. Paul
* Existing elevator and underground walkways to the Fairmont Hotel, Lincoln Plaza, and Dakota's Restaurant.
* Street-level access from the pocket park at San Jacinto & St. Paul, convenient to Baptist & Methodist churches.
* Connects with MATA system near the proposed San Jacinto car barn.

El Centro Station
* Street-level access to West End Transfer Point and West End Station
* Connects to the existing Bank of America Tower underground mall.
* New elevator to the front door of El Centro College.

City Hall Station
* Street-level exits at City Hall and the Convention Center Auditorium.
* With the existing surface line, provides access to both the east and west ends of the sprawling Convention Center.
* Additional street-level exit at Canton and Akard, if desired.


Phase 2
After the runaway success of Phase 1 (cross fingers!), downtown businesses and residents are going to want more. Where Phase 1 primarily addressed congestion issues by moving trains underground, Phase 2 will be designed to connect office, hotel, residential, and entertainment destinations to the rail network. Thus, it will be an east-west route through the downtown core.

Even better for planners and taxpayers: this is a one-way route, and thus requires just one track and one tunnel. While the design will accomodate future expansion, this will cut construction time and cost considerably.

The new line will branch off of the old line near the original subway-to-street transition area. It goes under the Julius Schepps overhead via Old Central Expressway, a surface street, avoiding any problems with the highway's support columns. The route turns west at Wood Street and continues under Jackson Street, serving Bell Plaza and the southern end of downtown's longest near-continuous underground system. At Lamar, the line takes advantage of the parking lot between the Greyhound Station and McDonald's to merge back into the Phase 1 subway line.

Carpenter Station
* Under Old Central Expressway at Elm Street
* Street-level access to Carpenter Park (the one with the big metal wall) and the nearby East Transfer Center.
* Additional street-level exit on Main Street in an area that is currently begging for renovation.

Continental Station
* Under Jackson, between St. Paul and Harwood.
* Connect to existing Continental Building underground walkway (and on to the rest of eastern downtown).
* Street-level access on Commerce Street serves the Municipal Courts and Annex.

Bell Plaza Station
* Under the intersection of Jackson and Field.
* Street-level access on Commerce Street serves the Federal Building.
* New elevator serves Manor Place residents.
* Street-level access in Bell Plaza serves the entire Bell complex.


Seven stations. Five miles (+/-) of subway. One great vision for downtown!


Credits: Downtown maps courtesy of http://www.dallassky.com/ and http://www.dfwmaps.com/
Original proposal by Robert Brooks, with mucho help from the dallasmetropolis.com forum members.
All parts of this proposal may be freely copied and distributed, especially in the vicinity of DART headquarters.

[Foucault]

Excellent job, Robert.

Phase 3

After Downtown's further densification, the introduction of two new rail lines (Pink and Chartreuse) into north and south Dallas requires a new subway route Downtown. The wild success of Phase 2 is such that a north-south route through Downtown is needed anyway. The stations:

Ervay Station
* See above under Fairmont Station.
* I think I saw something like this in London; someone please tell me if having one subway line perpendicular to and beneath another is implausible.

Marcus Square Station
* Under Main along Ervay St.
* Elevator(?) to Neiman Marcus.
* Cool pedestrian countdown signs at Main at Ervay, if not all of Main.

Library Station
* Under Ervay between Wood and Young.
* Chartreuse Line
* Street-level access to the Dallas Public Library (if direct access is provided, new security systems must be as well)

Canton Station
* Under Pearl between Young and Canton.
* Pink Line
* Hopefully attracts development.

Farmer's Market Station
* Under Pearl between Taylor(?) and Paris(?).
* Pink Line
* Street access to the Farmer's Market.

[bloodandpopcorn]

At least one of these subway lines (preferrable two or all) need to hit Union Station...

[RobertB]

Foucault: I'm no expert (though I play one on the Internet), but I don't think there's any insurmountable problem with a bi-level station. The only issue is that you've got to dig deeper -- which affects other stations on the line as well. I get the impression that subways like to have straight, flat runs.

On the other hand, we know that Dallas is going to be totally in love with the subway concept by this point. So I think you're on to something -- a deep-bore north-south tunnel connecting the heart of downtown with Uptown.

That deep bore will also help with the one problem with the Pink Line (giggle) routing. You've got a tight bend to head to Farmer's Market that even the existing surface LRT couldn't make. But since you're way underground, you're probably not limited to street ROW like my earlier phases. I still wouldn't want to route under a skyscraper, though, and you've got quite a few on the inside of that turn.

How about this: your Chartreuse Line is a deep bore straight from Uptown to City Hall (note that you may end up connectiong south of the station -- I think there's a big parking garage under that park).

The Pink Line curves from Ervay onto Pacific -- possibly picking up that "in the granite" subway station under 1700 Pacific (http://www.dallassky.com/bldg07.htm) (SE Corner). To turn south on Pearl, you'll have to go under a block, but there's no skyscraper there. Then poof, you're at Farmer's Market!

Note that you do lose the connection to the Jackson Street line by being that deep.

One question, though. Once you get the subway to Farmer's Market, then what?

[drumguy8800]

At least one of these subway lines (preferrable two or all) need to hit Union Station...


Yeah, seriously. That's one major design flaw. The NB purple line has no access at all to DTD except for Union Station, and where do they go to from there? Sure, they could switch trains at the red, but how would someone living along the line north of the red/purple split and south of union station get to downtown?

right now, you couldn't reroute the pink or chartruse lines because they both have at least one single-line station on them. Instead of making the blue a loop, why not make the blue line break off at pacific follow pacific underground until it turns following the design of the current transit-mall.. and right before the triple-overpass, it surfaces, crosses the overpass, goes through union station and convention center station, then down to Cedars, where it would break off and go down into the trinity river basin for a nice trinity river station.

then, reconfigure the red line so that it follows the route of the DTD loop until the station on jackson street between griffin and field, where it breaks off back down to the city hall station.

[texman]

I had an idea for the connection to Union station. Well you bring a line underground south of Victory, bring it to just north of Union station then turn it right under wood st. and have a station right there connecting to the belo buildng and the Union station tunnel then keep going east until you meet Robertb's planned-East line. Photo of plan (just added on to roberts)

[bloodandpopcorn]

That helps, but I think it would be really helpful for DART to have at least one station were all forms and many lines of each form of transportation met: so, while tex I think that should be implemented, i also fail to see why the line coming from the Northeast must turn where it does? How about a line directly under the West End station, bascially follow the surface route to Union, underground there, and then back down as it is currently routed? It would be longer, but it would help make Union Station a hub, which is desperately needed. Eventually Dallas public transit will be a crazy nightmare and having one place that can easily be reached on almost every line to get information, connect to most rail lines (or busses, or trolleys, or whatever) will make it much easier.

Eventually, maybe thirty years from now, the surface line downtown will probably have be done away with anyway.

On another note, I wish there were some way to feasibly do cut-and-cover downtown. It would cause a traffic nightmare, but having stations closer to the ground would make things much easier on riders. In NYC subways go to different depths all the time to meet up for stations that serve multiple lines, but with our drilling system, is that still practical? I would have thought so, but if these station would still have to be at least 10 stories underground to support a simply surface street, even a small crossing of train tracks might require 5 stories or more...

Does anyone have a firm understanding of the structural issues involved in various types of subway tunnels and the Dallas environment?

[drumguy8800]

Texman, That still doesn't help the entire issue of bring peole from south dallas who live/are between the blue/red split and union station along the red line (cedars, 8th & corinth.. etc.) into downtown dallas. but, your concept is still a very good idea. Union Station is the pink station to the left of your union station/belo station thing. We need lots of trains to run through the current Union Station platforms.

[texman]

I just always thoguh it would be cool to connect that tunnel under union station to a subway. If all of this was implemented (robertbs entire downtown system) what do you think the ridership would be, and the economin impact? It would probably be huge. Downtown Dallas would truly be a hub of evrything is Dallas.

[texman]

I can't stress this enough, Robertb, you should send you plans to DART. There too damn good.

[RobertB]

Texman, That still doesn't help the entire issue of bring peole from south dallas who live/are between the blue/red split and union station along the red line (cedars, 8th & corinth.. etc.) into downtown dallas. but, your concept is still a very good idea. Union Station is the pink station to the left of your union station/belo station thing. We need lots of trains to run through the current Union Station platforms.
I forgot to include my Cedars-City Hall map in my original post. Here it is. It's surprising (at least to me) how close City Hall actually is to Cedars Station! I don't see a need for additional service in the area.

I wanted to run all lines through some common point. Though you've identified Union Station as that common point, I don't think it works in that capacity. It's on the far west end of downtown, in splendid isolation from just about everything. In an earlier day, it was the D/FW Airport of Dallas, the place where everyone's journey began and ended. But it just doesn't serve that function in the day of the automobile. While it should remain an important inter-city hub (ref Amtrak and the TRE), I don't think it's the hub of the intra-city system.

I liked West End as the common transfer point, but it just didn't seem to work out that way. I think it'll be possible if you add a subway line from the north end of the Victory development, but then the Union Station tracks become even more isolated.

[RobertB]

I'm trying to find some helpful links for costs and construction methods. I'm sure I'd find better information with more details -- especially about the existing tunnel, which should be a good benchmark -- if this pesky real-world job didn't get in the way. But here are some interesting links:

Dallas light rail on a roll against the odds
http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_000001.htm
I had to look to a San Antonio newspaper archive (from 2000) for this key number: "$122 million for a 3.25-mile tunnel from downtown to Mockingbird Lane." That's about $40 million per mile. There may be more information at http://www.lightrailnow.org/ (a Texas-based non-profit) when I have time to check it out in detail. Anyone from the site on this board?

Bore-Regard: A Tunneling Machine
http://home.teleport.com/~samc/max/index3.html
While we were boring a tunnel under a flat expressway, Portland OR built a bored tunnel under a mountain. In this complex dig, complicated by an unexpected layer of soft, crumbly rock, 3 miles of tunnel bid at under $110 million cost about $185 million, or $62 million a mile. That should make a good top-end estimate.

Another tidbit at the end of this page:
http://www.dallassky.com/constructionnews.htm
"$50 million Cityplace subway station was opened Dec. 18, 2000"

Baltimore Metro Subway
http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Baltimore_Metro.html
From 1976 to 1983, they used cut-and-cover for the stations and bored tunnels (including blasting) between the stations. Fortunately, boring technology has advanced a lot since then.

Keeping the City Running
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20031006/200/550
This 2003 overview of what's below the street in NYC illustrates the problems with cut-and-cover techniques in a downtown environment. My plan would allow cut-and-cover for the whole line where feasable, but with so much recent experience boring tunnels in this area, the additional costs of being bored may be justifiable.


Quick, back-of-the-napkin estimate for Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Dallas subway system:

7 stations * $50 million = $350 million, maybe less since Cityplace was deeply bored.

5 miles of bored tunnel * $50 million/mile = $250 milllion, maybe less since that mileage includes stations.

Total: $600 million for a fully functional downtown Dallas subway system, or approximately two and a quarter Dallas High Fives (http://www.dot.state.tx.us/dal/newsrel/058-2003.htm).


Oh, and just for reference, here's how they did it a hundred years ago! Two levels of subway line, even.
The Design of Subways (Oct./Nov. 1918)
http://www.nycsubway.org/dual/psr_design.html

And just because I can't help myself:

boring technology :)
boring tunnels :)
bored tunnels :)
additional costs of being bored :)
Cityplace was deeply bored :) :) :)

[jsoto3]

Total: $600 million for a fully functional downtown Dallas subway system, or approximately two and a quarter Dallas High Fives (http://www.dot.state.tx.us/dal/newsrel/058-2003.htm).

Or just ONE JJ Stadium . . . .

[RobertB]

Total: $600 million for a fully functional downtown Dallas subway system, or approximately two and a quarter Dallas High Fives.Or just ONE JJ Stadium . . . .
How about we combine the ideas. Ref attached pic. Indoor fully air-conditioned stadium, right in the middle of downtown, with convenient subway access!

A little tough to retract the roof, though, when you're 100 feet underground.

"And D-Con is just dying to sponsor the Insect Zoo! We can't lose!"

[gc]

^ Nice. You should propose that...

[rantanamo]

I wish they could build a nice high school sports complex downtown. It would do killer business, but probably no enough to justify the land value.

[RobertB]

Just to see how it would look, I applied my proposed subway lineup to the format used on the trains above the doors -- a horizontally-oriented schematic of the line. The purpose of this diagram is not to show all the details, but to quickly let you see which station is next. It seems to work, which is always a good sign.

This one would be posted inside the Red and Blue line trains (only). Something similar would be posted for the Orange and Purple line trains showing their stations (only).

I've omitted the station names... because I don't have a drawing tool that would let me do it right. If someone could come to my graphical rescue, I'd sure appreciate it!

[RobertB]

I had an idea for the connection to Union station. Well you bring a line underground south of Victory, bring it to just north of Union station then turn it right under wood st. and have a station right there connecting to the belo buildng and the Union station tunnel then keep going east until you meet Robertb's planned-East line. Photo of plan (just added on to roberts)
Oops, I missed this message when it was first posted, sorry! I'm supposed to be working on a program to apply factors to mutual funds (don't ask), but I ended up spending the past hour staring at your layout.

I'm concerned about the logistics of tunnelling between Woodall Rodgers and Reunion Blvd. The geology there is unusual... you've got the triple underpass to go under, and Reunion Blvd. also goes under the tracks. Plus, there's the issue of vibrations caused by the busy freight line -- that's a total unknown for a non-engineer like me. Between those factors, it looks like you've got to go pretty deep, which could complicate the surface-to-subway transition area under and south of the Woodall Rodgers overhead.

The biggest question, though, is whether there's enough need for the Union Station connection to be worth the additional $100 million bucks (a mile of track plus a station). You still won't have all the routes meeting there, unless you have the Pleasant Grove line curve back down to Westmoreland or Ledbetter -- and that violates the "all inner-city lines continue to the suburbs" rule.

However, if you surmount those obstacles that's a nice routing! If you could only run one subway line downtown, you'd sure have to consider this one as a valid alternative to my San Jacinto line. I wonder if that's what the DMN was proposing that got under the Dallas Observer's skin so bad? I don't think the DO will like mine any better than the DMN's -- I just couldn't find a way to get to Farmer's Market. But it does go right past the Observer's headquarters. :)

[texman]

I don't think Union Station needs to be a hub or anything like that. Alot of you on here were complaining that it needed to be. It would be nice, but if you look at all the other citys transit systems they don't have a hub(a point in which all lines meet not a CBD or downtown in general) The rail line is the hub itself. Take Chicago for example, there system doesnt even have a connection to Union Station and people still walk to get to commuter trains. Maybe I'm not making sense and my ethics are totally screwed up...

[rantanamo]

Chicago's downtown is also a lot bigger than ours. It may be inconvenient for them to. Plus we have 360 degrees of cardinal direction from our downtown compared to their 270.

[jsoto3]

Chicago's downtown is also a lot bigger than ours. It may be inconvenient for them to. Plus we have 360 degrees of cardinal direction from our downtown compared to their 270.

180 degrees, not 270.

[X Factor]

Im a little late but these plans would be great!!!! I know walking through DTD at night can get a little scary, this would be great!!! Turn these plans in to DART.