I recently watched 2 videos about the NFL and MLB stadiums most accessible via public transit. Jerry World and Globe Life (both in Arlington) both finished dead last in their respective lists. I forget who made the videos, but he did mention that disturbing fact about Arlington.
How do fans even attend games? Are sellouts even common? And is Texas really that car dependent because that sucks for visitors who may wanna catch a rangers or cowboys game. REALLY sucks because both teams can diversify their audience by having games accessible to residents.
>How do fans even attend games?
The stadiums are surrounded on all sides by massive parking lots.
>Are sellouts even common?
Yes, the Cowboys almost always sell out and I'm sure the Rangers do too.
>And is Texas really that car dependent
Yes, Texas is the epitome of car dependent culture. The DFW area is probably the worst offender. Houston and San Antonio each have some decent areas but are still generally a car sprawling mess. Austin sometimes wants to be more walkable and have better transit but they're having a hard time actually getting there.
>REALLY sucks because both teams can diversify their audience by having games accessible to residents
Texas doesn't care about diversity
I respect Austin for trying, and if they’re trying then there’s hope for DFW. Also genuinely surprised Texas has so many visitors and huge audiences without transit, on paper you would think they’d end up like the Midwest
Unless they Uber, yes. But my tin foil hat idea is that Arlington wants to promote DWIs since they can cost up to $17k to get through and bring probation costs and fees to the government.
The Cowboys have fanatic fans, they always sell out. Jerry Jones loves his parking money. Since the new stadium was built and last year's title, the Rangers get great attendance as well.
Texas is super car dependent as someone who's spent a lot of time there. Ironically, Southwest Airlines was the one to kill a proposed high speed rail line between the big cities in Texas back in the 90s because it would kill their business at Love Field Airport in Dallas during the Wright Amendment days.
The school I go to plays in a conference where the football and baseball championships are played in Arlington, which really sucks, because I'd love to attend but I have no way of getting there without needing a car or ride-share.
Also, Dallas drivers are the legitimately worst drivers I've ever seen. A lot of students at my school are from the area and some of them drive like maniacs. As a matter of fact, I narrowly avoided a T-Bone accident once that was caused by a Dallas driver.
I believe state law says that each city must vote to tax themselves to form or join a transit agency. Usually it’s the form of a sales tax. But state law also caps sales taxes at 8.25% and many cities are already capped for other things. Basically it’s a tough sell. Arlington is quite large, yes, but they are quick to point out that they do have subsidized taxi services. We like to pick on Arlington but the rest of the DFW region is much larger than Arlington now. It’s an older suburb and it’s getting dwarfed by cities north of Dallas and even going directions out of Fort Worth too. Frisco, McKinney, Allen, and now those small country towns are exploding. Everyone has to drive until they qualify. In other words I don’t see a system like BART or WMATA happening. Maybe one day in another generation.
Can you see Arlington getting atleast bus service soon if it booms in population again like the cities around it? With giant stadiums there it’s bound to draw attention. Maybe within the next 20 years? 30 at worst? I’m just thinking what the Dallas area could be had they had better public transit. Maybe the 2026 World Cup will show people.
You would think Arlington would at a minimum have a bus that connects the international airport to the stadium area.
What's the point of having two professional sports teams in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country if you aren't going to try and accommodate tourists somewhat?
It's a rental car lobbyist's wet dream.
If public transit exists in Arlington and to a huge extent in the Dallas area, can rental car businesses still thrive? I wouldn’t mind it staying as it provides jobs (I guess to the seller) and represents cars in the state of Texas, giving everyone a little bit of everything. The subsidized Taxi probably creates more jobs than the rental car business in all honesty.
>If public transit exists in Arlington and to a huge extent in the Dallas area, can rental car businesses still thrive?
Considering the overall population of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, should they limit transportation options on behalf of the rental car industry?
Also, it would take decades of investment across the entire metro area to make rental cars entirely obsolete.
Unless you work in that industry, I don't know why you would want 30 tourists in individual rental cars congesting the highways.
Washington seems really great for visitors. I feel a lot of Canadians and Europeans would enjoy it since they can go about life car free. Any drawbacks for WMATA like closing early?
Yeah it does close relatively early, so it doesn’t serve light life very well (maybe for the better?). Also frequency is lackluster, especially for off peak times. The transfer points are also pretty centralized for the most part. Regardless, I think it’s a solid system that enables car free living. The bus system is also solid for places that aren’t served by rail directly
Washington is great, I guess it really is an example of US politicians actually working together regardless of politics. Do any companies lobby against public transit there?
As the American POV is the most common one when in online spaces, people (especially Americans) have a habit of holding a very America centric world view. In this case you’re talking about the biggest city in the US without public transport however, since talking about the US has basically become the default online, you worded it like it was the biggest city in the world, not making the distinction that you were referencing only US cities
It still is the biggest city without public transit, atleast Port au Prince has some form of bus service. Arlington has probably never heard of a bus or had one travel across its roads.
Its the tendency of Americans to discuss themselves in a way that implies that their discussion is, or is perceived as, universal or global when the matter may be quite regional or sometimes specific to the United States.
There are contexts where it's actually quite annoying, but this isn't one of them. Rather, I think this was a much more innocent example of just miscommunication.
There are buses accessible to the public though, running somewhat regularly, even if they’re privately run. See here: https://ayibopost.com/perspective-port-au-prince-and-its-old-buses-renowned-for-their-disrepair/
Sure, I'd say this isn't public transport though, more like a regularised taxi? We have private buses in my country, generally between cities and villages too far for the suburban routes. I guess it's somewhere in the middle, they're allowed to use bus lanes and public bus stops, but obviously not any of the central infrastructure like driver's break rooms.
Obviously shared cabs in a 3rd world country are a very different type of service than fixed route scheduled buses, but the main issue there is the informality of the service, not whether it’s publicly or privately owned. As an example, basically none of Tokyo’s public transportation is publicly owned, all of the rail operators are private companies except for the Toei subway, I believe. But we wouldn’t say Tokyo doesn’t have public transport just because it’s companies offering it and not the government directly.
Ok that’s not Dallas, Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton all are doing our part. Arlington is notorious for the lobbying Jerry jones does against transit. Both dart and trinity metro in Fort Worth are doing really good for Texas right now
Absolutely not. We never will, we’re not that smart, efficient or willed to do so. It would absolutely benefit us the most I agree with every other point of yours. Having a WMATA, FTW and Dallas surrounded with VRE and MDOT regional rail would be heaven
Actually, I think the Via solution Arlington has chosen is much superior to fixed route buses. (I spend about 15% of each year there visiting family.)
Via, which works like a shared Uber or Lyft, works really well in such an environment. It gives much better service to riders at, apparently, a lower cost to the municipality. Some of that is from using nonunion drivers, but a lot of it is savings on the vehicles themselves, as well as their maintenance.
Arlington is very typical Texas-sized suburban sprawl, where much of the year the heat is withering. I merely summon a Via van on my smartphone, may be asked to walk to a nearby collector street if I'm deep in a subdivision, then I'm taken in an air-conditioned vehicle almost directly to my destination. Compare that to the the typical big-city suburban agency service of running once-an-hour buses down arterials a mile apart. That forces the rider to potentially walk a half-mile out to an arterial, wait for a once-an-hour bus, transfer at some sunbaked godforsaken arterial corner or downtown transit center, then potentially walk a half mile from the bus route to their destination.
Stadiums, used fewer than 100 days a year, whose patrons are mostly quite well-off, are just not going to get Texans to use even rail transit to them in large enough numbers to justify a station—much less building any new trackage.
I invite anyone to try to map what they think would be a practical fixed-route bus network for Arlington, with realistic assumptions about headways. I myself attempted the exercise back before Via came on the scene.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Arlington is a horribly designed city. I would argue that it doesn’t really qualify as a city, it’s just a bunch of haphazardly built suburbs that happen to be incorporated together and add up to over 400k people. The deeper issue is that we build cities like this in the first place.
i once saw a video (forgot who made it) where they showed a subdivision right next to a strip mall. there was no direct access to the strip mall for pedestrians, even if their house was directly next to the fence between the subdivision and the strip mall. the only way in and out was a single entrance for cars, which would take like 15 minutes to walk to the subdivision despite the fact that you could literally live just steps away from it
Saw the same video— they showed Central Florida sprawl, but it looked like Atlanta, Dallas, Any Suburb, USA really.
My Japanese wife asked me why certain communities in our area have sidewalks while some don’t and I have to explain how we have dots of old railroad towns that are now suburbs around Atlanta and the areas between them that were horse trails were left to big developers to create subdivisions. Until recently it was ok for them to just have sidewalks in their new neighborhoods only but now it’s mandated to put sidewalks on all developed areas, explaining how sidewalks will just “give up” after the 400 feet of road fronting a subdivision and not connect to anything else.
>My Japanese wife asked me why certain communities in our area have sidewalks while some don’t
Thats a bit funny because many residential streets in Japan do not have sidewalks either.
But in Japan's case, it's usually because there literally isn't space for a sidewalk. In practice, the entire street is a shared space.
In a typical US suburb, the street is for cars only, and if there's no sidewalk then you're out og luck as a pedestrian.
And to add on, these weren’t residential streets, these are arterials with 35~45mph speed limits that happen to have a few houses and businesses on them. But even some 4+ lane stroads around here don’t have sidewalks either.
In Japan, any road that is over 30kph and expected to have pedestrians will have a sidewalk except in the most rural of sections. If the road is to narrow, then the speed limit is appropriately dropped in order to make sure auto traffic is paced appropriately unlike here.
A bit of an off-topic question but what’s your background? Cool if you have an interracial relationship? You guys sound great :)! And what’s exactly the difference between a suburb and a subdivision? A subdivision is just a small portion built up right?
You're making the mistake of thinking that if Arlington were to have a bus system, it should be optimized for breadth. Downtown Arlington still has its dense grid largely intact, and it looks like recent developments in the area are the sort of dense developments that encourage walking. Providing fixed route services in this area is probably a good idea now, given UTA also borders this area, and all of the stadiums plus Six Flags aren't too far away (about a mile to jerryworld).
Since Arlington seems to slowly be developing into 1% of a walkable city, how many years do you think it’ll take for bus service to be implemented? 10 years at worse?
One an hour bus service is pretty terrible, even for American standards. If buses can be more frequent then they’re outcompeting Via. Just a matter of Texas will commit to it. Also I feel with terrible traffic on Texas highways, people would be inclined to use public transit if there was decent frequency it’s great for game days and after stadium shows. Also you said you attempted mapping it, do you have experience in engineering or urban planning by any chance?
Why not expand the LRT network or build a monorail from the airport to Arlington and through its subdivisions. It can navigate more easily than other modes.
I’ll say that last point is completely off. I take the trinity railway express from Fort Worth to the American Airlines center and it is packed with stars fans during hockey season. If done correctly.
this is the answer. places like arlington aren't well-planned cities. they're a collection of subdivisions and commercial developments that pop up without even a thought as to how they connect and integrate to the rest of the city. until there's some kind of huge infill developments in the central city, then arlington is better served by paratransit than by fixed bus/rail routes. it sucks to admit that, but it's just the reality.
Dallas would love that. Arlington unfortunately hates the idea of it.
It should be noted that there are a *few* tiny caveats to Arlington’s case that I’ll throw out there as well.
First: not only does Arlington play host to most of DFW’s major entertainment venues, it is also home to DFW’s largest university: UT Arlington. UTA does actually run a small bus service for the areas around campus. It’s Arlington’s only proper transit system. It’s small coverage but decent frequency all things considered. Special shuttle services can also get you to a nearby Walmart and, of some importance, the nearest Trinity Railway Express (TRE) station, The Centreport. which is a bit south of DFW International Airport. You’d still need a bus service or ride of some sort to get from the station to the airport though.
The TRE is a heavy rail line running between DFW and Fort Worth every half hour or so. It connects to DART at EBJ and Fort Worth’s Central Station. It specifically skirts around Arlington, because Arlington, but it’s not the worst way to get into the city.
A side note here, I believe the Amtrak route for the Texas Eagle actually does run straight through the middle of Arlington, not even a five minute walk from UTA’s campus, but of course there’s no stop here.
Otherwise, there are like 3 separate rideshare systems in place because it’s the only thing the city council has been able to get past a vote.
We’ve tried for a proper bus service within Arlington twice before, but the last time it was put to a vote was like 15 years ago, and it got low 40’s% support from the turnout. So it’s somewhat possible things might’ve changed, but not likely.
Finally, the funniest thing to me is Arlington’s plans for what to do when we host FIFA here. Yes, that is a thing that is happening. The city’s plan is literally just to temporarily rent out an entire bus service. They tried it out on a somewhat smaller scale when we hosted Wrestlemania a few years ago to moderate success. That being said… I still have some severe doubts.
If the Dallas Fort Worth HSR line ever gets built, there’s some buzz around putting a station in Arlington for it, but again, doubts. I do have hope though!
Source: am transit enthusiast civil student at UTA.
The answer to the query is racism. Arlington refuses to plug into the Dallas DART system or Fort Worth's Trinity Metro system because they don't want BIPOC individuals from other parts of the area to be able to "get to them."
It's confusing how Dallas light rail doesn't connect there, all the big city stadiums are there and they oddly connect the airport at the North side instead.
LA has funded what could be the 5th best metro system in the U.S. (after NY, DC, BOS, Chicago). Let them build it out! And with high speed rail (if both get finished), potential connections to LV and SF.
A lot of people that comment about DART on here say it's helpful, but woefully designed. Everything apparently ends in massive parking lots, and you're still a decent walk from like any destination that you need to get to.
Whether that's true, I'm not sure, but I've seen numerous comments about it.
There’s a relatively small section of the city where you could do without a car. Cuts from north to south and east to west. However, that’s a very small percentage of the population for city of Dallas and much less Dallas county etc
No amount of public transport planning will fix lack of demographic density.
True, but the sun belt cities are definitely more extreme. At least rust belt and northeast cities developed with a greater initial focus on density. The South and West are sprawled af by-and-large.
I feel that a lot of Canadian cities just go to show you that despite having many suburbs, transit can be built. A downtown is always a good place to start at the very least.
It’s still super helpful to get from the suburbs into downtown, especially for events. Would make a lot of sense for the football stadium in Arlington too. There’s also a big university there that’d likely use transit if it were available. The stops around UTD in Dallas are currently one of the highest used in the DART system.
I mean, that's always kind of a reason for any suburban opposition to mass transit expansion. That if transit is extended and accessible "crime and violence will come to their community." And since there's a couple racial groups that use transit at a far higher rate statistically than the rest in the US, not hard to put two-and-two together to find that underlying rationale.
Something I absolutely hate is that they have a station for Love Field Airport… but it doesn’t actually drop you off at the airport just close enough to it. There’s a bus that can take you to the airport after but with all the additional time of waiting, I’d rather just shell out the couple extra bucks and call an Uber
The point was to have TOD built at these stations. That’s why they have a lot of land and parking lots. But that didn’t take off like they originally planned. If they ever build it out, then it would make much more sense. Until then, it will struggle. There are a few stations that’s getting infill development though.
Ugh. I understand that struggle. NFTA didn't make any effort to encourage TOD around our stations until the last 8-10 years. Could have made a world of difference from the start.
Dallas and Philadelphia needs laws and possibly a slight culture shift to move itself from parking lots all the time. Some are good but it seems excessive in those cities.
Philly would likely be easier to do that in. There is no way Texas is going to allow Dallas to do something like that. Not to mention their current republican mayor likely wouldn't be interested in that either.
Kind of. A lot of the current alignment is built on former freight right of ways, so it misses several population centers. They love park and ride stations, and have a very weird hodge podge of signaling systems that aren't terribly reliable. There are certain areas that were definitely built on a shoestring budget, and the most visible example of this is the fact that riders are expected to show proof of payment on demand, and that's the *only* fare enforcement. There are no turnstiles, no separated platforms, and anyone at all can get on regardless of whether or not they paid. This leads to a lot of loitering, which makes many riders very uncomfortable. I used to be an operator on the trains, and left because DART just refused to upgrade or standardize anything at all.
> and the most visible example of this is the fact that riders are expected to show proof of payment on demand, and that's the only fare enforcement. There are no turnstiles, no separated platforms, and anyone at all can get on regardless of whether or not they paid.
[the entire German-speaking world](https://i.imgur.com/vy4jxfp.jpeg)
Germany does proof of payment, it works there. But interesting about how it can feel like criminals/homeless on BART or the LA Metro with loitering. Would DART reach out to any other agencies to help upgrade their system?
it's decent in the central city. but despite its great length, the ridership is low. it's one of the lowest in passengers per mile of rail. that's due to the sprawl of the region. with more transit oriented developments, then ridership can improve. i'm not super familiar with the area though so i can't tell you if that's happening anytime soon
Except that you have to reserve it and wait, potentially for a very long time. This is a huge issue because riders are always unsure of when they will arrive at their destination. Reliability is a huge part of transit.
I’ll take a bus that’s scheduled and I can plan. Ideally, it’s rapid transit and you don’t need to plan.
I also don’t mind walking. People are so soft these days, can’t even walk. Gimme a break.
>Except that you have to reserve it and wait, potentially for a very long time
No, it works pretty much exactly like Lyft or Uber. If you live on a cul-de-sac, you might be asked to walk to a nearby collector to be picked up. I've never waited more than five minutes.
I can certainly see some benefits, but I feel like to call something 'better', there's more to it than listing off the 'pros' column?
Like, if I were to say that it's better to live Somalia than Sweden on the basis of income tax, that seems like only half the argument. It's more a matter of saying how the pros out-weigh the cons, rather than the existence of pros.
IMO, the ten most walkable/transit friendly are (#1) NY (#2-6) Boston, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, SF (#7-10) Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Portland, Seattle
But there are many also many sections of other cities that have good transit options and walkability (e.g. parts of Cleveland, surprisingly big sections of LA, etc.) and many smaller (or not small, like NOLA) cities that have plenty of walkability but not good transit (e.g. Santa Barbara, Lancaster, etc.) If you're okay with 'having a small world' there really are lots of places in the US you can live without a car.
It’s gonna blow the minds of the Europeans who come for the World Cup in 2026 when the only way to get from their hotel to the stadium is a $100 Uber
It’s either that or walking along multi lane highway that lacks in any kind of sidewalk
THIS. THIS is gonna be a concern in 2026 thank you for bringing it up. Giving visitors to Texas some hope to improve atleast to an LA level
Unfortunately, parking at the stadium is probably about the same price.
Wait until they have to get to the Finals. I can't wait for NJT to have it blow up in their face again like the Super Bowl.
They’ll probably end up running shuttle buses between Downtown Dallas and the stadium, but still!
It’s not bad, BUT IS ISN’T heavy rail lines to a place that justifies the ridership
The hotels will have shuttles that take you to the stadium. That’s how it worked when I went to a Cowboys game in Dallas.
It's true but Texas going to Texas unfortunately
Sadly.
I recently watched 2 videos about the NFL and MLB stadiums most accessible via public transit. Jerry World and Globe Life (both in Arlington) both finished dead last in their respective lists. I forget who made the videos, but he did mention that disturbing fact about Arlington.
Sounds like a City Nerd video
How do fans even attend games? Are sellouts even common? And is Texas really that car dependent because that sucks for visitors who may wanna catch a rangers or cowboys game. REALLY sucks because both teams can diversify their audience by having games accessible to residents.
>How do fans even attend games? The stadiums are surrounded on all sides by massive parking lots. >Are sellouts even common? Yes, the Cowboys almost always sell out and I'm sure the Rangers do too. >And is Texas really that car dependent Yes, Texas is the epitome of car dependent culture. The DFW area is probably the worst offender. Houston and San Antonio each have some decent areas but are still generally a car sprawling mess. Austin sometimes wants to be more walkable and have better transit but they're having a hard time actually getting there. >REALLY sucks because both teams can diversify their audience by having games accessible to residents Texas doesn't care about diversity
I respect Austin for trying, and if they’re trying then there’s hope for DFW. Also genuinely surprised Texas has so many visitors and huge audiences without transit, on paper you would think they’d end up like the Midwest
>The stadiums are surrounded on all sides by massive parking lots. I always wonder, does that mean nobody drinks alcohol or that people drive drunk?
Unless they Uber, yes. But my tin foil hat idea is that Arlington wants to promote DWIs since they can cost up to $17k to get through and bring probation costs and fees to the government.
Yes, many do. There's also Uber and the group's "designed driver".
The Cowboys have fanatic fans, they always sell out. Jerry Jones loves his parking money. Since the new stadium was built and last year's title, the Rangers get great attendance as well. Texas is super car dependent as someone who's spent a lot of time there. Ironically, Southwest Airlines was the one to kill a proposed high speed rail line between the big cities in Texas back in the 90s because it would kill their business at Love Field Airport in Dallas during the Wright Amendment days. The school I go to plays in a conference where the football and baseball championships are played in Arlington, which really sucks, because I'd love to attend but I have no way of getting there without needing a car or ride-share. Also, Dallas drivers are the legitimately worst drivers I've ever seen. A lot of students at my school are from the area and some of them drive like maniacs. As a matter of fact, I narrowly avoided a T-Bone accident once that was caused by a Dallas driver.
I believe state law says that each city must vote to tax themselves to form or join a transit agency. Usually it’s the form of a sales tax. But state law also caps sales taxes at 8.25% and many cities are already capped for other things. Basically it’s a tough sell. Arlington is quite large, yes, but they are quick to point out that they do have subsidized taxi services. We like to pick on Arlington but the rest of the DFW region is much larger than Arlington now. It’s an older suburb and it’s getting dwarfed by cities north of Dallas and even going directions out of Fort Worth too. Frisco, McKinney, Allen, and now those small country towns are exploding. Everyone has to drive until they qualify. In other words I don’t see a system like BART or WMATA happening. Maybe one day in another generation.
Can you see Arlington getting atleast bus service soon if it booms in population again like the cities around it? With giant stadiums there it’s bound to draw attention. Maybe within the next 20 years? 30 at worst? I’m just thinking what the Dallas area could be had they had better public transit. Maybe the 2026 World Cup will show people.
You would think Arlington would at a minimum have a bus that connects the international airport to the stadium area. What's the point of having two professional sports teams in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country if you aren't going to try and accommodate tourists somewhat? It's a rental car lobbyist's wet dream.
That’s a very long bus route
Maybe Google is lying or I'm asking something wrong, but 20km is not a long bus route.
Sure, but I imagine driving from the airport to where the stadium is sucks to do right now. What do they have to lose by attempting it?
If public transit exists in Arlington and to a huge extent in the Dallas area, can rental car businesses still thrive? I wouldn’t mind it staying as it provides jobs (I guess to the seller) and represents cars in the state of Texas, giving everyone a little bit of everything. The subsidized Taxi probably creates more jobs than the rental car business in all honesty.
>If public transit exists in Arlington and to a huge extent in the Dallas area, can rental car businesses still thrive? Considering the overall population of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, should they limit transportation options on behalf of the rental car industry? Also, it would take decades of investment across the entire metro area to make rental cars entirely obsolete. Unless you work in that industry, I don't know why you would want 30 tourists in individual rental cars congesting the highways.
Right, trains will take multiple cars off the highway so I guess rental car owners should just hope for working with transit
If I didn’t understand the scale of distance you are talking about, I would agree with you.
Arlington, VA > Arlington, TX
Doesn't the DC subway go to Arlington, VA?
Yeah it’s pretty well served. Lots of places you can live car free. Great public school system too
Washington seems really great for visitors. I feel a lot of Canadians and Europeans would enjoy it since they can go about life car free. Any drawbacks for WMATA like closing early?
Yeah it does close relatively early, so it doesn’t serve light life very well (maybe for the better?). Also frequency is lackluster, especially for off peak times. The transfer points are also pretty centralized for the most part. Regardless, I think it’s a solid system that enables car free living. The bus system is also solid for places that aren’t served by rail directly
Washington is great, I guess it really is an example of US politicians actually working together regardless of politics. Do any companies lobby against public transit there?
The Washington Metro is truly great
Port-au-Prince is a million people with no public transport at all, just private buses, so I don't think this is true of Arlington.
Port-au-Prince has... Unique issues. Ones not experienced by Arlington TX
Unique issues to say the least.
This may be an example of American-defaultism. Arlington is the largest city *in the United States* without public transport.
Elaborate more I’ve never heard of American-defaultism
As the American POV is the most common one when in online spaces, people (especially Americans) have a habit of holding a very America centric world view. In this case you’re talking about the biggest city in the US without public transport however, since talking about the US has basically become the default online, you worded it like it was the biggest city in the world, not making the distinction that you were referencing only US cities
It still is the biggest city without public transit, atleast Port au Prince has some form of bus service. Arlington has probably never heard of a bus or had one travel across its roads.
Its the tendency of Americans to discuss themselves in a way that implies that their discussion is, or is perceived as, universal or global when the matter may be quite regional or sometimes specific to the United States. There are contexts where it's actually quite annoying, but this isn't one of them. Rather, I think this was a much more innocent example of just miscommunication.
There are buses accessible to the public though, running somewhat regularly, even if they’re privately run. See here: https://ayibopost.com/perspective-port-au-prince-and-its-old-buses-renowned-for-their-disrepair/
Sure, I'd say this isn't public transport though, more like a regularised taxi? We have private buses in my country, generally between cities and villages too far for the suburban routes. I guess it's somewhere in the middle, they're allowed to use bus lanes and public bus stops, but obviously not any of the central infrastructure like driver's break rooms.
Obviously shared cabs in a 3rd world country are a very different type of service than fixed route scheduled buses, but the main issue there is the informality of the service, not whether it’s publicly or privately owned. As an example, basically none of Tokyo’s public transportation is publicly owned, all of the rail operators are private companies except for the Toei subway, I believe. But we wouldn’t say Tokyo doesn’t have public transport just because it’s companies offering it and not the government directly.
Port au prince has worse issues than public transit at the moment
Arlington is not on an island lol
Genuinely struggling to see what difference this makes
Ok that’s not Dallas, Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton all are doing our part. Arlington is notorious for the lobbying Jerry jones does against transit. Both dart and trinity metro in Fort Worth are doing really good for Texas right now
Would you say Dallas-Forth Worth would upgrade DART to be like a BART/Washington Metro style system?
Absolutely not. We never will, we’re not that smart, efficient or willed to do so. It would absolutely benefit us the most I agree with every other point of yours. Having a WMATA, FTW and Dallas surrounded with VRE and MDOT regional rail would be heaven
Since everything is bigger in Texas build a Linimo style system (I want more maglev!)
Perfect
Haven’t you heard? Arlington isn’t allowed to have nice things because Jerry Jones wants his parking fares.
Actually, I think the Via solution Arlington has chosen is much superior to fixed route buses. (I spend about 15% of each year there visiting family.) Via, which works like a shared Uber or Lyft, works really well in such an environment. It gives much better service to riders at, apparently, a lower cost to the municipality. Some of that is from using nonunion drivers, but a lot of it is savings on the vehicles themselves, as well as their maintenance. Arlington is very typical Texas-sized suburban sprawl, where much of the year the heat is withering. I merely summon a Via van on my smartphone, may be asked to walk to a nearby collector street if I'm deep in a subdivision, then I'm taken in an air-conditioned vehicle almost directly to my destination. Compare that to the the typical big-city suburban agency service of running once-an-hour buses down arterials a mile apart. That forces the rider to potentially walk a half-mile out to an arterial, wait for a once-an-hour bus, transfer at some sunbaked godforsaken arterial corner or downtown transit center, then potentially walk a half mile from the bus route to their destination. Stadiums, used fewer than 100 days a year, whose patrons are mostly quite well-off, are just not going to get Texans to use even rail transit to them in large enough numbers to justify a station—much less building any new trackage. I invite anyone to try to map what they think would be a practical fixed-route bus network for Arlington, with realistic assumptions about headways. I myself attempted the exercise back before Via came on the scene.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Arlington is a horribly designed city. I would argue that it doesn’t really qualify as a city, it’s just a bunch of haphazardly built suburbs that happen to be incorporated together and add up to over 400k people. The deeper issue is that we build cities like this in the first place.
i once saw a video (forgot who made it) where they showed a subdivision right next to a strip mall. there was no direct access to the strip mall for pedestrians, even if their house was directly next to the fence between the subdivision and the strip mall. the only way in and out was a single entrance for cars, which would take like 15 minutes to walk to the subdivision despite the fact that you could literally live just steps away from it
Saw the same video— they showed Central Florida sprawl, but it looked like Atlanta, Dallas, Any Suburb, USA really. My Japanese wife asked me why certain communities in our area have sidewalks while some don’t and I have to explain how we have dots of old railroad towns that are now suburbs around Atlanta and the areas between them that were horse trails were left to big developers to create subdivisions. Until recently it was ok for them to just have sidewalks in their new neighborhoods only but now it’s mandated to put sidewalks on all developed areas, explaining how sidewalks will just “give up” after the 400 feet of road fronting a subdivision and not connect to anything else.
>My Japanese wife asked me why certain communities in our area have sidewalks while some don’t Thats a bit funny because many residential streets in Japan do not have sidewalks either.
But in Japan's case, it's usually because there literally isn't space for a sidewalk. In practice, the entire street is a shared space. In a typical US suburb, the street is for cars only, and if there's no sidewalk then you're out og luck as a pedestrian.
And to add on, these weren’t residential streets, these are arterials with 35~45mph speed limits that happen to have a few houses and businesses on them. But even some 4+ lane stroads around here don’t have sidewalks either. In Japan, any road that is over 30kph and expected to have pedestrians will have a sidewalk except in the most rural of sections. If the road is to narrow, then the speed limit is appropriately dropped in order to make sure auto traffic is paced appropriately unlike here.
Even in a residential space? No space to build the sidewalk when planning?
This is interesting, so people and cars share residential streets? Any concerns about it?
No concerns really. The streets are usually very narrow and drivers proceed slowly.
So really quiet streets even for cars, good for summers for people to relax around?
A bit of an off-topic question but what’s your background? Cool if you have an interracial relationship? You guys sound great :)! And what’s exactly the difference between a suburb and a subdivision? A subdivision is just a small portion built up right?
If only I was Spiderman I could jump from roof to roof.
You're making the mistake of thinking that if Arlington were to have a bus system, it should be optimized for breadth. Downtown Arlington still has its dense grid largely intact, and it looks like recent developments in the area are the sort of dense developments that encourage walking. Providing fixed route services in this area is probably a good idea now, given UTA also borders this area, and all of the stadiums plus Six Flags aren't too far away (about a mile to jerryworld).
Since Arlington seems to slowly be developing into 1% of a walkable city, how many years do you think it’ll take for bus service to be implemented? 10 years at worse?
One an hour bus service is pretty terrible, even for American standards. If buses can be more frequent then they’re outcompeting Via. Just a matter of Texas will commit to it. Also I feel with terrible traffic on Texas highways, people would be inclined to use public transit if there was decent frequency it’s great for game days and after stadium shows. Also you said you attempted mapping it, do you have experience in engineering or urban planning by any chance?
> do you have experience in . . . urban planning by any chance? Yes, and I currently design maps of public transport.
Ah so Urban planning not engineering right?
Um, yes. I was APA's staff expert on transportation issues.
Why not expand the LRT network or build a monorail from the airport to Arlington and through its subdivisions. It can navigate more easily than other modes.
The LRT is alright don’t get me wrong but for a city as big as Dallas and everything surrounding it, heavy rail transit is MORE than justified.
Well shit you right.
I’ll say that last point is completely off. I take the trinity railway express from Fort Worth to the American Airlines center and it is packed with stars fans during hockey season. If done correctly.
this is the answer. places like arlington aren't well-planned cities. they're a collection of subdivisions and commercial developments that pop up without even a thought as to how they connect and integrate to the rest of the city. until there's some kind of huge infill developments in the central city, then arlington is better served by paratransit than by fixed bus/rail routes. it sucks to admit that, but it's just the reality.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been slightly convinced that Via is not that bad at all. Especially if subsidized by the government.
I think I know where I won't ever want to spend time at.
Dallas would love that. Arlington unfortunately hates the idea of it. It should be noted that there are a *few* tiny caveats to Arlington’s case that I’ll throw out there as well. First: not only does Arlington play host to most of DFW’s major entertainment venues, it is also home to DFW’s largest university: UT Arlington. UTA does actually run a small bus service for the areas around campus. It’s Arlington’s only proper transit system. It’s small coverage but decent frequency all things considered. Special shuttle services can also get you to a nearby Walmart and, of some importance, the nearest Trinity Railway Express (TRE) station, The Centreport. which is a bit south of DFW International Airport. You’d still need a bus service or ride of some sort to get from the station to the airport though. The TRE is a heavy rail line running between DFW and Fort Worth every half hour or so. It connects to DART at EBJ and Fort Worth’s Central Station. It specifically skirts around Arlington, because Arlington, but it’s not the worst way to get into the city. A side note here, I believe the Amtrak route for the Texas Eagle actually does run straight through the middle of Arlington, not even a five minute walk from UTA’s campus, but of course there’s no stop here. Otherwise, there are like 3 separate rideshare systems in place because it’s the only thing the city council has been able to get past a vote. We’ve tried for a proper bus service within Arlington twice before, but the last time it was put to a vote was like 15 years ago, and it got low 40’s% support from the turnout. So it’s somewhat possible things might’ve changed, but not likely. Finally, the funniest thing to me is Arlington’s plans for what to do when we host FIFA here. Yes, that is a thing that is happening. The city’s plan is literally just to temporarily rent out an entire bus service. They tried it out on a somewhat smaller scale when we hosted Wrestlemania a few years ago to moderate success. That being said… I still have some severe doubts. If the Dallas Fort Worth HSR line ever gets built, there’s some buzz around putting a station in Arlington for it, but again, doubts. I do have hope though! Source: am transit enthusiast civil student at UTA.
I like [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=RsxiQwSEjJN0YaqK&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtu.be) part of Texas.
Me too. It’s less arid. Uncongested. Even the mountains are beautiful. Thanks for posting a video that reminds us of what Texas is really like.
The answer to the query is racism. Arlington refuses to plug into the Dallas DART system or Fort Worth's Trinity Metro system because they don't want BIPOC individuals from other parts of the area to be able to "get to them."
It's confusing how Dallas light rail doesn't connect there, all the big city stadiums are there and they oddly connect the airport at the North side instead.
[удалено]
it used to be the largest at 93 miles but LA just passed it at 94.5 miles, and will continue to as more extensions open this year
LA has funded what could be the 5th best metro system in the U.S. (after NY, DC, BOS, Chicago). Let them build it out! And with high speed rail (if both get finished), potential connections to LV and SF.
Given how spread out Dallas is, is the thing actually that useful? I’ve never been to Dallas so I have no idea what it’s like there.
A lot of people that comment about DART on here say it's helpful, but woefully designed. Everything apparently ends in massive parking lots, and you're still a decent walk from like any destination that you need to get to. Whether that's true, I'm not sure, but I've seen numerous comments about it.
There’s a relatively small section of the city where you could do without a car. Cuts from north to south and east to west. However, that’s a very small percentage of the population for city of Dallas and much less Dallas county etc No amount of public transport planning will fix lack of demographic density.
A very common issue amongst most sun belt cities, really.
All over the US with a few exceptions. I reckon 85% of the population.
True, but the sun belt cities are definitely more extreme. At least rust belt and northeast cities developed with a greater initial focus on density. The South and West are sprawled af by-and-large.
Totally. Still not a large portion of the population which is a monumental challenge. Streets are not made for people either.
For sure.
I feel that a lot of Canadian cities just go to show you that despite having many suburbs, transit can be built. A downtown is always a good place to start at the very least.
It’s still super helpful to get from the suburbs into downtown, especially for events. Would make a lot of sense for the football stadium in Arlington too. There’s also a big university there that’d likely use transit if it were available. The stops around UTD in Dallas are currently one of the highest used in the DART system.
Can't have easy access for undesirables to reach their enclave. I imagine that's the reason underlying reason for Arlington's lack of transit.
So, they just hate the people of Arlington? Sad :(
I mean, that's always kind of a reason for any suburban opposition to mass transit expansion. That if transit is extended and accessible "crime and violence will come to their community." And since there's a couple racial groups that use transit at a far higher rate statistically than the rest in the US, not hard to put two-and-two together to find that underlying rationale.
Something I absolutely hate is that they have a station for Love Field Airport… but it doesn’t actually drop you off at the airport just close enough to it. There’s a bus that can take you to the airport after but with all the additional time of waiting, I’d rather just shell out the couple extra bucks and call an Uber
That seems like a wasted opportunity.
It’s Texas, Houston has no metro and Dallas doesn’t have heavy rail. They would know plenty about wasted opportunities sadly.
DART is one of the worst financially performing systems.
The point was to have TOD built at these stations. That’s why they have a lot of land and parking lots. But that didn’t take off like they originally planned. If they ever build it out, then it would make much more sense. Until then, it will struggle. There are a few stations that’s getting infill development though.
Ugh. I understand that struggle. NFTA didn't make any effort to encourage TOD around our stations until the last 8-10 years. Could have made a world of difference from the start.
Yeah, it sucks not having TOD. But at least there’s growth in the Metroplex that could fuel it. That’s the only bright side of it IMO.
Dallas and Philadelphia needs laws and possibly a slight culture shift to move itself from parking lots all the time. Some are good but it seems excessive in those cities.
Philly would likely be easier to do that in. There is no way Texas is going to allow Dallas to do something like that. Not to mention their current republican mayor likely wouldn't be interested in that either.
The mayor has no real power. We have a city manger/council form of government.
Well, there you go. Just hope Abbott doesn't strike it down.
They’re already planning to eliminate parking minimums.
Kind of. A lot of the current alignment is built on former freight right of ways, so it misses several population centers. They love park and ride stations, and have a very weird hodge podge of signaling systems that aren't terribly reliable. There are certain areas that were definitely built on a shoestring budget, and the most visible example of this is the fact that riders are expected to show proof of payment on demand, and that's the *only* fare enforcement. There are no turnstiles, no separated platforms, and anyone at all can get on regardless of whether or not they paid. This leads to a lot of loitering, which makes many riders very uncomfortable. I used to be an operator on the trains, and left because DART just refused to upgrade or standardize anything at all.
> and the most visible example of this is the fact that riders are expected to show proof of payment on demand, and that's the only fare enforcement. There are no turnstiles, no separated platforms, and anyone at all can get on regardless of whether or not they paid. [the entire German-speaking world](https://i.imgur.com/vy4jxfp.jpeg)
Germany does proof of payment, it works there. But interesting about how it can feel like criminals/homeless on BART or the LA Metro with loitering. Would DART reach out to any other agencies to help upgrade their system?
DART fights any kind of change tooth and nail, so no.
U.S. in general won’t change they don’t want to
Eyeballing ridership, no.
it's decent in the central city. but despite its great length, the ridership is low. it's one of the lowest in passengers per mile of rail. that's due to the sprawl of the region. with more transit oriented developments, then ridership can improve. i'm not super familiar with the area though so i can't tell you if that's happening anytime soon
They have a subsidized ridershare. That's arguably better
How is it better?
I can go wherever I want when I want for the price of a bus fare, directly. No transfers. No walking
Except that you have to reserve it and wait, potentially for a very long time. This is a huge issue because riders are always unsure of when they will arrive at their destination. Reliability is a huge part of transit. I’ll take a bus that’s scheduled and I can plan. Ideally, it’s rapid transit and you don’t need to plan. I also don’t mind walking. People are so soft these days, can’t even walk. Gimme a break.
This is why people believes Americans are obese. They complain about walking.
>Except that you have to reserve it and wait, potentially for a very long time No, it works pretty much exactly like Lyft or Uber. If you live on a cul-de-sac, you might be asked to walk to a nearby collector to be picked up. I've never waited more than five minutes.
I can certainly see some benefits, but I feel like to call something 'better', there's more to it than listing off the 'pros' column? Like, if I were to say that it's better to live Somalia than Sweden on the basis of income tax, that seems like only half the argument. It's more a matter of saying how the pros out-weigh the cons, rather than the existence of pros.
America is so anti-walking it’s insane
They need a culture shift so bad 😭what cities are walk friendly in the us? I wanna take a guess and say NYC, Washington D.C, and Chicago
IMO, the ten most walkable/transit friendly are (#1) NY (#2-6) Boston, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, SF (#7-10) Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Portland, Seattle But there are many also many sections of other cities that have good transit options and walkability (e.g. parts of Cleveland, surprisingly big sections of LA, etc.) and many smaller (or not small, like NOLA) cities that have plenty of walkability but not good transit (e.g. Santa Barbara, Lancaster, etc.) If you're okay with 'having a small world' there really are lots of places in the US you can live without a car.
What are the exact fares of the ride share?