Arlington: Mass Transit

Tnexster
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Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Tnexster » 25 Nov 2016 15:32

With another stadium to build, will Arlington change its mind about mass transit?

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/transpor ... ss-transit

Arlington residents will get another year of commuter bus service after the board of Dallas Area Rapid Transit approved a contract extension this month. But the future of public transit in Arlington beyond 2017 is anyone's guess.

A year from now, DART will ask Arlington to decide whether it wants to join its service area. If Arlington declines, the traffic-clogged city of 388,000 will lose its single bus line.


The Arlington bus line has performed below expectations. Though city officials once hoped it would reach 500 trips per day, MAX is tallying between 275 and 300 daily trips, according to city statistics.

Williams supported a DART contract extension this year, but he also speaks enthusiastically about alternatives to diesel-fueled buses, such as battery-powered "people mover" vehicles and ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. Also on his radar is a startup in Boston called Bridj that lets riders reserve a spot in a shuttle using a mobile app.

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Alex Rodriguez
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Alex Rodriguez » 28 Nov 2016 10:44

The Dorothy Spur is just sitting there waiting for somebody with a clue. Gets you from Centerpoint station to I-30, then you just need to build across the interchange and head down Road to Six Flags, you could get stops for new Rangers Ballpark, Arlington Conv center, and Jerry World, and then head down south to exisiting right of way in tracks parallel to Division, and go east to the Police Department and UTA. Most of the train south of I-30 would be elevated, but it could be done fairly straightforward from an engineering perspective.

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electricron
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby electricron » 29 Nov 2016 23:19

The Dorothy Spur is just an industrial spur, where freight trains run very slowly, like 10 to 20 mph even when it was in great shape, it wasn't designed for passenger trains running at 80 or 60 mph. And it's in terrible shape today. It's best use for passengers is a bike path, imho. ;)

Arlington shouldn't need trains until it has established bus services, and the same can be said for Grand Prairie too. Golly, Hood and Somerville Counties have a better bus service than either Arlington or Grand Prairie, and it's not much to call home and brag about.

After even minimal bus services have been established, the trains servicing Arlington and Grand Prairie should parallel US 80 (is it a state highway now?) or the UP main line. Ideally, it would be great to get access to the UP main line, but that's probably never going to happen in our lifetimes. But the train should connect Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington, and Ft. Worth along a route south of I-30,
The Dorothy Spur only connects Arlington with Irving. A major disappointment to say the lease.

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Cbdallas
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Cbdallas » 30 Nov 2016 15:00

With all the taxpayer money they are using to pay for the stadiums I doubt we will see any mass transit in Arlington for a long while.

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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Tnexster » 01 Dec 2016 00:00

Cbdallas wrote:With all the taxpayer money they are using to pay for the stadiums I doubt we will see any mass transit in Arlington for a long while.


Would the HSR project count if they score that extension?

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gshelton91
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby gshelton91 » 01 Dec 2016 12:14

I just don't see them doing anything with mass transit at all. They have the stadiums they want and seems to not have much voter desire for mass transit.

I really don't see how the HSR would work. Having ridden the bullet train in Japan the comparison would be like flying from Love Field to an airport near the stadium... These trains are just not commuter trains - the 3 cities are too close together. I think you will be more likely to see the line extended from Dallas up to Oklahoma City.

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 01 Dec 2016 12:32

gshelton91 wrote: I think you will be more likely to see the line extended from Dallas up to Oklahoma City.


Apparently, the distance would be right, but I still worry there's not enough trips between DFW/OKC/Tulsa to satisfy the needs of a profitable HSR. South to Austin, San Antonio, Laredo and Monterrey the worry being the extra cost transecting congestion, but the trips are certainly sufficient.

The only purpose of proposing a HSR station in Arlington is to get the people interested and drawn to the allure of a cross town train.... I like a station in Fort Worth, but... well, like just about everyone else here, Arlington is not appropriate.

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Dmkflyer
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Dmkflyer » 01 Dec 2016 13:44

It would be better to simply have a commuter line like the TRE along 30 or close to it between Dallas and Fort Worth Downtowns with a stop in GP and Arlington. Then express trains on the route for events along with the scheduled trains.

There should really be an express train option for Downtown Dallas to DFW. Fort Worth could use their commuter Cotton Belt route for the same thing. None of them need to be bullet trains; they just need to be commuter trains with express options. The Arlington Express option should only be in place for event.

In any case, this Arlington option will likely not get anything any time soon.

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gshelton91
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby gshelton91 » 02 Dec 2016 08:53

True -- we don't even have the train between Dallas and Houston yet. One Mountain at a time.

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 02 Dec 2016 10:17

Dmkflyer wrote:It would be better to simply have a commuter line like the TRE along 30 or close to it between Dallas and Fort Worth Downtowns with a stop in GP and Arlington. Then express trains on the route for events along with the scheduled trains.


Hasn't a 'to Fort Worth' HSR route been proposed as elevated over/alongside the TRE? If area politico-boosters simply must have the extension to Oklahoma and points north run through Fort Worth, the TRE corridor would make more sense to me... leaving Arlington to be satisfied with TRE along I-30 to the Statiums, Hwy180 to UTA and Fort Worth, as well as north to Centerport/DFW and Grapevine....

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electricron
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby electricron » 03 Dec 2016 00:29

tamtagon wrote:Hasn't a 'to Fort Worth' HSR route been proposed as elevated over/alongside the TRE? If area politico-boosters simply must have the extension to Oklahoma and points north run through Fort Worth, the TRE corridor would make more sense to me... leaving Arlington to be satisfied with TRE along I-30 to the Statiums, Hwy180 to UTA and Fort Worth, as well as north to Centerport/DFW and Grapevine....

A Dallas to Oklahoma City, or to Tulsa could follow the TRE line to Irving, where it branches off a take the Madil subdivision line north into Oklahoma, where several options opens up. After passing Frisco, it could take an entirely new HSR route to wherever they want to go.
The point I'm trying to make is that detouring to Ft. Worth isn't a requirement to have trains head north. It might be cheaper and easier to accomplish to visit Ft. Worth, but there are other routing options. 8-)

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 03 Dec 2016 09:37

electricron wrote:The point I'm trying to make is that detouring to Ft. Worth isn't a requirement to have trains head north.


Totally! ---and the rise of Plano/Frisco would be strong competition to Fort Worth for a second regional station should the trek north ever make sense.

I like the idea of a station in Fort Worth, though. But the extension from the Dallas Station only becomes viable with the additional of trips from Austin, San Antonio and Laredo. Presumably, Houston-Fort Worth traffic does not justify the billion dollar 30 mile extension, but hopefully the combination of trips between Fort Worth and Houston-Austin-San Antonio would. The Dallas station would handle transfers to Fort Worth, as well as however many non-stops to Fort Worth make money....

Routing through Arlington with or without a Station just make sense! DFW Airport as the final destination from San Austintonio could even void the extension to Fort Worth. Either way, if the TRE corridor could accommodate HSR, it makes the most sense.

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 03 Dec 2016 09:44

^^All of this shows the hard sell it will be to get Arlington to join most of the rest of the Metroplex. Such a ridiculous hold-out -- if not because of the Stadiums and Six Flags, then because of UTA. Legislators really really need to allow county based transit funding mechanisms. City limit lines in Tarrant and Dallas counties do not have the same meaning anymore, the place is contiguous. Arlington and Grand Prairie are being irrationally contrary -- and I get that behavior, it's normal, but that time has passed.

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dollaztx
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby dollaztx » 03 Dec 2016 10:45

tamtagon wrote:^^All of this shows the hard sell it will be to get Arlington to join most of the rest of the Metroplex. Such a ridiculous hold-out -- if not because of the Stadiums and Six Flags, then because of UTA. Legislators really really need to allow county based transit funding mechanisms. City limit lines in Tarrant and Dallas counties do not have the same meaning anymore, the place is contiguous. Arlington and Grand Prairie are being irrationally contrary -- and I get that behavior, it's normal, but that time has passed.


I agree. It passed a good while back. The suburbs south of Arlington/Grand Prairie now carry the torch of mass residential growth and sprawl. Even if Arlington & Grand Prairie wanted to, they can no longer grow that way because they're landlocked and have little room for that type of growth. They're just stuck now with all the traffic that comes with people going trough their cities and to those other suburbs (which will only increase). They need to take a few tips from Plano, Richardson, and other inner city suburbs and embrace public transportation for growth. It's either Heavy Rail (too expensive), Light Rail, or Commuter Rail.

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 03 Dec 2016 11:21

There is so much "smart growth" potential between the West Fork Trinity River and Hwy 180 [Lancaster (Fort Worth)-Division (Arlington)-Main (Grand Prairie)-Davis/Fort Worth Blvd (Dallas)].

The combination of factors and attributes within this corridor linking the downtowns of Dallas and Fort Worth are impressive: tens of thousands of river impacted acreage only suitable as managed wilderness, all variety of municipal parks, open green space and a wide array of riparian and aquatic recreation; a public university on track to becoming a major research facility; World Class professional sport facilities for Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey and Futbol.

This potential is lost as long as the four cities, Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington and Fort Worth are not fully engaged in unified transportation initiatives giving pervasive access to the corridor by bus, strategic access by commuter train and/or light rail coordinated to supplement and increase productivity of vehicular capacity.

Working with the natural environment and fluctuating needs of the river, North Texas absolutely should manage and program the length of the West Fork Trinity & Elm Fork Trinity and Trinity Rivers through Tarrant and Dallas counties. For as much as people deride North Texas over the lack of natural beauty like a beach or mountains, certainly municipal, civic and business leaders are intentionally ignorant of the River.

All the grand, superlative and highfalutin visions of Dallas' Trinity River Park and Great Trinity Forest are not just attainable, what we've been presented with so far do not do justiceto how nice it really could be.

um, ha ha, it all starts with public transportation in Arlington and Grand Prairie. whew

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Austin55
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Austin55 » 23 Nov 2017 07:46

Arlington is ditching the MAX bus, replacing it with on-demand shuttles. An experiment, essentially.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/ ... it/546134/

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joshua.dodd
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby joshua.dodd » 23 Nov 2017 18:19

Arlington needs to focus on establishing a public transit system. Buses. They keep experimenting with this and that while traffic gets worse and their infrastructure gets worse. Arlington has this really bad suburban mentality that focuses too much on sports entertainment rather than essential transit amenities.

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joshua.dodd
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby joshua.dodd » 23 Nov 2017 18:58

Where is Dorothy Spur?

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Redblock
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Re: Arlington: Mass Tranosit

Postby Redblock » 23 Nov 2017 19:39

Dorothy Spur separated from the Rock Island Railroad (now TRE) just west of CentrePort Station. It wwnt down a sreep grade to a bridge across the Trinity and continued south on the east side 360 to connect with the switching tracks of the Great Southwest warehouse district.

The track is gone between the TRE and about Post and Paddock Road.

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tanzoak
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tanzoak » 24 Nov 2017 00:11

Arlington’s circumstances are without compare: No other city has tested microtransit-only service.


Uh, it's a subsidized jitney service. Jitneys got pretty much regulated out of existence in the US, but it's a widespread service in many parts of the world.

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IcedCowboyCoffee
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby IcedCowboyCoffee » 06 Apr 2023 11:02

"Arlington planning transit system as entertainment district continues massive growth" - WFAA

There's really not much to chew on here so who knows, but hopefully they're serious enough to have a bus system in place by 2026 for the world cup.

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tamtagon
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby tamtagon » 06 Apr 2023 14:47

Finally, a reason for mass transit to Arlington, something fun.

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IcedCowboyCoffee
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby IcedCowboyCoffee » 06 Nov 2023 09:11

"Texas Rangers’ World Series championship spotlights need for regional collaboration"
According to The News’ editorial board, the group is developing a transportation plan for the World Cup that includes the Trinity Rail Express and 50 energy-efficient buses. The CentrePort station in Fort Worth — which serves DFW International Airport — would serve as the connection point to Arlington’s entertainment district, said Karla Windsor, senior program manager for sustainable development at NCTCOG.

The council requested the buses from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the federal agency working with World Cup cities. Windsor said the cost of the buses is not finalized, but the plan is to eventually incorporate them into either the Trinity Metro or Dallas Area Rapid Transit. Those buses could be sent to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics.

- Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/11/06/texas-rangers-world-series-championship-spotlights-need-for-regional-collaboration/

Arlington has a much greater population density than Fort Worth does and has about the same density as Dallas. It's wild to me that they're still all-in on this rideshare program without, as far as I'm aware, any other long term plans.

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northsouth
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby northsouth » 06 Nov 2023 21:25

Part of the problem is that most/all of their free sales tax revenue that could go towards transit has been dedicated to the stadiums; the old ballpark is paid off (not sure about the cost of converting it to football), Jerryworld is still going to be on the books for a while, and the new Rangers stadium is still practically brand-new. If there's any football team that's capable of fully self-funding a new stadium it's the Cowboys, but of course Jerry wouldn't do that if he could get a city's taxpayers to cover it instead.

If there's any taxspace not taken up they could maybe do what Grapevine did and pay partial price for partial service, but Arlington is so much larger in both area and population that they can't really get away with only partial service. Ten years ago they did that trial service with DART to run a single express/semi-express bus from UTA to the nearest TRE station (with maybe a stop or two near the stadiums/Six Flags), but with no other network to tie into in Arlington it didn't do all that well; see also TEXRail's lack of feeder bus service for most of its stations. At some point TM and/or NCTCOG did a study that mapped out a bus network for if Arlington joined TM, but nothing came of it.

The other side of it is the lack of political will to get it done. Arlington's voters have repeatedly rejected transit, and unless something happens to shock their system a bit that won't change quickly enough. There's no way Arlington gets the World Cup Final, and lack of mass transit will probably be a deciding factor. Maybe that embarrassment will lead to improvement, like Dallas losing the Boeing headquarters to Chicago got them to try harder to make Downtown a lively, livable neighborhood instead of just an office park (whether or not they've succeeded is another debate, but it's definitely better nowadays).

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IcedCowboyCoffee
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby IcedCowboyCoffee » 07 Nov 2023 09:34

northsouth wrote:There's no way Arlington gets the World Cup Final, and lack of mass transit will probably be a deciding factor.

I actually think Arlington getting the final is essentially a lock at this point. FIFA doesn't really care about long term infrastructure, just that a host city has the infrastructure necessary during the event itself, and the 50 temporary buses fill the one big gap Arlington has.
The past couple years had the stars align for Arlington to prove itself over and over. Wrestlemania saw 150k people with a large portion of the attendance comprised of people traveling from out of the state or country. Taylor Swift concert handled 200k people. The Cowboys game in september that the FIFA president attended to get a feel for the event space at capacity could not have provided a better crowd atmosphere. The baseball stadiums have already been promised as secondary watch-party venues and the world series away games got to show off how that could work.

Then the Rangers parade saw 500k~700k people flood the areas around the stadiums and, relatively speaking, it went much smoother than I would have imagined. That's about as many people as one would expect to go into Arlington for the final. With Inglewood out of the running it's down to Arlington or New Jersey, and Arlington is the only one that can promise zero risk of any weather problems that could impact the game's kick-off time as it's the only one between the two with a roof.

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MC_ScattCat
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby MC_ScattCat » 07 Nov 2023 13:47

Idk. If I'm corrupt... I mean FIFA, I'm going to the city that pays me the most and makes me the most money.

NYC is synonymous with USA and has flight connectivity that maybe one or two other cities in the world can match. Arlington could host it though. It does have two other overflow stadiums to watch/party at. Even the video game-stadium could be used for a tournament within a tournament.

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The_Overdog
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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby The_Overdog » 08 Nov 2023 09:21

According to the circle population mapper, Arlington between approximately 360, East Division Street, East Mayfield Road, and FM 157 has a population of over 90k, making it about the 2nd or 3rd densest 3k circle in DFW, with zero transit stops. Given Arlington's lower than average median income, and some minor effort adding some density to Spur 303 and E Mayfield, Arlington could pop in some bus service, and have one of the busiest lines in DFW. Crazy they have nothing.

And it would only take short spurs to get to UTA and the sports area! Like 6 sq miles worth of bus routes.

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Re: Arlington: Mass Transit

Postby Tivo_Kenevil » 08 Nov 2023 17:33

IcedCowboyCoffee wrote:
northsouth wrote:There's no way Arlington gets the World Cup Final, and lack of mass transit will probably be a deciding factor.

I actually think Arlington getting the final is essentially a lock at this point. FIFA doesn't really care about long term infrastructure, just that a host city has the infrastructure necessary during the event itself, and the 50 temporary buses fill the one big gap Arlington has.
The past couple years had the stars align for Arlington to prove itself over and over. Wrestlemania saw 150k people with a large portion of the attendance comprised of people traveling from out of the state or country. Taylor Swift concert handled 200k people. The Cowboys game in september that the FIFA president attended to get a feel for the event space at capacity could not have provided a better crowd atmosphere. The baseball stadiums have already been promised as secondary watch-party venues and the world series away games got to show off how that could work.

Then the Rangers parade saw 500k~700k people flood the areas around the stadiums and, relatively speaking, it went much smoother than I would have imagined. That's about as many people as one would expect to go into Arlington for the final. With Inglewood out of the running it's down to Arlington or New Jersey, and Arlington is the only one that can promise zero risk of any weather problems that could impact the game's kick-off time as it's the only one between the two with a roof.


Certainly not a lock. Dallas would be a terrible host. Terrible place to visit. Especially Arlington