Transit Visions

[Quiz03]

I was wondering what people's visions for transit, and transportation in the region are. Just some ideas about what we would like to see over the next 40? years or so. Since we're non-compliant in air quality the whole metroplitan area should be forced to be a part of one transportation agency dedicating a whole cent to it.

For light rail i'd like to see it go down the tollway corridor maybe underground until maybe royal lane where it could connect with the galleria, and the huge number of office developments there, all the way up to legacy and then to stonebriar and downtown frisco. There are far too many activity centers in that area to ignore it transit wise. This line should share a station with the cottonbelt line. I think another line should go from downtown McKinney and roughly follow SH 121 to DFW. DFW would be the hub of the 121 line, cottonbelt, and irving. Exisitng lines should be extended. A line in the east corridor to Town East centre in Mesquite would work I think, as well a loop roughly following loop 12 or even in closer. I'd love to see downtown have itself a subway tunnel.

A tram line (improved MATA, or maybe something more modern) that could go from Knox-Henderson, SMU, McKinney Ave, West End, Convention Center, Victory, Main Street, Deep Ellum, Fair Park, Greenville, and looping back around. The purpose of this would be to fill in the gaps left by light rail, and link Dallas closer together.

The commuter Rail line from Denton should come all the way from Denton to Union Station, with no more than two stops shared with Dart. The second commuter rail line with Ft Worth would be nice as well.

The Texas Triangle rail line would be awesome, but Southwest would have to allowed to fly to more places from Love to let that happen. It would have to serve downtown areas, although it could go in and out of Perry's Trans Texas Corridor as warranted.

These are just a few ideas, I'd like to hear what other ideas are out there.

[freewaytincan]

That is really close to what I see. I think that a consideration should be put forth for a maglev train between the big three cities. Perry should push that, if he continues supporting all of this. And now that another location has tried it out for us, I think we have a shot at becoming a world leader in maglev trains!

[Knight23]

I was looking at the Paris metro map the other day, 300 stations in basically a 150 sq mile are, wow. I would just like to see Dallas become more densely populated so that it could support more rail lines in the city, say from loop 12 inward. Its nice that we have more suburban rail stations because that will help ridership but I hope DART has future plans to build more lines in Dallas.

[bloodandpopcorn]

I agree with just about everything that you said. However, I'd also like to see Love Field and/or Cityplace become hubs of trains as well. Or perhaps Mockingbird in the place of Cityplace. Mockingbird could handle the northern trolleys, Union Station could handle the southern trolley lines. I think it's very important to expand and beautify Union Station into a major hub of light rail, commuter rail, trolleys, buses, and inter-city rail lines. I think that, if it's done while Amtrak is still serving the station, it should go ahead and touble track Amtrak's section, make a really long platform, and add electric lines above so that when we have America's, or at least Texas', 'bullet train' running, we'll already be equipped.

I think that trolley should come first, perhaps being a mix of the more modern, efficient, fast trolleys and MATA's love for restoring old trolleys. I don't know if it would be possible to simply upgrade these old trolleys to the "power" of the more modern cars, but if it can be done, I definitly think that it should. Also, I agree that we should have more inner-city light rail lines. However, I understand that being put off for a while. Especially if DART really supports MATA and allows it to fill out and serve all of the urban livers/walkers/etc. Still, After all of the major suburbs are connected, I think that DART should go in with subway lines under all the major roads. Hillcrest, Preston, etc. for North-south (all eventually feeding to downtown, going through, and coming out south to the hopefully re-developted and thriving south dallas of that day) and East West lines that, at hte very least, serve all of the streets with current light rail stations south of LBJ. Forest, Park Lane, Lovers Lane, Mockingbird. Also, Royal and Northwest Highway should have lines. Turtle Creek will be a very high priority line, in my opinion. Getting all of these in will take more than the 40 years that you set out for this, most likely, but will be a definite necessity for Dallas in the future. However, until that time, Having a trolley expanding northward and serving areas as needed will be more than sufficient for the time being. Once hte subway is in, Trolleys will still be a very necessary tool because, while they likely will carry much fewer passengers, they will still be used often by people taking shorter trips, making many transfers, and above all tourists. Though the subway lines should eventually be pretty thick, I think they should stick to having stops no more frequently than a mile or a mile and a half. For transit within that distance, people should use trolleys. It's almost just like this in Kyoto, and it works brilliantly. Toyama has a simmilar system, but they are more focused on commuter rail and the extensive trolley system than on subway, though their subway is not too shabby at all.

[psukhu]

Does anyone know about the water table problem DART ran into while designing the light rail on Harry Hines near UTSW/Parkland? They said they couldn't put the rail underground there because of the water table.

I wonder which parts of Dallas have this problem. Or can it be avoided by going deeper?

--------------------------------

I would love to see a large mass transit system. We need to encourage people to move in-town to help increase the population density.

[freewaytincan]

Good question. I think that in terms of subterranean transit, there is promise. Now I know that this soil is not the easiest to deal with, but I think it would be worth it. That way, Cityplace would be the main hub, second to Union Station. Union Station needs some work, too. But that will come in time. Anyway, the suburban expansion is fine for now, I think. We need to focus inside of Loop 12, I agree with that. Even where there are no rails now. It could really be something. After all, NYC has a bunch of tunnels, and that's in the densest part of the US! If we could get all the major thoughrofares covered, and then some others, the system would be really efficient. And wherever the trains can't go, they put in more bus lines. It could be really great.

[psukhu]

What about a new Greyhoud bus terminal?

Boston has a new bus terminal that is on top of a subway station and adjacent to their Amtrack terminal. Since the station is new, it looks like a small airport terminal on the inside (ie high tech). The outside style looks kind of like the Porsche dealership in Plano.

Greyhound is based in Dallas, why not a flagship terminal?

[freewaytincan]

Ugh...I think they need to fix up their service, first. That from my friend, who went down to Huntsville from here...he got on at the Downtown Richardson terminal, and then it took forty five minutes to get to the Downtown Dallas terminal. He spent three and a half hours on that pretty run down bus to get to Huntsville. He will never do it again. And have you seen those things pollute? It rivals the old DART buses! Now, as for the Downtown Dallas Terminal...what I would like to see is a revamp of that great building. See, there is nice stuff down there. How about an art deco '30s/'40s style? Even fifties, I would say, because it would be the classic brick and chrome look. The inside would be tiled, and it would be absolutely fantastic. It's possible, and it should be the flagship for a nationwide station overhaul. Hey, they can do better, I know it. It's just hard, competeing with "Almighty Airline Industry". Makes me want to break things.

[downtownbum]

my dad has been talking about a dallas houston san antone rail triangle for decades. i always tell him if it is ever going to happen it will have to be cheaper than taking southwest from love to hobby. flying is also faster. the days of the "airline giants" seem to be coming to a close, and southwest is the biggest of the new style of airline, flying short quick cheap flights. (btw i love the SW billboards around love)

[tamtagon]

I think the only way the train will succeed is if the door-to-door time of the commute is less than a plane. It may only take 45 minutes for the plane to fly from Love to Hobby, but most of the total trip time is not in the air, it's getting to the airport, waiting for the plane to take off, waiting to get off the plane, and finally getting out of the airport to the final destination.

If the train can get deliver business travellers to the ultimate destination in the same total time as a plane, there is no question of success. I have tried to work while flying. On any trip with less than an hour of flight time, it's very difficult - too many distractions, besides, on a flight that long, I would rather doze off. In addition to the overwhelming convenience of a Central Business Distirct to CBD trip, the train will offer a block of productive billable travel time.

While watching the Discovery channel, I've seen some of the ultra first class conduct-business-in-the-air cabins aircraft builders are fine tuning. A train conduct-business-in-the-caboose would be affordable for all businesses. Imagine: we'll have our final meeting on the train before we get to the client in Dallas/Houston.

[psukhu]

Plus you can use your mobile phone on the train during the entire trip.

And you don't have to worry about bad weather delaying your trip. (most of the time)

[aceplace]

When I was in Europe, I rode on trains between cities like Munich and Brussels and Amsterdam. It was a pleasant, unhurried experience, compared to flying. Being in an airplane was just too cramped, it was hard to move around.

If we had a train between Dallas and Houston, I'd be on it.

[bloodandpopcorn]

I think that almost everyone from this forum would be very supportive of an intercity highspeed train system. And, though it might take a couple of years, I think that all of Texas could get used to (and even perhaps preferring it over flying) riding a train for travel. But it would have to be highspeed, and it would have to be an actual high speed train. the one in the northeast is nice, to be sure, but the texas line would need to go at least 120 miles per hour, if not the 160 mph that the newest bullet train (I believe that number is correct, not positive though) gets. The train in the northeast is nice, to be sure, but it's not quite as fast as one would need to be (and, with so much flat open land available for straightways, could be) for Texas.

[hamiltonpl]

Agreed. A high speed train would boost the economy in the big cities of Texas, as well as development in the neighborhood around the stations.

[gc]

I concur.

[Quiz03]

The success of intercity rail really depends on the Trans Texas Corridor. By getting the freight railroads off of the existing lines in urban areas the corridors could be upgraded to handle high speed rail. High-speed rail solely in the TTC won't be a success but it could be used for most of the distance before transferring to the existing corridors to go into the downtown areas. I hope TxDOT will realize this.

[jsoto3]

i thought i had lost this file, but i recently found it. it is a 'vision' i came up with several years ago when i was young and naive. i imagined most of the lines to be streetcars. i located the stations at major intersections and/or activity centers. i tried to make them frequent enough so that theoretically everyone is within a 10 minute walking distance (at most). the black dots represent transfer stations. note the circumferential line (orange). this is most certainly too ambitious, but who knows? maybe in 200 years?

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/6843/dallasrailmasstransit0uc.th.jpg (http://img453.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dallasrailmasstransit0uc.jpg)

[freewaytincan]

That's a really great plan! And maybe not 200 years, but more like 20...I would love to see such a vision come to life.

[tamtagon]

jsoto3, you rock.

I think well established bus lines should be replaced by a trolly/tram/rail vehicles running 24 hours a day and independant of street traffic.

that is an excellent map. I hope you have not shelved your ambitious public transportation initatives.

[freewaytincan]

I think it's funny, though, that people have to be careful driving with the trollies. Serves 'em right, for driving down there, when there are other options. Like that story I have to tell one of these days...

[Quiz03]

bump