This weekend, I traveled down to Dallas to enjoy a weekend of theater and festival fun. I had decided to drive down to see a revival performance of “Company” as well as a new country and western themed Cirque du Soleil show at the State Fair of Texas. When planning the trip, I decided to leverage public transit to get to and from the events, picking a cheaper hotel close to a DART Rail Park and Ride. For convenience, this choice was perfect and I can’t complain about the accessibility and price. I mean, I could have paid triple or quadruple, depending on the event, and fought traffic in both cases. Instead, I parked my car at the park and ride, jumped on the train, and enjoyed the ride to my destination. But ….
Yes, there’s usually a “but” in some of these experiences and this one definitely had a few. Let’s be clear. DART Rail is a great addition to Dallas transit options. Stations are located near many major destinations and transit-oriented development is definitely taking shape around those stations. My two destinations were the Pearl Arts District for “Company” and Fair Park for the State Fair and the performance of Cirque. In the case of the Pearl station, it was a couple of blocks from the station to the AT&T Performing Arts Center and for Fair Park it was right at the front gates of the Fair.
So, what was the problem? Primarily, the issue is with how DART controls access to the stations and the trains. You see, as is the case for all light rail systems, the stations are really just openly accessible platforms, usually in the middle of or on the side of streets. Light rail often shares the streets with cars, particularly in the urban areas of a city, which means there isn’t a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and it’s near impossible controlling access to the trains and platforms.
My park and ride station was located at Market Center where the station is more of a self-standing station alongside Harry Hines Blvd. This is true for many stations outside the urban core of Dallas. This makes commuting easy for those who live in the suburbs and work downtown or near it. The system also offers rail service to DFW via the Orange line which makes that even more convenient for Dallasites provided you don’t mind leaving your car at a station. Then again, you could Uber to a station and reduce the cost overall.
But, let’s talk about the trains and the urban stations. Fares can be purchased either through a kiosk at the station, through a GoPass card. or using the mobile app. Single trips are $2.50 or you can purchase a half-day pass for $3 (unlimited on and off) or a full day pass for $6. For the trip Friday night, I purchased an afternoon pass that was good until 3 a.m. the next day. Saturday, I decided to forego the hassle of two single trip tickets and just bought a full day pass since I would be traveling to the Fair in the morning and leaving in the afternoon.
The problem is that no one is really checking passes. I saw DART Rail police on the train when I boarded at Market Center, but they were just riding and watching for mischief and got off when the train reached St. Paul. That was the ONLY time I ever saw DART police on any train. At the stations, no one checked anything and on Saturday the fare kiosks were Out of Service, preventing anyone from purchasing a fare. Did it matter? Not at all as those who tried just ended up riding to the Fair without anyone asking anything.
Riding the train, it can get a little sketchy. On Saturday, I saw someone laying on one of the side benches sleeping with his legs across the bench in front of him. The good thing was that the train was full of people headed to the fare so if any mischief had happened, there were plenty of people to deal with the issue. Just no DART police. There is no control regarding food and drink, so the trains can get a bit messy as the day progresses.
On Friday night, when I got back to the Pearl station for the trip home at 11 p.m., the station was filled mostly with homeless people and I was confronted twice asking for money. Having been in many urban areas, I know the drills and kept to myself and avoided hanging around suspicious crowds. No looks, no talk, no confrontations and you’re usually fine. Stay near the lights make sure you’re in the open. I know this sounds like an uncomfortable experience, but you make do with what you’re given.
It’s hard to understand how such a system makes money, but when you look at DART’s funding model you can see how they stay afloat. DART is funded by a 1% sales tax paid by Dallas and 12 other member cities. That provided $870 million in 2023 and probably will be even higher in 2024. However, two of the member cities are now on track to attempt to reduce funding. Of course, that would take action by the Texas legislature but with the current conservative swing in the Lege it’s not hard to imagine them amending the current legislation to allow reduction in payments by member cities.
Dallas does make up the bulk of funding at $400 million, but any reduction from other cities will start to force DART to make decisions on what projects should go forward. One of the biggest expenses that could be cut are system expansions which typically run in the billions of dollars.
Personally, I will continue to use DART when I visit Dallas and things work out. But if the downtown situation doesn’t improve, I’ll be hard pressed to leverage DART Rail if I attend a performance in the Arts District. Performances usually let out late at night and I don’t want to have to be stressed at the station when I get ready to ride home. Funding cuts would also target those late night trains and I don’t want to have to stand at a station for 30+ minutes waiting on a train if service is cut.