Reply With Quoteyou can't build a FIXED rail system based on a suburban economic model. Anyone that's been here long enough knows that's absurd. You'd be be constantly chasing the economic activity. So I don't find any wisdom in that.
The non-stop service from emerging bedroom communities into Metroplex central business districts (Dallas, Fort Worth, emerging Las Colinas) will facilitate the concentration of jobs in the cities while new neighborhoods are allowed to focus on family. It's the redo of the Rob and Laura Petrie lifestyle. It's nostalgic, but also exceptionally functional.Originally Posted by Tucy
you can't build a FIXED rail system based on a suburban economic model. Anyone that's been here long enough knows that's absurd. You'd be be constantly chasing the economic activity. So I don't find any wisdom in that.
Yes, and when the current lines were proposed, we were told that rail service would facilitate the concentration of jobs in the cities... That has simply not happened. DART rail has been operating for about 16 years and the percentage of metro jobs that are in downtown/Uptown Dallas has done nothing but go down. (I'd be interested to see the raw numbers of jobs in Uptown/Downtown Dallas. If it has gone up at all in that time period, it can't be by much.) There is frankly no reason to think the addition of nonstop service from Las Colinas into Union Station will change that reality.
You may be right. But building one on a central city economic model that simply does not exist in Dallas is absurd as well. You'd be constantly hoping for/imagining economic activity. ;-)
I hear DART using the fixed suburban rail system / downtown jobs / poor me arguments all the time when discussing their poor ridership. It's a crutch. Max out what you have, do the things you can control in a top notch manner - market the hell out of it, give world class customer service, encourage and support TOD as much as possible, THEN let's see what the ridership looks like. Its easy to make excuses to hide poor performance, and that is what DART does day after day.
Doesn't future commuter rail on Cotton Belt and that Frisco-Irving freight rail corridor (sorry, forgot what it's called) effective turn this into a dual model system? I know this is still a ways off, but at least its part of the plan.
Interestingly enough... When riding Metro in LA, there was much discussion on forums like this about switching bus routing FROM grid based to Hub/spoke based... And they're no less suburban oriented than we are. I think in the end, both cities layouts make a simple one model solution unworkable, and require a more specialized approach (which we are still working through).
It's the Madill subdivision. Madill is a town in Oklahoma the BNSF tracks through Frisco eventually go towards. The tracks north of Carollton junction is owned by BNSF, the tracks south towards Irving are owned by DART.
The key for the Irving to Carollton tracks to ever be used is which transit agency Frisco ever joins? While most of Frisco is in Collin County, it overlaps into Denton County. Presently, Frisco could choose to join DART or DCTA, if it had room under the states' mandated sales tax cap. I suggest it would be cheaper and easier for Frisco to join DCTA than DART because DCTA half cent sales tax rate.
If Frisco eventually joins DCTA, expect the A-train to make a 90 degree left turn at the junction in Carollton and go to Frisco on the BNSF tracks. You would have to use the downtown Denton station to transfer Cotton Belt trains, and could also transfer to DART light rail trains as well.
If Frisco joins DART with its full penny sales tax rate, expect either of the following two options; (1) Cotton Belt feeder between Carollton and Frisco - which could have trains interlined on the Cotton Belt tracks to Plano, Fort Worth, or both. or (2) TRE feeder between Irving and Frisco - which could have trains interlined on the TRE tracks to either Fort Worth, Dallas, or both.
The DCTA options would be limited because DCTA isn't going to spend much of their limited sale tax revenues subsidizing trains to Fort Worth, Irving, or Dallas. As is, they'll be spending lots of money in Dallas and Collin Counties to support train operations between two Denton County cities. If your goal is to interline trains from Frisco on tracks towards Fort Worth or Dalllas, then Frisco would have to join DART.
If Frisco doesn't join either and forms or joins a potential Collin County transit agency, then I would expect a stand alone train line between Carollton and Frisco. Collin County taxpayers will not be more keen to subsidize trains in Denton, Dallas, or Tarrant Counties than Denton County taxpayers.
As I wrote earlier, the key to many of these rail corridors future usage really depends upon which transit agency any particular city joins. Having stating the obvious, there's always the potential two transit agencies could form a joint operations of an individual rail corridor similar to FWTA and DART's joint operating agreement for the TRE. In that case, like the TRE, the different agencies would be responsible for subsidizing that train in their area of responsibility.
Last edited by electricron; 12 June 2012 at 08:42 PM.
Sounds a lot like the freeways to me. I agree with Alex. Its a crutch. Perform great service. Foster and create economic activity and most importantly realize the world is probably going to keep going after the Orange Line is done. The hot spots for economic activity in DFW change every 5 years. Its simply unsustainable to try to follow that. Do you see freeway building follow anything? Nope, developers follow the freeways. I would rather see DART do what it has with regard to many of the station locations. The hope is that you end up with Toronto style nodes. I think that type of development is best for DART, Dallas and even its suburban partner cities.
I don't agree with everything DART does, but the shape of the system is one of them I agree with. While Downtown Dallas may not be the undisputed hub of economic activity, it is the epicenter of density of place, activity and identity. Its one of the few places in DFW where you have a need for people to travel in multiple directions to locations with residential, retail and business density. The freeways even follow this same model. LA is mentioned as a more grid like system, but so is their freeway system. The shape of the city is different as well. One thing I think with time that DART will deal with are crosstown routes and perhaps someday workout a platinum corridor solution that works for everyone. Then everyone won't have to go downtown. I agree that people in Richardson or Plano shouldn't have to go downtown to reach DFW or even 635@DNT. I gurantee you that DART agrees with you, and that's why they have been trying to make the Cotton Belt Line happen and even had a 635 line planned. But that's in time. I don't remember DART having unlimited funds to just do what they want right now. They do need to up their service level and work on perfecting what they do have. They also need to be as involved as they can in TODs. The land and adjacent development is there in many places that should cause huge boosts to ridership. I know this is Texas and things happen "naturally", but they should stick their nose in the development arena. The Las Colinas Entertainment Center would be a good place to start. The proposed PGBT@Central is another. I doubt the NTTA sits back and hopes.
While I agree someone should be doing more to encourage TODs near DART stations, I don't necessarily agree DART can do much more than what it is already doing.
Chapter 452 of the Texas Transportation Code doesn't give DART the ability to buy land and build commercial real estate developments. It can only by land necessary for operating and maintaining its transit assets. It can buy land for the rail corridors, maintenance shops, train stations, parking lots, power substations and other supporting utilities. It can't buy land for low rent apartments, upscale hotels, and shopping centers. It can't give the developers any tax breaks either.
It's the cities that have that power to give tax breaks, including granting easements for sidewalks.
Stop looking at DART, and start placing the blame for poor neighborhood sidewalks where it belongs, the cities....
Is DART trying to change these laws? Do they have any interest in doing so?
"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction."
Oh yes they can buy land for hotels, shops etc all they have to do is buy up land for parking and build cheap parking lots with the intention to sell lots to developers eventually. Right now DART is accepting bids by developers to build on the parking lots they already own at their many stations. Some of which are quite large swaths of property. DART could buy up land and simply build smaller permanent concrete parking lots and install temporary parking lots on the excess land until a developer makes the right offer. During the transit constriction process they can start rezoning the land with the city and the neighborhood to make sure the land is ready for a developer to sign the papers, get construction approval from the city planning commission and city council and turn that dirt.
I am not saying DART should buy swaths as large as lets say West Village started with but it sure would be helpful for them to work with developers to get reasonable sized properties to kick off development potential in some areas. Plano still has parking issues around their stations so buying up more land for the excuse of parking is not such a big deal its how they handle shutting down parts of the parking during private construction by developers that matters. Doing so would also allow DART to work with the cities to make sure private development builds public parking next to the stations in garages and the like. This is what the city of Garland did in Downtown Garland. They allowed a developer to build on the property the city owned next to the station and the only money they paid to the development company was to insure that the parking garage included some 200 public parking spots and the city paid for the street infrastructure and street level furniture like benches trash cans, bike parking etc.
If DART had control of the land for parking and created a streamlined process for encouraging development on their property and worked closer with the city on similar incentive structures that contributed to paying for some of the most exspensive parts of some of these developments like the Parking garages there might be something their worth pursuing.
The construction engineers that run DART barely have the competence to operate and maintain the rail and bus system on a daily basis. Do we really want to have them them try their skills at real estate development? It is not as if that is a low risk business where well meaning incompetents are not losing their shirts every day. Those laws are there for a reason. It is called division of labor and separation of duties, a standard item in risk management. The barracudas in this town would eat them alive and then we get stuck with the bill.
Stop thinking that DART will create demand. It will not. Those TODs work where they channel EXISTING demand towards areas around the stations. Our problem in Dallas is that overall demand for development in the city is very weak except for a few hot spots that have nothing to do with DART. The only way developers will start working with DART is to get buckets of money, money that we do not have because we spent it on a bunch of other stuff.
My short answer would be yes... but not construction engineers.
Then on second thought... maybe we all just aren't smart enough to mimic the Japanese train company model. It makes money for them but I guess that's impossible for us barbarians. (I kid, I kid... 80%).
They wouldn't have to actually do much beyond lease/sell the land to a real developer. Let the private entity do the work and take on the risk where they think they can be successful, just like everywhere else in the real world. They could also make the areas a low tax zone to be even more attractive.
"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction."
I know these are growing pain years for DART, but I think things will be fine. Part of that is knowing that these so-called hotspots are right around stations. The more people near, the more people have that option. The numbers will grow simply out of the conveniences that will come with people. But who knows, maybe Las Colinas and Cityplace will cancel plans and stop building, DFW will stop flying planes, Northlake will stop offering classes, No one will want to visit the Prez Library or Perot, Victory will cancel the future residentials, Parkland will cancel construction and the east downtown Triumverant will never exist at all.
If developers really wanted the land, I am pretty sure DART would find a way to work with them. Are there any examples of developers wanting DART land and a rule preventing a deal? The basic problem is the developers do not want that DART land. Any investment there would thus be very speculative. Only the city can provide tax incentives and I thought Dallas was tapped out in those accounts. We spent the money on other projects and return on those investments has not provided additional monies to replenish those funds.
The Japanese HSR model is based upon no government subsidizes at all. The entire HSR network in Japan is privately owned today. Although I doubt that holds true for regional and metro rail. Never-the-less, the major shopping centers at the major train stations are all owned by Japanese HSR companies.
I think it's okay for DART to use eminent domain to forcefully acquire properties for transit operations, it's not okay for them to do so for real estate speculation. I wouldn't expect Texas state law to state otherwise.
I also don't think local taxpayers would accept DART spending money buying additional property than absolutely necessary for real estate speculation when there's so much need for that money to expand the existing system, for example D2. Although it's probably legal for them to do so at a negotiated price.
Property tax rates are set by cities, schools, and counties - not by DART! How many times do I have to repeat that? When will that basic fact ever sink in?
If at a later time private real estate speculators come to DART and ask to purchase DART owned property near the stations, property that had to be bought to make earlier purchases complete without using eminent domain, or property bought initially for use as parking lots, I'm okay with that as long as sufficient public parking is maintained after the sale and that the original purchase was made for transit system purposes.
Last edited by electricron; 15 June 2012 at 04:49 PM.
I beg to differ. Developers do look at building near the stations, but that is offset by owners who want to be paid a premium for their land near the stations.
Why did developers build along Lake Carolyn Pkwy for the last 7 years? Because they knew Dart was coming, land was reasonable, and rents were high enough. That land was sold be institutional investors who know a good deal when they see it.
Maple/Cedar Springs is seeing some of this, but most of the development is walking distance cause land is tied up or too expensive. Much of that land is held by investors or operators that aren't as sophisticated as others.
Last edited by txdore; 18 June 2012 at 05:02 PM.
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.
Is that area really a TOD? Latest picture I see has one parking garage and a small skyscraper near the station with most of the other development on the other side of the small lake. Being on water and near O'Connor might seem to be equal draws for development.
We're too worried about if the place is a TOD or not. If its convenient, and adjacent that's all that counts. This doesn't have to all happen in 5 years either. Nothing here does because land is cheap enough to hold and wait.
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