DART Green Line is a big step forward

System will double in size

Steve Hawley, Oct 15, 09.

The DART Green Line, which will be fully open by the end of 2010, will usher in a new era for Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News. Four stations along the Green Line opened last month, and another 16 stations will be added over the next 15 months.

Once fully completed, the line will stretch 28 miles, and it will usher in the largest light rail expansion in North America. By 2012, the DART light rail system will double in size, encompassing 62 stations on 90 miles of track. The Morning News reports that 48 trains will stop in downtown Dallas every hour when the expansion is complete.

The article notes that less than five percent of all Dallas workers over the age of 16 use transit to get to work, and most of those ride the bus. However, it says that the two existing lines have resulted in some significant changes, and that the new expansion will make it easier to get around the city without a car.

But while light rail is a big step in the right direction, the article says, Dallas also must make other changes:

It’s a mistake, transportation experts say, to think that light rail – no matter how many billions are spent on it – can by itself change the fundamental character of a region as large as Dallas and its suburbs.

“Rail is one of the tools metro areas are using,” said Robert Puentes, a transportation scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “But transit investment by itself is not enough.”

Instead, regions like North Texas must link transportation policies with housing, land-use and environmental initiatives, Puentes said.

Light rail could make an even bigger impact in Houston, where the light rail plan heavily emphasizes connecting dense urban cores and will serve many more people. DART currently serves about 60,000 light rail passengers every day on 45 miles of track, compared to roughly 40,000 daily riders in Houston on less than eight miles of track. By 2013, DART is expected to serve 130,000 light rail riders every day over 90 miles. Houston, by comparison, will have just 37 miles of track by then, but the agency expects 138,000 riders per day in 2015. That number is expected to grow to over 200,000 by 2030.

So far, Houston’s one light rail line has resulted in heavy land speculation that has curtailed development. However, the Houston City Council recently passed a transit corridors ordinance designed to encourage more transit-oriented development in the city, and some observers hope that the large system expansion will reduce the amount of land speculation. Those changes could significantly reshape Houston’s urban cores.