Can Dallas Make Rail Transit Work in Texan Sprawl? 

"Austin's...trying" Truer words haven't been spoken.

Dallas resident and frequent rider of the DART system. The reason they play the opera music is to annoy the homeless people and make them leave.😥

Growing up in Dallas, I lived in the suburbs where there were no lines. They've since expanded and I hope to see the day where I can actually use a train to get where I need to go.

As a current rail operator for Dart, i just wanna say thanks for speaking positively about the system. We’ve got some kinks to definitely work out and it should’ve been heavy rail but it’s here nonetheless and not going anywhere! Quality of service will only increase and changes are coming 😁

They play opera in the stations to keep people who've taken drugs away, when you are high, opera music is very scary for some reason.

Btw, Dallas had a subway many decades ago, 20s and 30s. It was abandoned with the cars left inside. There are very few entry points this days that are very secure. It was under Main St. Downtown.

great video, but *eye twitch* it's Plano with a long a, ("Playno"), not a short a ("Planno").

Dallas is actually doing not bad when it comes to Public Transport Globally. Whilst, true, there is a lot more they can do, they are really expanding, especially between Dallas and Fort Worth. And they also have many lines in planning, which is better than other american cities, such as those who have given up after building a little light rail line or those who completely gave up in the too hard basket. Dallas is not one of those two.

I haven’t seen a good quality video of DART on RU-vid yet so thanks for releasing this! DFW may lag behind many other US cities of its size but it’s definitely the leader in Texas when it comes to transit. It’s not without its challenges though as many of DFW’s northern suburbs don’t want the light rail to expand there so definitely a lot of NIMBY opposition to overcome there. There are also issues with sketchiness and frequency as well as a genuine love for cars that the area still has to overcome. But it’s made some great strides in comparison to Austin and Houston (which are either expanding slowly or adding BRT instead) and San Antonio (which looked into LRT but is literally doing nothing other than expanding 1604 and hoping that would solve the problem). All the DFW area needs to do is add some BRT lines to its newer suburbs and it should be fine. Texas is still the epitome of car-centric sprawl though, and it’s still dominated by Republicans, so it’s got a long way to go.

I love that you can ride rail all the way from Dallas to Denton, Texas

I'm sorry to DART, but I hate the way that they did the maps on the light rail cars. Multiple lines literally go in the opposite direction that the map conveys it does, it's so misleading and I hate it

Just arrived back to New York from Austin...I felt in LOVE with Texas!! My God, best State I've ever been!! I want to move there so badly!! Love you Texans!!!

Loved your video! As someone who worked on the DART rail project over 45 years ago (my first job after college), I am just amazed at how the DART System has found a way to actually work. Anytime I'm in Dallas, I am drawn to ride the rails as I find doing so relaxing. In fact, a few years ago, I was able to complete riding all 93 miles of DART rail (It took a few years since the Orange Line was completed to DFW about 2 years ago) which was a dream of mine. I was an engineering assistant while working on the DART rail project which involved field survey work on proposed lines and the creation of drawings for many of the stations such as Mockingbird Station that the engineers used for final design of the stations. I still have a few of these at home. I feel DART has made a very positive impact on the area and has pulled many commuters out of their cars. (VERY HARD to do in the Big D!!) By The Way - Plano is pronounced "Plain-O." Hope you can do more DART videos!

The Oak Cliff street car might seem to be relegated to a “useless category,” but I know the guy who made the huge effort to get the street car in place. Those efforts to introduce better urbanism are ultimately setting good examples for future projects

Go big or go home in Texas, and their barbecue is definitely out of the park! I don't blame Texans for loving their flag so much. It's simple, yet iconic. Blue stands for loyalty, white for purity, red for bravery, and the lone star represents Texan unity. Besides Texas, the other state flags I love are Alaska, New Mexico, Arizona, and Maryland. The copper star on Arizona's flag symbolizes Arizona being the largest producer of copper in the US, it shows the rays of a setting Sun because Arizona is a western state, blue and gold are the colors of Arizona, while red and gold are the colors of the Spanish flags that were carried by Coronado’s Expedition of 1540 to find the Seven Cities of Gold. It's true that 7-Eleven started in Texas! Founded in 1927 as an icehouse. The company's first outlets were called "Tote'm Stores" between 1928 and 1946 because customers "toted" away their purchases. The name was changed to 7-Eleven in 1946 to reflect their new operating hours of 7 am to 11 pm, seven days a week. Wanna know the why the n in their logo is lowercased? It's because the first wife of John P. Thompson Sr., the company's president during the 1960s, thought the all-capitals version seemed a little aggressive and wanted it to be more graceful. While the Budd SPVs were used as the Moroccan royal train, but it was only used for Hassan II and under his successor, has since fallen into disuse.

Arlington really gums up the works when it comes to regional transit. The largest city in the US without public transit. 400k population and not even a single bus line. They're right in the middle of Dallas and Fort Worth but will not join DART or Trinity Metro, which is one reason why the TRE veers so far north to go between downtowns. I don't know much about this, but it seems the Texas legislature could create a new transit authority encompassing the entire region and force Arlington into the mix, but even if that's possible they wouldn't do that.

You definitely don't think of Texas when you think of places with good transit, but the Dallas-Fort Worth Area definitely excels. That tower with the ball at 0:22 is the Reunion Tower! Called such because it's in the Reunion district, which in turn is named after the La Réunion commune. Which was a utopian community founded by French, Belgian, and Swiss colonists in 1855. It dissolved in 1857 and most of it was incorporated into Dallas by 1860 while the rest was incorporated in 1940. The sculpture you saw at Deep Ellum at 2:04 is called the Traveling Man, it's a series of three different sculptures. They represent the history of rail transportation in the area and its more recent development as an artistic community. Kinki Sharyo is the same manufacturer that worked on rolling stock for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, Sound Transit's Central Link/1 Line, the Cairo Metro, different types of Shinkansen, Doha Metro, Dubai Metro, the Manila Light Rail, and VTA Light Rail to name a few.

Lamar Hunt first coined the term Super Bowl in 1966! Hunt was originally born in Arkansas but was raised in Dallas. Lamar was once the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. Hunt later said the name was likely in his head because his children had been playing with a Super Ball toy, which said toy is displayed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The championship was officially called the Super Bowl starting in 1969 with the third edition in Miami, Florida. Another DFW invention is liquid paper! Bette Claire Graham invented it while working as a typist in 1951 and searching for an easier way to correct mistakes. She started out in her kitchen, mixing tempera paint in her blender and providing small bottles of the product, first called Mistake Out, to co-workers. She would later call it Liquid Paper and sold her company to Gillette in 1979 for nearly 50 million with royalties. Her son....is Mike Nesmith of THE MONKEES!

“San Antonio never even got started”

From memory, the use of classical music to deter antisocial activities was pioneered in the underpasses of transit facilities in Berlin and select parts of the Eastern Netherlands \m/

Las Colinas APT System hasn't been demolished yet, which indicates that maybe they are going to keep maintaining it for when future growth demands its reopening

A subway through downtown Dallas has been in planning in order to improve frequencies on all lines (the max is 15 min frequencies on all lines at once because of the downtown transit mall limiting capacity), but recently has been shelved in favor of building a few improvements to the downtown transit mall to accommodate 10 minute frequencies. I will hope for more light rail lines, but considering the current system has really consumed DARTs debt capacity, nothing new aside from the already under construction Silver Line is going to be opening any time soon :( That said, the current CEO has been really committed to improving the ridership experience. The bus network was redesigned for 20 minute frequencies (huge improvement for us), with plans to improve frequencies further when rail lines get improved frequency. Stations and trains regularly get cleaned every day, they just hired extra security so every train or every other train gets a security guard on board. It's been super nice.

I ride the Dallas Streetcar (when it's operational), whenever I gig in Bishop Arts district. I can confirm the system.....exists sometimes, and could be so much more than it is

I live in the DFW area car-free. I commute mainly by cycling, but the rail transit here is a good model for other sprawling US sunbelt cities. Looking at you, Houston and Tampa...

Dallas has a lot of hope as some of the new people are surprisingly pro transit and nimby opposition is lighter than at least Austin (which granted, low bar.) Right now its not great because of odd location for the stops, but I can see that changing real quick

One thing to note about DART's bus network. Around the time you visited (saying it was filmed in 2021), a new person on the DART board was Patrick Kennedy, an urbanist and local commentator who advocated moving in a different direction, got walkability to be a major concern, championed the growth of Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum, got the city to seriously consider removing the elevated highway between Downtown and Deep Ellum, AND once on the board, got DART to radically redesign the bus network in a similar manner to what Houston did. So some changes are certainly happening.

Must try the Grapevine Vintage Railroad!!! Some excursions feature a “holdup”, where masked riders on horseback, get the train to stop and board the train. Instead of taking your money or belongings, they hand out coupons to area businesses. Also explore the Fort Worth Stockyards!!!

Cool. I had no idea Dallas had so much.

YES! Thank you so much for making a video about DART! I love that someone *finally* made a video on DART, so thank you again! DART has been doing some upgrades on the system such as retrofitting the SLRVs with LED destination signs (the rollsigns you saw were getting really unreliable!), upgrading track, improving security and more, and is making a brand-new Silver Line commuter train in the north. Fun facts about the SLRVs: They were ordered in 5 orders (Fleet 50 through Fleet 54), the Fleet 50s and 51s (101-174) have GTO-VVVF inverters which have a distinct sound that sounds a bit like a car with a ton of gears, while the Fleet 52-54 have IGBT-VVVF inverters that kinda make a howling noise. They've got 750 and 700 horsepower respectively. I like the old trains more, they sound cooler! They started off as two-section trains without the middle car, then were upgraded in the late 2000s and early 2010s with the middle section. DART trains can go 70 mph (but are limited to 65 mph), and they have the honk, toot and ding that I talked about on the St. Louis video comment section. DART has also been making great moves on the bus network improvements with the Tier 2 network, improving frequencies and route coverage. There's a whole lot more to talk about but I'd be here typing all day. Glad you could come down south to Dallas, Texas!

5:05 This frame answers your question. The music is to try and keep homeless folks from sleeping there

Thanks for the great video on the my current town's transit!

The opera playing at St. Paul is to discourage homeless from sleeping there. It's been there for years

Next time you come to Denver, please come explore more of the RTD system, instead of being here for just a layover.

Great Video Enjoyed It 😊

Another oddity that doesn’t help ridership is they do special extra trains for various events like concerts. But you have to dig to find those schedules.

Hearing Plano pronounced that way was very funny. Also, 10/10 video, thanks for the deep dive

I asked a security guard about the opera thing once, and he said that the 7-11 there played it because it kept vagabonds away. I don't know if that's true, but it would be a funny reason if it was.

I do think they need to merge it all into one major Transit agency, serving Denton, Dallas and Fort Worth. And it should operate every bus, Commuter Rail, Train, Light Rail, Trolley, Streetcar in the area.

Martinez Mexican restaurant in Dallas also invented the frozen margarita (as we know it today) from a repurposed soft-serve ice cream machine.

As a resident of Dallas, it's nice to see a deep dive into the state of DART and the surrounding systems. That being said, it is extremely ham-strung by having neither supporting infrastructure nor interconnected lines. The Silver line is the first of its kind where two separate lines will be connected outside of the downtown stations. Other than that though you need to travel inward no matter where you are going to transfer and once again travel outward from the center. This severely limits usefulness for any of the surrounding suburbs and relegates it to a novel experience for families going downtown once every few months/years. Once there are more bus lines connecting suburban gathering spaces to DART stations and once there are more lines like Silver that connect the outer branches, I think that DART will be well on its way to becoming the premier public transit system in the south.

Nice to see it's finally starting to improve

If you know about the politics of DART, the reason why the bus service lags behind other cities is because of the political fight between the City of Dallas and the 12 other Member cities which pay into the service. The City of Dallas has been fighting for the bus service for years and the Suburbs like Plano and Addison are saying that if we don't have rail service, they constantly threaten to leave DART. The Suburbs also control most of the seats on the DART board. So it's sort of a balancing act between Dallas and the others.

This was really great. Thanks for showing off DFW 👍

Dallas Streetcar may be mostly pointless, but I did manage to find a signle point for its existence. Back in 2021, I took it to get to the Methodist Dallas Medical Center to get my COVID Vaccine on the first day I was eligible. After getting my second dose, I have had no reason to ever ride it again. I mostly ride on the northern half of the Red Line, but I occasionally have a need for the other lines, too.

Thank you, young man.

Yes but need to do better about building density around stations ... Too many parking lots

“Play-no” (I’m a DFW local) 5:42 Also that one singular nip into Plano is basically all you get in Collin County. Frisco has absolutely nothing, not sure about McKinney/Allen/Prosper but it would be a DART bus stop there. The parking lots are because people have to come in from other cities a lot and it’s kinda obvious most places are completely built around cars

Your pronunciation of Plano is golden 😂

Can't wait for the North East-East Corridor series!

Great video! The reason why the Amtrak Heartland Flyer doesn’t run to Dallas is because it would basically be running directly alongside the Amtrak Texas Eagle. Both the HF and TxE arrive in Fort Worth around 12:30-1:15pm, so it’s easier to catch the TxE as a connection train to Dallas, rather than run two trains right after one another to the same station

The problem with the rail lines is that they go to the suburbs. Most people from there drive. If the rails went around actual Dallas it would be faster and more efficient. Instead you have to take rail and buses to get around Dallas.

Always appreciate it when there are videos of my hometown's transit system, but it still amazes me when someone get's on the train and is surprised when they smell cigarette smoke or see someone eating on the train. Like, I've ridden Dart every now and then and have gotten used to seeing people essentially breaking all the rules while riding specifically on the light rail. It almost seems that there is always someone one getting on the train just to smoke weed or just regular cigarettes which, in an enclosed train car, you will smell it and it will linger after they smoke it or leave. I mostly blame Dart police having horrible response time or no response at all to reports of someone smoking on the train. That applies to all the rules that get broken with maybe the exception of someone getting in a fight or a medical emergency. I hear that they plan to have security guards in each train car to enforce the rules now, now that is something that Dart has been needing for a long time. Dart is already amazing considering that most of the US doesn't have great transit, add clean trains and busses with rules being enforced and I'm sure more people will use it more. To an extent, it already has.

I’m going to Dallas this month to ride all the trains!!

I forgot about the M LINE 🤦🏾‍♂️. I want to ride it again

As a DART rail operator, you’re too kind to us. Be more critical!

McKinney needs a DART rail station.

8:59 That’s because it is newer. They just opened the route in 2019. The SLVRs are much older.

…and I happen to live in a city right in the middle of this without any public transit.

Just FYI Plano is pronounced play-no, not plah-no. Also, Buckner station is named for the road the green line terminates at, not a town. I doubt you could’ve know that without being local though, great summary of the network otherwise!

DART is the largest LRV operator with 96 miles, but LA could have recently taken over this title, I don't know. The reason the Amtrack train to OKC doesn't go to Dallas is that it is way out of its way and there is another Amtrak train that goes from Dallas to Fort Worth as well as the TRE commuter rail. One exciting prospect in the future of Dallas and DART is the D2 subway downtown, will be several new under ground stations relieving the bottleneck of traffic the downtown section has become with all lines converging. Soon we will have the new Silver Line commuter rail, the D2 Subway and some movement on high-speed rail between Dallas and Fort Worth as well as Houston, but high speed rail has quite the uphill battles to be seen through to completion.

Nice video, thank you! Also, strange hearing the Stadler door beeper in a video from America. Greetings from Switzerland.

roses are red, violets are blue there's trains and trams in my playlist two there ya go, that somehow rhymed :))

DART's rail network is practically a city in the Northeast compared to other Texas cities. Some other notes: There's a 3.5 mile stretch of a former Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in downtown that was originally intended for DART but was converted into a pedestrian trail, now known as the Katy Trail. It runs from Victory Park to Uptown and is worth a visit if you've ever in Dallas. It has paved lanes for bicycles that are separated from the walking lanes. The T&P station in Fort Worth, in addition to operating passenger rail, was converted to have loft apartments during the renovation.

I could drive to Dallas but this makes me almost want to fly there for my next convention.

This was cool to see since I live in SW Arlington with no easy access to any of these lines and have never experienced them while living here. Kinda sucks since the traffic is horrible. A shame to see so many empty seats but makes sense when there's no easy access, DFW makes no logical sense when it comes to transportation

Would love to see you do Newark NJ

slowly tuning out until that sharyo bell at 4:00 activated my bostonian self like a sleeer agent

You forgot the Dallas Streetcar, the modern streetcar system that goes from the EBJ Union Station thur Oak Cliff.

The classical music in the station is played by the 7-11 that is right there, as a means of keeping the "undesirables" from congregating. They want to push the problem down the (rail) road.

Now I am thinking about making a stopover in DFW for the next time in the USA just to see the DART trains, interesting and somehow appealing... Caught an error: I meant Dallas Ft Worth, not Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County...

I've read that you guys ordered the FLIRT160 from Stadler, a 100mph fast mid-high-speed rail vehicle. I ride it regularly from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart. Personally I find it very comfortable, smooth travel and isolated, you barely notice the speed. Especially for connecting two close cities quickly, it's the perfect choice. I mean, you could go for the FLIRT200 for 124mph, but that's more expensive, needs more expensive rail tracks, and is only worth it, if you have longer segments without a stop. PS: I'm stupid. I just noticed, that yours is the FLIRT Diesel, which only makes 79 mph. Yep, that's only normal regional speed, no mid-high-speed. But I hope that still the train is comfortable to ride in.

The reason why the Heartland Flyer doesn't continue to Dallas is because the layover facilities are in Ft. Worth and would require a dead move. BUT, the Big Game Train continues to Dallas for the TX-OU game at the state fair. Also during the state fair and especially on game days DART runs a wild service pattern which is far too complicated to describe

As a Plano resident it’s pronounced pl-A-no with a short a sound

I see my favorite MATA car(4614 "Margaret") in the thumbnail and i like it.

lets hope.

I wish I could ride the M line trolley but I can’t because it’s not wheelchair accessible, thankfully the rest of the trains are

Such beautiful transit

Now if only the rest of the country could catch up in terms of public transport.

Tre Will always have a place in my heart since they operated 2 ex amt f40s 310 and 330. Plus in 2022 I saw a TRE car on a CP freight in valois probably on its way back to texas

6:28 Picking nits - (a) "PLAY-noh" and ("rao-LET").

If you end up in Houston hit me up, I'm a local urbanist and know some esoteric weirdness about transit in Houston

safety and hygiene(sitting in urine soaked seats) are the two biggest issues.

Fun fact about City Place Uptown: It has elevators that travel at a 45° angle, like a funicular.

The light rail cars are better looking than the San Jose light rail. But that isn't saying much.

5:02 opera music so to stop people from loitering. like the guy behind you

Philadelphia is in the uk look it up

Unfortunately, part of the stink in the DART trains is from... uh... a certain yellow liquid. There's a reason I only stand when I ride the train even if it's empty, and it has to do with a run-in I had with a damp seat. Fortunately they're replacing the cloth seats with plastic but the trains are still old and disgusting.

What I find interesting about DART in particular was how their LRV units were modified to become become the super Light Rail Vehicles (SLRV) that you see today. A C-Unit was added to the existing A and B Unit with an extra set of axles to accommodate thus adding to passenger capacity and level boarding for ADA accessibility. The cost to convert every unit to a SLRV was cheaper than going on and buying all new units. And as a St. Louis Operator, I have to say they use the same whistle as our LRV units 😎

the announcement is because many people smoked on Public transport or so, rich people think

I've always thought DART was cool. I remember visiting DFW back when I lived in Austin (former regular capmetro rider here) and being pleasantly surprised at how good the trains were, and how badly I wish Austin could say the same. Glad it's getting some attention in the transit space because Dallas has really been trying with their system and I think one day it's going to be one of the best in the country.

5:40 (Play-no)

Hey it’s my metroplex

Wait my mom’s family is from New Haven CT

Play-noh

The opera is homeless prevention and it accually works really well.

The Oprah music is a dallas 7-11 thing. It's ment to make it uncomfortable for homeless to hang around

cant wait

How is Dallas street car pointless ?

Dallas's big issue is they don't believe in the Field of Dreams quote, "If you build it, they will come." It more like, "Once they come, we will build more," but the problem is most people don't ride DART because of the inconvenience of waiting for the next train or bus and the further you get out from the city center the less frequently the buses are and the earlier service ends for the day. People want more service options, but DART won't build them until ridership goes up enough to justify the cost of expansion. It's a nobody wins scenario.

You pronounced Plano wrong. It's pronounced "Plain-O" Like "This isn't a special o, it's a plain o."