There's 2 bus routes that go by Valley View, but to most people in DFW a train and a bus aren't equivalent. I think light rail or streetcar along that section you highlighted, plus along Alpha road could be cool. But it's probably not very likely unless Dallas wants to pay for most of it.
I think there's an interesting tradeoff between Valley View and Irving from Dallas's perspective:
Dallas:
- Have to figure out how to pay ~$1B in subsidies
- Would benefit a lot from Valley View area not being a wasteland
Irving:
- Has the orange line there, but a new station would have to be built and it's on the other side of the highway. The bridge to connect it already exists though
Busses are transit yes, but the real transit advantage that AAC had was the regional rail that went right into downtown Fort Worth and truly connected huge chunks of the metroplex together (which people may have forgotten, was not open for the early years at AAC either). One of my pet theories about transit in Dallas is that we need to build political consensus that transit is worth taxpayer funding by giving more people a chance to ride it 4-5x times a year, and large events and sports are a big part of it. Only through that political will can we get anything that truly looks like commuter transit that gets more people on the trains and a higher ROI on DART.
Yep I agree. With the 2 major sports teams leaving, that only leaves the state fair for events that are big enough and parking expensive enough to incentivize people to try transit who otherwise wouldn’t.
And like you said, the Mavs and Stars moving trades a good chunk of Tarrant county that can park and ride for a Collin county that can’t.
Now do the convention center
I don’t know if I have the stomach.
There's 2 bus routes that go by Valley View, but to most people in DFW a train and a bus aren't equivalent. I think light rail or streetcar along that section you highlighted, plus along Alpha road could be cool. But it's probably not very likely unless Dallas wants to pay for most of it.
I think there's an interesting tradeoff between Valley View and Irving from Dallas's perspective:
Dallas:
- Have to figure out how to pay ~$1B in subsidies
- Would benefit a lot from Valley View area not being a wasteland
Irving:
- Has the orange line there, but a new station would have to be built and it's on the other side of the highway. The bridge to connect it already exists though
- Dallas wouldn't have to pay the subsidy
- Is slightly closer to the current location
Busses are transit yes, but the real transit advantage that AAC had was the regional rail that went right into downtown Fort Worth and truly connected huge chunks of the metroplex together (which people may have forgotten, was not open for the early years at AAC either). One of my pet theories about transit in Dallas is that we need to build political consensus that transit is worth taxpayer funding by giving more people a chance to ride it 4-5x times a year, and large events and sports are a big part of it. Only through that political will can we get anything that truly looks like commuter transit that gets more people on the trains and a higher ROI on DART.
Yep I agree. With the 2 major sports teams leaving, that only leaves the state fair for events that are big enough and parking expensive enough to incentivize people to try transit who otherwise wouldn’t.
And like you said, the Mavs and Stars moving trades a good chunk of Tarrant county that can park and ride for a Collin county that can’t.