Dallas has longest light rail system in US

Green Line begins service

David Crossley, Dec 06, 10.

The first day of service on DART’s new Green Line has begun amid much excitement, as transit officials welcome riders to the 28-mile route, according to a story in the Dallas Morning News.

After nearly 30 years – and $7.4 billion in sales taxes collected – Texas’ most ambitious experiment with public transit enters a new era today, when Dallas Area Rapid Transit trains begin running full-time on the new Green Line from southern Dallas all the way north to Carrollton, according to an earlier story in the Dallas Morning News:

The new line makes DART the largest light-rail system in the United States, an accomplishment that comes just a generation after the agency’s creation. With larger trains, a longer route and stops at two of Dallas’ largest medical centers, the $1.8 billion Green Line is more than just big: It begins to deliver on three decades of promises to make rail relevant throughout its service area.

“The Green Line really starts to complete the rail service” as envisioned in the 1980s, said DART president Gary Thomas, who has overseen the agency for nearly a decade. By connecting southeast Dallas, the Parkland hospital district, Love Field and beyond, “it really starts to complete the system.”

But for all its superlatives, one thing the Green Line won’t do is persuade significant numbers of North Texas drivers to park their cars and trucks.

The line will serve nearly 15,000 round-trip passengers a day, but that’s a tiny fraction of the region’s daily traffic. So while DART has built the largest light-rail system in America from scratch in just 27 years, its effectiveness has been hampered by a simultaneous population boom in suburbs just outside its reach.

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