exelone31 wrote:I haven't paid a ton of attention, but has DART brought forth any estimates on what the travel time would be from one end of the line to the other?
Cotton Belt Debt Issuance Fails to Pass DART Board
BY PETER SIMEK
JUNE 20, 2017
After a long, grueling, frank, and often contentious meeting of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board this morning, a resolution that would have seen the agency take out $1 billion in low-interest, federally backed loans to pay for the Cotton Belt light rail extension failed to receive the two-thirds majority support necessary for approval.
The vote leaves in doubt the future of the long-awaited light rail line, which would extend east from Plano, through the northern suburbs and parts of Dallas, toward DFW Airport. Cities such as Addison have been pushing for the rail line to be built for decades, but critics argue it would not produce ridership sufficient to justify its costs and would direct resources away from fixing DART’s inefficient transit system.
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If you board at DFW at 6:53am, you don't actually get to Plano until 8:22am (one-way). That just isn't practical.
cowboyeagle05 wrote:From Downtown to East Dallas takes a college degree and a day of planning and a fairly extensive study of a crowded bus map depending on if you aren't already a graduate of the system.
tanzoak wrote:cowboyeagle05 wrote:From Downtown to East Dallas takes a college degree and a day of planning and a fairly extensive study of a crowded bus map depending on if you aren't already a graduate of the system.
Just FYI there's this nifty "application" in the "application store" of your "smart cellular telephone" called "Google Maps." You type where you want to go and it'll tell you how to get there. No understanding of the bus system needed.
There're also real-time bus tracker apps so you know exactly when the next bus will arrive. Smart phones have made using the bus system much easier.
cowboyeagle05 wrote:Google, as well as many other companies, have created smarter software to attempt to solve the problem but that has yet to improve ridership. Other cities where the transit system doesn't work as badly and less confusing have higher ridership because those bus systems are designed more logical and efficiently timed in addition to the marketing and ridership programming. Those systems don't require a third-party aftermarket band aid. The last thing DART needs to be doing is betting its entire success on a Google app to make their product usable and desirable.
electricron wrote:Looks like the Dallas Board Members for DARt killed borrowing money for the Cotton Belt, which needs 2/3rd vote.
I guess that means the Suburb Board Members will retaliate and kill borrowing money for D2, which also needs a 2/3rds vote.
Now DART should have even more money to fix and improve its bus routes - that's assuming all the suburb cities continue to contribute sales taxes to DART.
xen0blue wrote:Man, the DART board has really shot itself in the foot on this one. We NEED both the cotton belt and D2, and now we may get neither. Now the suburban DART members might even pull out of the organization completely. Fucking morons.
Alex Rodriguez wrote:xen0blue wrote:Man, the DART board has really shot itself in the foot on this one. We NEED both the cotton belt and D2, and now we may get neither. Now the suburban DART members might even pull out of the organization completely. Fucking morons.
Sadly I have to agree with this. Everyone should know by now that DART is great at building and engineering train lines but suck at running a business. Pissing off the suburbs because you think that will make DART focus on improving how they run a business is a stupid pipe dream. Now its a real possibility Addison leaves. You think they joined DART so they can wait 30 years for one train stop and then Dallas screws them over when its finally time to build their one train stop? Nope. Plano hasn't been happy in a long time. You just shafted Richardson out of 3 or 4 more stops. Carrollton loses their transit hub.
Really really dumb shortsighted decision.
Cbdallas wrote:We may need two systems DART for regional and DUTS (Dallas uban transportion system) for the urban city. Dallas really isn't being correctly served from and urban perspective. Many of us living in the urban core still have to use our vehicles to get around our area which makes no sense. If there was any place in the entire metro where you should be able to live work play without a car it should be urban Dallas.
tamtagon wrote:One thing about the D2 versus Cotton Belt discussion that's been absent so far, but is very relevant concerns the Orange Line to DFW Airport. Five or so years ago, DART was faced with a very similar dilemma, the agency could only afford to run the Orange Line into the airport OR build the second downtown route.
I'm not sure where the Orange line temporary terminus was, maybe the Beltline, maybe North Lake College, maybe even 'Irving convention center' station, but running into the airport was not funded. There was quite a bit of debate, and the decision was to get into the airport THEN D2 would be next.
Cotton Belt came on stage after all that, and frankly D2 has been on hold since before funding the airport extension was a one or the other but not both at the same time. The entire system benefits from removing the downtown choke point.
Putting D2 before Cotton Belt is not city versus suburban, it's the city route not getting bumped yet again.
I'm all in favor of the Cotton Belt, but the suburban uproar is misplaced, misguided and mistaken.
xen0blue wrote:Both proposals, cotton belt and D2, both accomplish the same goals- redundancy in the rail network. That is what we need most. It doesn't matter if it's downtown or in north Dallas as long as we get that redundancy.
Tivo_Kenevil wrote:D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
Hannibal Lecter wrote:Tivo_Kenevil wrote:D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
Spend $1.2 billion to add capacity to a rail system that loses ridership every single year. That's really smart.
tamtagon wrote:Before the rest of the satellite TODs hibernating through out the Spoke & Wheel rail system have a chance, the pulse maker has to be strong and turgid.
tamtagon wrote:Hannibal Lecter wrote:Tivo_Kenevil wrote:D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
Spend $1.2 billion to add capacity to a rail system that loses ridership every single year. That's really smart.
As you may be aware, a tectonic shift within the cabal of DART decision makers proclaims for the first time since light rail was just the glimmer of an idea the organization will rally the effort around the user....![]()
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Downtown is the biggest, original Mixed Use transit oriented development. Before the rest of the satellite TODs hibernating through out the Spoke & Wheel rail system have a chance, the pulse maker has to be strong and turgid.
Cotton Belt will need it's own expansion possibilities mapped out before the trunk line becomes exciting enough to satisfy the next generation of city building. Dangling that loop de loop to Billingsley's North Lake corporate cavalcade is just the first.
Tucy wrote:tamtagon wrote:Hannibal Lecter wrote:Spend $1.2 billion to add capacity to a rail system that loses ridership every single year. That's really smart.
As you may be aware, a tectonic shift within the cabal of DART decision makers proclaims for the first time since light rail was just the glimmer of an idea the organization will rally the effort around the user....![]()
![]()
Downtown is the biggest, original Mixed Use transit oriented development. Before the rest of the satellite TODs hibernating through out the Spoke & Wheel rail system have a chance, the pulse maker has to be strong and turgid.
Cotton Belt will need it's own expansion possibilities mapped out before the trunk line becomes exciting enough to satisfy the next generation of city building. Dangling that loop de loop to Billingsley's North Lake corporate cavalcade is just the first.
"turgid"? Do we really need (or want) our downtown to be turgid?
adjective
1.
swollen; distended; tumid.
2.
inflated, overblown, or pompous; bombastic:
electricron wrote: But I would like to point out that the last largest, and amongst the riches, neighborhood of the City of Dallas not to be served by DART with trains has the Cotton Belt corridor running through the middle of it..
Cbdallas wrote:Imagine how cool if that Knox-Henderson station was open. I don't get the Cotton Belt line most of those people that live in that area would take Uber to the airport and even more so in the future. DART needs to serve the urban going forward that is where it will find riders.
Tivo_Kenevil wrote:xen0blue wrote:Both proposals, cotton belt and D2, both accomplish the same goals- redundancy in the rail network. That is what we need most. It doesn't matter if it's downtown or in north Dallas as long as we get that redundancy.
What do yu mean? There's nothing redundant about the Cotton Belt. It's an entirely new line.
D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
xen0blue wrote:Tivo_Kenevil wrote:xen0blue wrote:Both proposals, cotton belt and D2, both accomplish the same goals- redundancy in the rail network. That is what we need most. It doesn't matter if it's downtown or in north Dallas as long as we get that redundancy.
What do yu mean? There's nothing redundant about the Cotton Belt. It's an entirely new line.
D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
You're wrong. Right now, if that downtown line going down Pacific is cut, the whole DART train system comes to a halt. By adding REDUNDANCY (ie- cottonbelt or D2), you allow the system to continue operation. Yeah, they'll have to go all the way up to north dallas to get the cotton line to get from, say, Vernon station to Mockingbird station, but at least they will be going somewhere at all.
Tivo_Kenevil wrote:xen0blue wrote:Tivo_Kenevil wrote:
What do yu mean? There's nothing redundant about the Cotton Belt. It's an entirely new line.
D2 adds capacity, frequency of trains to all lines.. That's the type of redundancy DART needs.
You're wrong. Right now, if that downtown line going down Pacific is cut, the whole DART train system comes to a halt. By adding REDUNDANCY (ie- cottonbelt or D2), you allow the system to continue operation. Yeah, they'll have to go all the way up to north dallas to get the cotton line to get from, say, Vernon station to Mockingbird station, but at least they will be going somewhere at all.
You're misinformed. The current DART Trains will not be comparable/compatible with the Cotton Belt. The trains on the Cotton Belt will be diesel powered locomotives.
xen0blue wrote:Tivo_Kenevil wrote:xen0blue wrote:
You're wrong. Right now, if that downtown line going down Pacific is cut, the whole DART train system comes to a halt. By adding REDUNDANCY (ie- cottonbelt or D2), you allow the system to continue operation. Yeah, they'll have to go all the way up to north dallas to get the cotton line to get from, say, Vernon station to Mockingbird station, but at least they will be going somewhere at all.
You're misinformed. The current DART Trains will not be comparable/compatible with the Cotton Belt. The trains on the Cotton Belt will be diesel powered locomotives.
What kind of trains run on the track is irreverent. The point is if the pacific 'main artery' is cut, the only way to, say, the NW leg of the orange line to the NE leg of the red line is through the cotton belt or D2. The whole system doesn't stop. People won't have to get on a bus to circumvent the line cut. They can stay on the train system.
Why? Because Plano isn't exactly DARTs biggest fan these days, they have threatened to leave before, and if they get the shaft on at least 2 new rail stops in Plano due to delays to Cotton Belt, they might just follow Addison out the door.
The_Overdog wrote:Addison has barely paid anything for DART......
The current alignment of the Cotton Belt even shafts Plano - as it passes mostly through Richardson
Also Irving has paid nearly as much as Plano into DART, and they are the #2 big dog, not Plano or Addison.
The_Overdog wrote:Addison has barely paid anything for DART and they've gotten bus service. Plano gets next to nothing out of the Cotton Belt - they get 2 stations that are in close proximity to their other existing stations, which does nothing for the rest of the entire city. The only thing they really get out of it is a future connection to the Legacy West CBD, but the expense of the Cotton Belt makes that line unaffordable until 2035.
The current alignment of the Cotton Belt even shafts Plano - as it passes mostly through Richardson. If Plano leaves over the Cotton Belt, they dumb.
Also Irving has paid nearly as much as Plano into DART, and they are the #2 big dog, not Plano or Addison.
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