March 4, 2025 • 31 mins
This episode highlights our challenge of exploring Dallas exclusively via public transit. Our journey reveals the good and bad of navigating a major city without a car while incorporating the unique sights of the Dallas landscape.
- Testing DART's capabilities in real-time
- Encountering Dallas's landmarks, including the zoo and Bishop Arts District
- Our experiences with transit frequency and efficiency
- Observations on the lack of direct transit routes and bus connections
- Insights into the history and transformation of Dallas neighborhoods
- Recommendations for future transit adventures and improvements
If you'd like to support the show and help us continue our transit explorations, please consider joining us on Patreon!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
Bus stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
On this episode, we exploreDallas in a day using only
(00:21):
public transit.
We put the trains and buses ofthe DART system to the test to
see how challenging it is to getaround Dallas without a day
using only public transit.
We put the trains and buses ofthe Dart system to the test to
see how challenging it is to getaround Dallas without a car.
All of this and more coming upon Transit Tangents.
We are in downtown Dallas,Union Station.
We're doing Dallas in a dayusing only public transit.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We're very curious to see how this is gonna go.
We've done Austin, which waspretty good.
We've done Houston, whichsurprised us.
Yep, a lot of good trainservice, a lot of good bus
service.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We just got back from a very chilly Washington DC.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We did that as well.
We've done Salt Lake.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
City, which was also very cold, new Orleans, new
Orleans, that was on the hotterside.
We're really adding to the listhere.
So thank you all so much forthe support for being able to
help get us to all these places.
But yeah, kansas City coming upnext.
But yeah, we're reallyinterested to see what a day in
Dallas is like, using onlypublic transit to get around.
We'll ride the dark light rail,we'll take buses, maybe some
(01:16):
bike share.
We'll see throughout the day Ifwe can find the bike share If
we can find the bike share.
We're going to start off here.
Here, though, by popping on thered line headed towards the zoo
.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yep, so we're gonna head towards the zoo, where
we'll also see one of the brandnew CAP programs, over the
highway, and then explore alittle bit of South Dallas from
there.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
While we get on the train.
If you could like this video,we would appreciate it.
You can also support the showby subscribing, checking out our
merch store or supporting us onPatreon.
So we made it to the zoo.
We took a quick walk from thetrain station itself or the
(02:01):
light rail station itself.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
To this lovely parking lot, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And before we get into this lovely sculpture
behind us, a couple things Iwant to point out.
I noticed at the light railstop there were a couple spots
for buses to pull in for easyconnections there.
We're going to get on somebuses later in the day, but not
yet.
But the main reason we camehere is Chris really wanted to
see this giraffe.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I have driven past this giraffe so many times,
leaving Dallas.
I've never actually seen it upclose.
So now we're seeing this giantlike 40 foot tall giraffe
sculpture.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And then another, more legitimate reason even why
we walked over here.
But, if you look past thegiraffe sculpture.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
You see the new park the new highway cap.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yep, and we talked a little bit about this in our
highway caps episode.
We did actually in Dallas atClyde Warren Park.
But yeah, there's a new highwaycap being built.
You can see some of the likeI'm assuming our installation or
building that's going on topright over the kind of wall here
.
We can't really get any closerto get a better view.
But interesting to see Dallasinvesting more in some highway
(03:04):
caps.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Austin.
Pay attention.
My nervous laugh here is inpart because, since our cap and
stitch episode came out, thevote for the plans was pushed
back due to tech stop beingbehind schedule, which gave the
city some extra leeway.
Now, though, with federal grantprograms up in the air, I
personally get nervous about thecity taking on the expense with
the potential lack of federalhelp.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It is 1140 and we have hit snag number one.
From the Dallas Zoo area, we'regoing to check out the Bishop
Arts District Very cool kind oftrendy place in South Dallas.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You would think this being a major transportation
stop the zoo there'd be a directbus from here to there, right,
or like a bus that gets you inthe right direction, but all of
the stuff is saying basicallylike go up a stop and then take
another bus or walk, and all ofthe options.
It's actually ends up beinglike the same amount of time to
walk About 30 minutes total,yeah.
So now it is a long walk.
(03:56):
So I think we are gonna trydoing train to bus.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, we'll keep you posted.
So back to the red line.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So this is not a microphone.
So the trains, as we justdiscovered, are running at about
a 20 minute frequency.
The next one's in four minutes,the one after that is in 23
minutes and we're not that farfrom downtown, so you would
expect maybe a little bit fasterfrequency for being a Friday in
Dallas, right, hopefully wedon't miss any trains.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
All right, so we made it to Tyler Vernon Station,
just one further stop down theRed Line.
As far as what's around thestation, there are a couple
things here.
We've got a brewery Oak CliffBrewing A couple food trucks and
whatnot.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Pegasus Reuse, which is like a creative reuse store
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Otherwise not much.
It's a lot of single-familyhomes and things are pretty
spread out.
There is a bike lane.
It is on a road that people aredriving a little quick on, but
it has got a little bit ofseparation with their version of
like a what do you call themArmillo or something?
yeah, the zebra dillos, yep, um,yeah, uh.
(05:29):
Also of note, we've seen acouple buses kind of pop through
and pick people up, so it'sdefinitely like a hub for buses
as well.
We're waiting for one, but uh,it's about 15 minutes before yep
, we have a bus.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Uh, we have a bus coming in, yeah, about 15
minutes.
Uh, we'll grab that one headover to the Bishop Arts District
.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
We had a few options for buses, but the 226 would be
next to arrive.
We got on without issue and wewere on our way to Bishop Arts.
Despite waiting a little bitfor the bus connection there, it
(06:14):
did take us kind of right tothe section of town we wanted to
go here and the bus wasefficient and we weren't sitting
around waiting or anything likethat.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So total trip time from the train station to Bishop
Arts is about eight minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so can't really complain too much about that
either and I think even with theweight we probably did beat our
walk time and we would be muchtired or Tireder More tired.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
How tired are you now ?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, but we have made it to the Bishop Arts District.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
This is an area that in the 1920s was developed as a
commercial corridor in southdallas.
By the 60s 70s this area haddeclined economically pretty
significantly and then therewere a lot of efforts in the 80s
and 90s to start revitalizingthis area and brought us to the
district arts that we know today.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, and as we were on the bus, I could start to see
some like new developmenthappening as well, uh, kind of
bigger apartment buildings andwhatnot.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
so, yeah, Time is 12 49.
We stopped in the Bishop's ArtsDistrict and grabbed a quick
lunch at Veracruz Cafe verydelicious, highly recommend if
you are in the neighborhood.
And what are we doing next?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Uh, we're gonna pop on another bus headed towards
downtown Dallas.
I believe it was the 49.
I will correct that.
If I'm wrong about the bus, itruns about every 20 minutes from
here to downtown, so we'll gotry to catch that and see you
all in downtown Dallas.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We are making a slight correction.
As we walk around the BishopArts District we realized the
Dallas Street Cars SouthernTerminus is right here in the
district and we can take itstraight back to downtown,
basically back to our hotelright at the Union Station.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
The Dallas Street Car is a two and a half mile line
that runs from Union Station toOak Cliff, right near the
Bishop's Arts District.
It opened for service in 2015and was funded in part by a
Tiger Grant, if you'reinterested in learning more
about the grants.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
We talked about them a little bit in a very early
episode.
We learned something new.
I didn't know what the term wasfor the little thing that goes
up and touches the power linesabove a streetcar.
Turns out it is called apantograph.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, and while we were on this Dallas streetcar
here, uh, halfway through theride the driver actually had to
get out to go like verify thatit went up.
Um, it seems like half of thisdoesn't have the electric
connection up top and it mustrun on battery for part of it,
and then the other half it'srunning with the pantograph up.
Uh, getting a current.
Um, we also just ran intosomeone who lives here in dallas
(08:42):
and said he'd never seen thisbefore, so I think we just found
a pretty niche, uh, transititem that maybe isn't super
heavily used.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Maybe it is, I don't know, it could be we, so we're
using this halfway like middayum, after lunch, you know, a lot
of people are still at work andso maybe it is more popular for
commuters going between Dallas,downtown Dallas and, like,
south Dallas.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But there were maybe four people who jumped on while
we were on, which isn't abnormalfor the middle of the day, I
mean, like it's kind of a randomtime, um, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh, and although good experience you got like a nice
view through south Dallas,there's a lot of development, uh
that has sprung up along thisuh line.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So it has all of the right elements to be well used.
Totally one issue with it andkind of everything we've seen so
far today.
We haven't been hampered toomuch by it but like the
frequencies on everything, it'sbeen every 20 minutes on
everything that we've ridden allday, 30 minutes on one of the
buses I think we just likelucked out on it.
So so far as far as frequenciesgoes, this is kind of in the
lowest frequencies of any citywe've been to so far.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I think trains in central downtown are going to be
a little faster, but we'regoing to take a walk through
downtown and find out Walkingthrough downtown and a notable
thing that happened here, JFKwas actually assassinated.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Someone shot him from outside of this building, so
avoid this area in a convertible.
Chris is shaking his head Toosoon.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Too soon.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Lewis.
Too soon, too soon.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Also near the JFK site.
You can take the train or thebus a couple blocks over and
you'll be at the DallasHolocaust and Human Rights
Museum Also a good thing to comecheck out in downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
We are currently walking down Pacific Street.
This is kind of the main trunkline where all of the light
rails that cut through downtownall run down.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
What's really great about the street is that they've
dedicated it to the light rail,so you can ride a bike down,
you can sort of walk down thestreet, but for the most part
there's no cars, no buses, it isjust the light rail using
Pacific.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Avenue and it seems like that actually has decent
signal priority doing all, goingover all the cross streets and
that sort of Thing which we loveto see absolutely On this main
trunk line along Pacific Streetthat we've noticed the frequency
of the trains Feels much higher.
Yeah, a lot of that is becausethis is where multiple of the
train lines are kind ofconverging in blue, the orange,
(11:03):
the red, think the yellow.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He meant green, all of them sort of converge here.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Right, it feels like more like every five minutes or
something a train is going by ineither direction.
So love to see that in the area.
Cool, all righty, we are herein Thanksgiving Square, great
little public space right indowntown.
You've got some nice areas tosit, some fountains and things
like that.
It's shady, which in the summeris kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It's like a myriad of religious themes it's not one
set religion here and there'skind of this spiral
cathedral-esque building behindus.
It's very pretty, very tranquilspace that was built around
1964 in downtown Dallas, nice.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I'm trying to hypnotize everyone into more
transit, more transit.
Hopefully, sean Duffy, bringpositive words about trains,
build more of them.
From here we are going to popback on the train, we're going
(12:06):
to get on the green line andtake that towards deep ellum.
Yes, one thing that I think isa little interesting is, like
the, the rolling stock is prettyaged, I will say.
Not great for accessibilityeither.
You have to walk up a flight ofstairs getting on any of these.
Um, but in this trip and inanother trip where we've been
here, they do go very fast, muchfaster than most light rails, I
(12:27):
will say yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So we took the train from downtown.
We're just kind of to the eastof downtown in a section called
Deep Ellum Yep, really popularneighborhood.
It is kind of the definition ofa gentrified neighborhood in
Dallas.
Yep, you can actually find outa lot about the history of this
neighborhood through the MeganKimball book City Limits where
she talks about the highwayexpansion that kind of ripped
(12:51):
through this neighborhood.
But we did take the green lineover here and what we have
noticed now that we're here isthat the green line is running
at a 20 minute frequency, andagain it is 220 on a Friday, you
know.
So we would think there'd be alittle higher frequency here, a
lot of people kind of going home, maybe a little early on a
friday, but the 20 minutes was abit surprising, right?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
and I mean, is it peak hours yet?
No, but like I don't know.
That's dallas is a what is this?
The help major city in the us?
Like it's like the seventhlargest city in the us it's in
the top 10 largest cities in thecountry.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's like around number seven.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I Every 20 minutes in this proximity to downtown is
not great.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No, but we are close to downtown.
It's an easy train ride.
We just wish they were maybelike 10 minutes, yeah.
So one thing I love about DeepEllum is that you have this sort
of robot sculpture theme verylike silver, guitar-esque
looking robot and all theselittle silver birds around him
while he's playing his guitar.
It's actually art that wascommissioned by DART, which is
(13:52):
the Dallas Area Rapid Transit,and it's great.
It's a great thing to come andstopped in Deep Ellum, had a
(14:13):
nice little coffee at MerrittCoffee, which if you're from
Austin, you'll also be veryfamiliar with Merritt.
Walked around Deep Ellum for alittle bit and then we jumped
back on the Green Line and tookthat over to Fair Park.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yes, fair Park is another stop on the Green Line
and this is also where this wasthe second park in the city of
Dallas, second public park.
It's looking a little sad rightnow.
They're doing some draining ofponds and whatnot, but I can
imagine it in all of its glory.
It's probably beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Fair Park is home to the famous Texas State Fair,
where you have many differentexpositions, from technology and
transportation, farming, allkinds of things, not to mention
the famous Midway and the placewhere I think deep-fried Oreos
might have been inventedBasically, anything deep-fried
you can find here.
There's also museums and allkinds of other things to see.
(15:03):
This became the sort ofepicenter of this became the
sort of epicenter of Texas andTexas things and expositions
because in 1936, we had theTexas Centennial celebration
right here, where all of theseArt Deco buildings that we're
surrounded by were built, andsince then they've been
maintained and restored andcontinue to be used for Texans.
(15:23):
Today, maybe we'll see aBicentennial coming up here.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
That would be pretty cool to see.
Another fun fact about thisstop is that Chris had like a
brief one month stint.
Maybe we'll see a bicentennialcoming up here.
That would be pretty cool tosee.
Another fun fact about thisstop is that Chris had like a
brief one month stint, living inDallas and commuted through
here quite a bit I did.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I lived in Dallas for one month, out of Carrollton,
and I would commute fromCarrollton to Fair Park to
practice for the Dallas Opera.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I just learned this moments ago also, so I'm as
shocked as you are.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Do you want to belt out a couple lines for us?
Oddly enough, I was a rockclimber in the Dallas Opera of
Everest.
We'll throw up some photos ifyou're watching, so you can
actually like see what the stageand everything look like.
It's kind of ridiculous but funlittle fact, totally.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yes, it is giving very abandoned, vibes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
This is like a section of Disney that people
just stop going to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
All.
The eeriest part is theflagpoles with no flags on them,
and you're just hearing thething ringing against it.
Anyway, we are headed back tothe Green Line Station at Fair
Park.
We were going to be taking abus up towards SMU.
It seems like, though, thefastest route is going to be to
take two trains.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Two trains and do a transfer.
You either had to transfer abus or a train.
The bus is about 41 minutes,the train is about 25 minutes or
so.
Right, so it is 3.30 now.
We're kind of fighting thesetting sun, so we're going to
hop on the train and move alittle quicker.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, the setting sun , so we're gonna hop on the
train and move a little quicker,yeah, and in general, there's
just been a lot less buses, yeah, that are frequent, like we had
seen in houston, um, and inother texas cities, honestly,
but obviously, like san antonioand austin don't really have
real rail options for the mostpart, so, um, it makes sense,
but, uh, the good news, though,is that you know the rail does
(17:11):
move fast and everything but,for the lack of frequency on the
rails here.
It feels like there probablyshould be more bus options that
run fairly parallel.
I don't know, yeah also.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
uh, if you are watching, if you're listening,
you haven't seen this, but ifyou're watching, if you're
listening, you haven't seen this, but if you're watching, you
may have noticed I have a hoodieon that says Transit Tangents
with our logo on it.
It is super comfortable, it isvery nice in this chilly weather
and it can be yours not thisone, but you can buy this on our
new store, which you can get onthe link to the YouTube video.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And there's more than just sweatshirts.
There too, there's t-shirts,all sorts of stuff like that,
hats and socks, yep, and inaddition to Patreon, that is
another way you can help supportthe show if you want to help do
so.
Absolutely Slight change ofplans.
Yeah, so the train was gonna be19 minutes before the next one.
Obviously not great, but wefound a series of two buses that
(18:08):
will hypothetically get usthere faster.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We'll jump on the 23, which picks up right here in
front of Fair Park, and then wewill transfer to the 3, which
will take us straight toMockingbird Station, which is
next door to SMU.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So fingers crossed that the transfer goes well.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Thanks, Hello, hello, thank you, thanks.
You're a transit agent.
I'm sorry.
What do you serve me?
Oh, transit tangent.
So we do a podcast.
It's all about public transit.
So we go to cities and we ridearound and then talk about how
good or bad or like what theexperience is, like that kind of
stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, Hopefully people are getting off of it.
This is the bus we need, butwill you get across the street
first, watching it potentiallycreep by?
Oh boy, oh boy, yeah, oh boy,oh boy, oh boy, yeah, that ain't
(19:09):
going to go long.
Well, maybe this is where we'rerunning.
Oh, the light is changing.
Is anyone getting off?
They're just right by it.
It's getting stuck with thelight up there.
We can try.
Do you want to try or no?
I think we're cooked.
So the bus we were on got stuckat an intersection right here
(19:32):
at the light.
For a second we had to take thebus over the intersection, get
off and then on foot cross backover, and while we were sitting
at the light, the bus we goingthe opposite direction uh went
by and we missed it by likeseconds.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, um, but we're gonna try to catch another bus
in about four minutes, whichmeans we need to get back on the
other side.
Okay, so we should go.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That would be yeah, because otherwise it's going to
be like almost 20 minutes forthe next bus yeah, uh, the one
oh.
Although I see a bus coming,could it just be on.
No, it's a school bus.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
The 1-05 should pick up right here, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So we're going right back to the bus stop.
We were just at First littlesnafu of the day.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
That was a journey.
Yes, we tried to get to thethree bus.
We got caught by the trafficsignal.
Didn't make it had to go backacross the street to wait for
the 105.
And then we waited longer thanexpected for the 105 because
there's just no signal priority.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It was a very poorly timed light.
Yeah, we watched our bus sitthrough at least four cycles of
the traffic light with threeother.
There are three buses sittingat the light basically the whole
time waiting to go, and that'slike a downfall of not having
any dedicated lanes for a busand a downfall of buses in
general, versus like rail orsomething like that where you're
not having to deal with thetraffic and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
But we did finally make it to mockingbird finally
made it to mockingbird stationat about 4.18 is when we uh,
when the bus landed here, landed, rolled in, stopped.
Yes, uh, mockingbird Station isreally cool.
It's very nice like urbandevelopment, very transit
oriented development.
You have the red and the orangelines that come through here.
I think the blue as well, maybe.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm not sure.
We'll look at it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We have multiple train lines that come in through
here.
You have multiple bus linesthat converge here.
You have the hike and bike pathas well through here.
So just a lot of connectivity,and it's also next door to SMU
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And we're going to, I believe, walk over towards SMU.
This is also where George WBush's Presidential Library is,
at SMU, so we're going to gotake a little bit of a walk from
over here and check some ofthat out.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So if you do a recall back to our cap and stitch
program episode, we talked aboutcaps versus stitches.
What we're standing on rightnow is really a stitch and what
that means is that it is a capover the bridge that doesn't
extend like you have parks on it, but it does have a wide
boulevard, really wide sidewalks, and makes the crossing of the
(22:04):
highway a little better yeah alittle better in this case, it's
still pretty.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You do get some plantings here, uh, but you got
the texas turnaround in themiddle of it here too, which
makes it a little less appealing.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I feel like it doesn't feel like the most
welcoming way to cross thehighway, but it is still better
than what we currently have inAustin and it's still better
than what most communities havecrossing an interstate.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, and not everyone will necessarily agree
with this, but personally,depending on how much money
something like this costs, I'mnot sure that I'd almost rather
see the improvements be oneither side of it.
And just like I don't know, thehaving the extra width here,
what is it actually doing?
I don't, I don't know.
I think you disagree with me.
(22:50):
Probably I do disagree with you.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I think I think in places like this it's a good use
case SMU, the campus that we'resort of walking into.
It crosses both sides of thishighway and it does provide a
wider, safer Avenue for studentsto pass.
It also provides a highercapacity pedestrian way for
people to cross, so there arebenefits to it there are.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
My counter would be it's about 4 pm, right?
Yeah, there are parts of thecollege campus on both sides of
the highway here and capacity isnot an issue doesn't seem to be
an issue.
Okay and fair point but I, youknow that makes sense.
Um, I think a uh.
(23:34):
The other interesting elementhere, too is, just like a
pedestrian only bridge over this.
Actually connecting directly tothe train station as well as
having the added benefit ofgoing to the other side of
campus feels like a moreappropriate step, but I agree.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I don't know Absolutely.
I think there'd be an easierway to connect students to the
metro than what's currentlypresented here the Mockingbird
Station.
We made our way across thestitch and we're now on SMU's
campus at the George H I'm sorrythe George W Bush Presidential
Library.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Chris went in to grab some water and has the George W
Bush water.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I have official commemorative George W Bush
water.
Some, if you go back and listento some of his speeches, would
say he may be a liberalpresident, given the current
political climate.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
You know Radical far left George W Bush Beep.
From here we're gonna walkaround the SMU campus a bit and
then-.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Try to get back to one of the stations to catch the
McKinney streetcar.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yes, all right, so we were going to try to catch a
bus from SMU.
From the other side of SMU fromthe highway.
From the highway, it basicallyseems like any of the buses to
SMU just leave SMU and go backto the Mockingbird Station,
which we were at, which for acollege campus with 12,000
students on it and faculty andeverything feels like not a
(24:56):
campus that is very well servedby transit.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It really doesn't.
So we're sort of being forcedto go back to the train line,
which is fine for our purposes.
But if you were trying to go,you know, maybe a little bit
southwest of here, you're reallystruggling to be able to get
there efficiently.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, to get a lot of places from here, you basically
just have to go to.
You have to cross the highway,either on a bus or walking to
that station and then go whereyou're going.
Yeah, not ideal, not ideal.
So we're going to do that andwe're going to hopefully head
down to City Place and try tocatch the McKinney Streetcar,
which is like one of the morehistorical streetcar lines here
More historic restored streetcar.
(25:32):
Yep, we boarded a train atMockingbird Station without
issue and headed into the tunneltowards City Place.
City Place is the onlyunderground train station
currently operating anywhere inthe state of Texas.
It is on a three and a halfmile section of track that is
tunneled between Mockingbird anddowntown Dallas.
The station is about 120 feetbelow ground At the surface.
There are bus connections aswell as the terminus for the
(25:52):
McKinney streetcar.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Here's more info on the streetcar and what's really
amazing is that at this station,right outside the doors, is a
turntable like an old schoolturntable that actually spins
the streetcar around and lets itface the other direction and
literally we like walked out.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
we went up all the escalators and everything and it
happened to be turning aroundright as we were getting out.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So we got to Pretty amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, and it was, like you know, very old
school train.
Yeah, and it was, like you know, very old school train.
We actually got to like read alittle bit about the history of
the specific train car we wereon and kind of rattled our way
through the neighborhood intodowntown.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
I almost said downtown Austin Downtown.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Dallas I forgot where we were for a second, downtown
Dallas, where we are currentlynow at Clyde Warren Park.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, and my impressions of the McKinney
Street car.
So what you should understandis it is not part of the DART
system.
Yeah, so this is something thatis independent and it's
actually this streetcar's beenback in service since the 80s.
It was out of service for about33 years, where the streetcar
specifically the one we were onused to store hay bales.
What's really cool about thisis it can provide a sense of
(26:59):
transit if you're just trying toget, maybe, from uptown back
into downtown.
Right, but it seems a littlemore novelty and touristy than
it is real transit.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, most of the people on board seemed like they
were just riding it for fun,which is kind of what we were
doing.
But there was a woman who cameoff the same train we did who
asked the driver hey, does thisgo by Walgreens?
And he was like, yeah, it doesgo by Walgreens.
So she came on and she wrote itto run to Walgreens the rest of
the way.
So that's really helpful forher, Totally.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And what's also really cool about this is that
the train line's been runningfor about 35 years and it's not
publicly funded.
It is funded by donation, whichis really, really amazing that
they're able to keep this reallycool amenity for the community
up and running just by thosedonations.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So, like I briefly said at the start of this
section, here we're now in ClydeWarren Park.
If you're an avid listenerslash viewer of the show, you
know we've been here before.
We did an entire episode onhighway caps and stitches,
covering the one here in Dallas,one in Seattle, one in DC, as
well as talking about the futureof potential caps in Austin,
(28:02):
texas.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And now we've visited two of the caps, three of the
caps that we talked about.
We also talked about the otherone in South Dallas.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yes, absolutely so yeah, and we were right.
Recently we're in DC.
I was like what other one arewe going to do?
So, yeah, good to be back hereat Cloud Worm Park again.
I think this is like one of thebetter examples of highway caps
around.
But if you're interested in itwe talked at length about it
then so we'll just put a linkthere for folks and won't put
(28:28):
you through it again now my keytakeaways.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
while, yes, the system here is quite extensive
and you can get many, manyplaces, the frequencies aren't
convenient.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, that was kind of the issue all day, like I
compared to Houston, compared toSan Antonio, compared to Austin
, compared to the only one wherethis is, you know, new Orleans.
I feel like we ran into somefrequency issues as well, but I
thought the frequencies weregoing to be better, about 20
minutes on average.
There was nothing faster than20 minutes.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I'm sure there's express buses somewhere or rapid
buses that we haven't.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
We didn't find them on our route.
We didn't encounter them today.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, but the general routes we were taking, which
maybe aren't the most commonroutes people would take,
Totally Definitely were at20-minute intervals.
So if it's a really you know,not popular line, unused line,
then 20 minutes may be fine.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
To me, the biggest shock was the fact that the
light rail stayed at 20 minutesper line all day.
We were even on it around rushhour when we got off in City
Place.
At what time is it?
Right now?
We are here 6.06.
6.06.
So we were at City Place aboutan hour ago, around 5 pm, which
is the time frame you would havemore service running, and it
(29:31):
wasn't so.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, and I think if you're on a trunk line or like
one of the lines that havemultiple transit lines running
through it, the frequency is notas big of a deal, because if
they're each running at 20minutes you're gonna catch one
about every five to 10 minutes.
That's fine.
But if you are outside of thatzone, that's when it becomes a
little bit more of a headache totry to catch.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Totally the only other thing I would say, just in
the routes that we encountered,a lot of the ways to get around
on a bus without doing atransfer.
It was very much like rightinto downtown and then right out
of downtown, yep uh.
You had to get creative.
You wanted to do kind of pointto point on the outskirts, which
in houston, for example, andeven in san antonio we were
finding those more cross-townroutes houston.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
We had no issue trying to connect those points
right um in dc.
We don't have those issues,austin, you know it's a little
tricky, but you don't have asmany issues, but it did seem
like a lot of the transit wascentralized to Dallas and
centralized to the dark lines.
Right, yeah, yeah so, but withall that, there's definitely
more to Dallas that we didn'tget to.
So please, if you havesuggestions for others who would
(30:30):
like to see Dallas in a dayusing transit, please put those
in the comments.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Absolutely, let us know what we missed, and we've
talked about Dallas in the pasttoo, so we'll link some past
episodes where we've met withfolks from Data.
We're also, when we'rerecording this now, doing an
event tomorrow with Data, whichwill be another sort of episode
at a certain point here.
So check that out.
If you want to support the show, to get us to more cities, like
all the ones we've been to sofar, the best way to do so is to
(30:55):
support us directly on Patreon.
If you're on Patreon, you alsoget access to episodes early.
You get access to ourmembers-only Discord, all sorts
of stuff like that.
In addition to that, we've alsogot the new merch store, where
you can get sweatshirts, regularshirts, socks, hats, all sorts
of stuff in there and morethings to come.
Yeah, those are all great waysto help support the show, to
(31:15):
make sure that we can continueto keep doing this.
But yeah, with all that beingsaid, this was Dallas in a Day
using only public transit.
Thank you all so much forwatching and enjoy the rest of
your.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Transit Tangents Tuesday.
I'm saving that dough.
Public transit's where it's atWatch me go.
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
Bus stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
On this episode, we exploreDallas in a day using only
(00:21):
public transit.
We put the trains and buses ofthe DART system to the test to
see how challenging it is to getaround Dallas without a day
using only public transit.
We put the trains and buses ofthe Dart system to the test to
see how challenging it is to getaround Dallas without a car.
All of this and more coming upon Transit Tangents.
We are in downtown Dallas,Union Station.
We're doing Dallas in a dayusing only public transit.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We're very curious to see how this is gonna go.
We've done Austin, which waspretty good.
We've done Houston, whichsurprised us.
Yep, a lot of good trainservice, a lot of good bus
service.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We just got back from a very chilly Washington DC.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
We did that as well.
We've done Salt Lake.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
City, which was also very cold, new Orleans, new
Orleans, that was on the hotterside.
We're really adding to the listhere.
So thank you all so much forthe support for being able to
help get us to all these places.
But yeah, kansas City coming upnext.
But yeah, we're reallyinterested to see what a day in
Dallas is like, using onlypublic transit to get around.
We'll ride the dark light rail,we'll take buses, maybe some
(01:16):
bike share.
We'll see throughout the day Ifwe can find the bike share If
we can find the bike share.
We're going to start off here.
Here, though, by popping on thered line headed towards the zoo
.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yep, so we're gonna head towards the zoo, where
we'll also see one of the brandnew CAP programs, over the
highway, and then explore alittle bit of South Dallas from
there.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
While we get on the train.
If you could like this video,we would appreciate it.
You can also support the showby subscribing, checking out our
merch store or supporting us onPatreon.
So we made it to the zoo.
We took a quick walk from thetrain station itself or the
(02:01):
light rail station itself.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
To this lovely parking lot, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And before we get into this lovely sculpture
behind us, a couple things Iwant to point out.
I noticed at the light railstop there were a couple spots
for buses to pull in for easyconnections there.
We're going to get on somebuses later in the day, but not
yet.
But the main reason we camehere is Chris really wanted to
see this giraffe.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I have driven past this giraffe so many times,
leaving Dallas.
I've never actually seen it upclose.
So now we're seeing this giantlike 40 foot tall giraffe
sculpture.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And then another, more legitimate reason even why
we walked over here.
But, if you look past thegiraffe sculpture.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
You see the new park the new highway cap.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yep, and we talked a little bit about this in our
highway caps episode.
We did actually in Dallas atClyde Warren Park.
But yeah, there's a new highwaycap being built.
You can see some of the likeI'm assuming our installation or
building that's going on topright over the kind of wall here
.
We can't really get any closerto get a better view.
But interesting to see Dallasinvesting more in some highway
(03:04):
caps.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Austin.
Pay attention.
My nervous laugh here is inpart because, since our cap and
stitch episode came out, thevote for the plans was pushed
back due to tech stop beingbehind schedule, which gave the
city some extra leeway.
Now, though, with federal grantprograms up in the air, I
personally get nervous about thecity taking on the expense with
the potential lack of federalhelp.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It is 1140 and we have hit snag number one.
From the Dallas Zoo area, we'regoing to check out the Bishop
Arts District Very cool kind oftrendy place in South Dallas.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You would think this being a major transportation
stop the zoo there'd be a directbus from here to there, right,
or like a bus that gets you inthe right direction, but all of
the stuff is saying basicallylike go up a stop and then take
another bus or walk, and all ofthe options.
It's actually ends up beinglike the same amount of time to
walk About 30 minutes total,yeah.
So now it is a long walk.
(03:56):
So I think we are gonna trydoing train to bus.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, we'll keep you posted.
So back to the red line.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So this is not a microphone.
So the trains, as we justdiscovered, are running at about
a 20 minute frequency.
The next one's in four minutes,the one after that is in 23
minutes and we're not that farfrom downtown, so you would
expect maybe a little bit fasterfrequency for being a Friday in
Dallas, right, hopefully wedon't miss any trains.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
All right, so we made it to Tyler Vernon Station,
just one further stop down theRed Line.
As far as what's around thestation, there are a couple
things here.
We've got a brewery Oak CliffBrewing A couple food trucks and
whatnot.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Pegasus Reuse, which is like a creative reuse store
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Otherwise not much.
It's a lot of single-familyhomes and things are pretty
spread out.
There is a bike lane.
It is on a road that people aredriving a little quick on, but
it has got a little bit ofseparation with their version of
like a what do you call themArmillo or something?
yeah, the zebra dillos, yep, um,yeah, uh.
(05:29):
Also of note, we've seen acouple buses kind of pop through
and pick people up, so it'sdefinitely like a hub for buses
as well.
We're waiting for one, but uh,it's about 15 minutes before yep
, we have a bus.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Uh, we have a bus coming in, yeah, about 15
minutes.
Uh, we'll grab that one headover to the Bishop Arts District
.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
We had a few options for buses, but the 226 would be
next to arrive.
We got on without issue and wewere on our way to Bishop Arts.
Despite waiting a little bitfor the bus connection there, it
(06:14):
did take us kind of right tothe section of town we wanted to
go here and the bus wasefficient and we weren't sitting
around waiting or anything likethat.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So total trip time from the train station to Bishop
Arts is about eight minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so can't really complain too much about that
either and I think even with theweight we probably did beat our
walk time and we would be muchtired or Tireder More tired.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
How tired are you now ?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, but we have made it to the Bishop Arts District.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
This is an area that in the 1920s was developed as a
commercial corridor in southdallas.
By the 60s 70s this area haddeclined economically pretty
significantly and then therewere a lot of efforts in the 80s
and 90s to start revitalizingthis area and brought us to the
district arts that we know today.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, and as we were on the bus, I could start to see
some like new developmenthappening as well, uh, kind of
bigger apartment buildings andwhatnot.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
so, yeah, Time is 12 49.
We stopped in the Bishop's ArtsDistrict and grabbed a quick
lunch at Veracruz Cafe verydelicious, highly recommend if
you are in the neighborhood.
And what are we doing next?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Uh, we're gonna pop on another bus headed towards
downtown Dallas.
I believe it was the 49.
I will correct that.
If I'm wrong about the bus, itruns about every 20 minutes from
here to downtown, so we'll gotry to catch that and see you
all in downtown Dallas.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We are making a slight correction.
As we walk around the BishopArts District we realized the
Dallas Street Cars SouthernTerminus is right here in the
district and we can take itstraight back to downtown,
basically back to our hotelright at the Union Station.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
The Dallas Street Car is a two and a half mile line
that runs from Union Station toOak Cliff, right near the
Bishop's Arts District.
It opened for service in 2015and was funded in part by a
Tiger Grant, if you'reinterested in learning more
about the grants.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
We talked about them a little bit in a very early
episode.
We learned something new.
I didn't know what the term wasfor the little thing that goes
up and touches the power linesabove a streetcar.
Turns out it is called apantograph.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, and while we were on this Dallas streetcar
here, uh, halfway through theride the driver actually had to
get out to go like verify thatit went up.
Um, it seems like half of thisdoesn't have the electric
connection up top and it mustrun on battery for part of it,
and then the other half it'srunning with the pantograph up.
Uh, getting a current.
Um, we also just ran intosomeone who lives here in dallas
(08:42):
and said he'd never seen thisbefore, so I think we just found
a pretty niche, uh, transititem that maybe isn't super
heavily used.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Maybe it is, I don't know, it could be we, so we're
using this halfway like middayum, after lunch, you know, a lot
of people are still at work andso maybe it is more popular for
commuters going between Dallas,downtown Dallas and, like,
south Dallas.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But there were maybe four people who jumped on while
we were on, which isn't abnormalfor the middle of the day, I
mean, like it's kind of a randomtime, um, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Oh, and although good experience you got like a nice
view through south Dallas,there's a lot of development, uh
that has sprung up along thisuh line.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So it has all of the right elements to be well used.
Totally one issue with it andkind of everything we've seen so
far today.
We haven't been hampered toomuch by it but like the
frequencies on everything, it'sbeen every 20 minutes on
everything that we've ridden allday, 30 minutes on one of the
buses I think we just likelucked out on it.
So so far as far as frequenciesgoes, this is kind of in the
lowest frequencies of any citywe've been to so far.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I think trains in central downtown are going to be
a little faster, but we'regoing to take a walk through
downtown and find out Walkingthrough downtown and a notable
thing that happened here, JFKwas actually assassinated.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Someone shot him from outside of this building, so
avoid this area in a convertible.
Chris is shaking his head Toosoon.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Too soon.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Lewis.
Too soon, too soon.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Also near the JFK site.
You can take the train or thebus a couple blocks over and
you'll be at the DallasHolocaust and Human Rights
Museum Also a good thing to comecheck out in downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
We are currently walking down Pacific Street.
This is kind of the main trunkline where all of the light
rails that cut through downtownall run down.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
What's really great about the street is that they've
dedicated it to the light rail,so you can ride a bike down,
you can sort of walk down thestreet, but for the most part
there's no cars, no buses, it isjust the light rail using
Pacific.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Avenue and it seems like that actually has decent
signal priority doing all, goingover all the cross streets and
that sort of Thing which we loveto see absolutely On this main
trunk line along Pacific Streetthat we've noticed the frequency
of the trains Feels much higher.
Yeah, a lot of that is becausethis is where multiple of the
train lines are kind ofconverging in blue, the orange,
(11:03):
the red, think the yellow.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He meant green, all of them sort of converge here.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Right, it feels like more like every five minutes or
something a train is going by ineither direction.
So love to see that in the area.
Cool, all righty, we are herein Thanksgiving Square, great
little public space right indowntown.
You've got some nice areas tosit, some fountains and things
like that.
It's shady, which in the summeris kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It's like a myriad of religious themes it's not one
set religion here and there'skind of this spiral
cathedral-esque building behindus.
It's very pretty, very tranquilspace that was built around
1964 in downtown Dallas, nice.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I'm trying to hypnotize everyone into more
transit, more transit.
Hopefully, sean Duffy, bringpositive words about trains,
build more of them.
From here we are going to popback on the train, we're going
(12:06):
to get on the green line andtake that towards deep ellum.
Yes, one thing that I think isa little interesting is, like
the, the rolling stock is prettyaged, I will say.
Not great for accessibilityeither.
You have to walk up a flight ofstairs getting on any of these.
Um, but in this trip and inanother trip where we've been
here, they do go very fast, muchfaster than most light rails, I
(12:27):
will say yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So we took the train from downtown.
We're just kind of to the eastof downtown in a section called
Deep Ellum Yep, really popularneighborhood.
It is kind of the definition ofa gentrified neighborhood in
Dallas.
Yep, you can actually find outa lot about the history of this
neighborhood through the MeganKimball book City Limits where
she talks about the highwayexpansion that kind of ripped
(12:51):
through this neighborhood.
But we did take the green lineover here and what we have
noticed now that we're here isthat the green line is running
at a 20 minute frequency, andagain it is 220 on a Friday, you
know.
So we would think there'd be alittle higher frequency here, a
lot of people kind of going home, maybe a little early on a
friday, but the 20 minutes was abit surprising, right?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
and I mean, is it peak hours yet?
No, but like I don't know.
That's dallas is a what is this?
The help major city in the us?
Like it's like the seventhlargest city in the us it's in
the top 10 largest cities in thecountry.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's like around number seven.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I Every 20 minutes in this proximity to downtown is
not great.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No, but we are close to downtown.
It's an easy train ride.
We just wish they were maybelike 10 minutes, yeah.
So one thing I love about DeepEllum is that you have this sort
of robot sculpture theme verylike silver, guitar-esque
looking robot and all theselittle silver birds around him
while he's playing his guitar.
It's actually art that wascommissioned by DART, which is
(13:52):
the Dallas Area Rapid Transit,and it's great.
It's a great thing to come andstopped in Deep Ellum, had a
(14:13):
nice little coffee at MerrittCoffee, which if you're from
Austin, you'll also be veryfamiliar with Merritt.
Walked around Deep Ellum for alittle bit and then we jumped
back on the Green Line and tookthat over to Fair Park.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yes, fair Park is another stop on the Green Line
and this is also where this wasthe second park in the city of
Dallas, second public park.
It's looking a little sad rightnow.
They're doing some draining ofponds and whatnot, but I can
imagine it in all of its glory.
It's probably beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Fair Park is home to the famous Texas State Fair,
where you have many differentexpositions, from technology and
transportation, farming, allkinds of things, not to mention
the famous Midway and the placewhere I think deep-fried Oreos
might have been inventedBasically, anything deep-fried
you can find here.
There's also museums and allkinds of other things to see.
(15:03):
This became the sort ofepicenter of this became the
sort of epicenter of Texas andTexas things and expositions
because in 1936, we had theTexas Centennial celebration
right here, where all of theseArt Deco buildings that we're
surrounded by were built, andsince then they've been
maintained and restored andcontinue to be used for Texans.
(15:23):
Today, maybe we'll see aBicentennial coming up here.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
That would be pretty cool to see.
Another fun fact about thisstop is that Chris had like a
brief one month stint.
Maybe we'll see a bicentennialcoming up here.
That would be pretty cool tosee.
Another fun fact about thisstop is that Chris had like a
brief one month stint, living inDallas and commuted through
here quite a bit I did.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I lived in Dallas for one month, out of Carrollton,
and I would commute fromCarrollton to Fair Park to
practice for the Dallas Opera.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I just learned this moments ago also, so I'm as
shocked as you are.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Do you want to belt out a couple lines for us?
Oddly enough, I was a rockclimber in the Dallas Opera of
Everest.
We'll throw up some photos ifyou're watching, so you can
actually like see what the stageand everything look like.
It's kind of ridiculous but funlittle fact, totally.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yes, it is giving very abandoned, vibes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
This is like a section of Disney that people
just stop going to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
All.
The eeriest part is theflagpoles with no flags on them,
and you're just hearing thething ringing against it.
Anyway, we are headed back tothe Green Line Station at Fair
Park.
We were going to be taking abus up towards SMU.
It seems like, though, thefastest route is going to be to
take two trains.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Two trains and do a transfer.
You either had to transfer abus or a train.
The bus is about 41 minutes,the train is about 25 minutes or
so.
Right, so it is 3.30 now.
We're kind of fighting thesetting sun, so we're going to
hop on the train and move alittle quicker.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, the setting sun , so we're gonna hop on the
train and move a little quicker,yeah, and in general, there's
just been a lot less buses, yeah, that are frequent, like we had
seen in houston, um, and inother texas cities, honestly,
but obviously, like san antonioand austin don't really have
real rail options for the mostpart, so, um, it makes sense,
but, uh, the good news, though,is that you know the rail does
(17:11):
move fast and everything but,for the lack of frequency on the
rails here.
It feels like there probablyshould be more bus options that
run fairly parallel.
I don't know, yeah also.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
uh, if you are watching, if you're listening,
you haven't seen this, but ifyou're watching, if you're
listening, you haven't seen this, but if you're watching, you
may have noticed I have a hoodieon that says Transit Tangents
with our logo on it.
It is super comfortable, it isvery nice in this chilly weather
and it can be yours not thisone, but you can buy this on our
new store, which you can get onthe link to the YouTube video.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
And there's more than just sweatshirts.
There too, there's t-shirts,all sorts of stuff like that,
hats and socks, yep, and inaddition to Patreon, that is
another way you can help supportthe show if you want to help do
so.
Absolutely Slight change ofplans.
Yeah, so the train was gonna be19 minutes before the next one.
Obviously not great, but wefound a series of two buses that
(18:08):
will hypothetically get usthere faster.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We'll jump on the 23, which picks up right here in
front of Fair Park, and then wewill transfer to the 3, which
will take us straight toMockingbird Station, which is
next door to SMU.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So fingers crossed that the transfer goes well.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Thanks, Hello, hello, thank you, thanks.
You're a transit agent.
I'm sorry.
What do you serve me?
Oh, transit tangent.
So we do a podcast.
It's all about public transit.
So we go to cities and we ridearound and then talk about how
good or bad or like what theexperience is, like that kind of
stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, Hopefully people are getting off of it.
This is the bus we need, butwill you get across the street
first, watching it potentiallycreep by?
Oh boy, oh boy, yeah, oh boy,oh boy, oh boy, yeah, that ain't
(19:09):
going to go long.
Well, maybe this is where we'rerunning.
Oh, the light is changing.
Is anyone getting off?
They're just right by it.
It's getting stuck with thelight up there.
We can try.
Do you want to try or no?
I think we're cooked.
So the bus we were on got stuckat an intersection right here
(19:32):
at the light.
For a second we had to take thebus over the intersection, get
off and then on foot cross backover, and while we were sitting
at the light, the bus we goingthe opposite direction uh went
by and we missed it by likeseconds.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, um, but we're gonna try to catch another bus
in about four minutes, whichmeans we need to get back on the
other side.
Okay, so we should go.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That would be yeah, because otherwise it's going to
be like almost 20 minutes forthe next bus yeah, uh, the one
oh.
Although I see a bus coming,could it just be on.
No, it's a school bus.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
The 1-05 should pick up right here, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So we're going right back to the bus stop.
We were just at First littlesnafu of the day.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
That was a journey.
Yes, we tried to get to thethree bus.
We got caught by the trafficsignal.
Didn't make it had to go backacross the street to wait for
the 105.
And then we waited longer thanexpected for the 105 because
there's just no signal priority.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It was a very poorly timed light.
Yeah, we watched our bus sitthrough at least four cycles of
the traffic light with threeother.
There are three buses sittingat the light basically the whole
time waiting to go, and that'slike a downfall of not having
any dedicated lanes for a busand a downfall of buses in
general, versus like rail orsomething like that where you're
not having to deal with thetraffic and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
But we did finally make it to mockingbird finally
made it to mockingbird stationat about 4.18 is when we uh,
when the bus landed here, landed, rolled in, stopped.
Yes, uh, mockingbird Station isreally cool.
It's very nice like urbandevelopment, very transit
oriented development.
You have the red and the orangelines that come through here.
I think the blue as well, maybe.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I'm not sure.
We'll look at it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We have multiple train lines that come in through
here.
You have multiple bus linesthat converge here.
You have the hike and bike pathas well through here.
So just a lot of connectivity,and it's also next door to SMU
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And we're going to, I believe, walk over towards SMU.
This is also where George WBush's Presidential Library is,
at SMU, so we're going to gotake a little bit of a walk from
over here and check some ofthat out.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So if you do a recall back to our cap and stitch
program episode, we talked aboutcaps versus stitches.
What we're standing on rightnow is really a stitch and what
that means is that it is a capover the bridge that doesn't
extend like you have parks on it, but it does have a wide
boulevard, really wide sidewalks, and makes the crossing of the
(22:04):
highway a little better yeah alittle better in this case, it's
still pretty.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You do get some plantings here, uh, but you got
the texas turnaround in themiddle of it here too, which
makes it a little less appealing.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I feel like it doesn't feel like the most
welcoming way to cross thehighway, but it is still better
than what we currently have inAustin and it's still better
than what most communities havecrossing an interstate.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, and not everyone will necessarily agree
with this, but personally,depending on how much money
something like this costs, I'mnot sure that I'd almost rather
see the improvements be oneither side of it.
And just like I don't know, thehaving the extra width here,
what is it actually doing?
I don't, I don't know.
I think you disagree with me.
(22:50):
Probably I do disagree with you.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I think I think in places like this it's a good use
case SMU, the campus that we'resort of walking into.
It crosses both sides of thishighway and it does provide a
wider, safer Avenue for studentsto pass.
It also provides a highercapacity pedestrian way for
people to cross, so there arebenefits to it there are.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
My counter would be it's about 4 pm, right?
Yeah, there are parts of thecollege campus on both sides of
the highway here and capacity isnot an issue doesn't seem to be
an issue.
Okay and fair point but I, youknow that makes sense.
Um, I think a uh.
(23:34):
The other interesting elementhere, too is, just like a
pedestrian only bridge over this.
Actually connecting directly tothe train station as well as
having the added benefit ofgoing to the other side of
campus feels like a moreappropriate step, but I agree.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I don't know Absolutely.
I think there'd be an easierway to connect students to the
metro than what's currentlypresented here the Mockingbird
Station.
We made our way across thestitch and we're now on SMU's
campus at the George H I'm sorrythe George W Bush Presidential
Library.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Chris went in to grab some water and has the George W
Bush water.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I have official commemorative George W Bush
water.
Some, if you go back and listento some of his speeches, would
say he may be a liberalpresident, given the current
political climate.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
You know Radical far left George W Bush Beep.
From here we're gonna walkaround the SMU campus a bit and
then-.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Try to get back to one of the stations to catch the
McKinney streetcar.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yes, all right, so we were going to try to catch a
bus from SMU.
From the other side of SMU fromthe highway.
From the highway, it basicallyseems like any of the buses to
SMU just leave SMU and go backto the Mockingbird Station,
which we were at, which for acollege campus with 12,000
students on it and faculty andeverything feels like not a
(24:56):
campus that is very well servedby transit.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It really doesn't.
So we're sort of being forcedto go back to the train line,
which is fine for our purposes.
But if you were trying to go,you know, maybe a little bit
southwest of here, you're reallystruggling to be able to get
there efficiently.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, to get a lot of places from here, you basically
just have to go to.
You have to cross the highway,either on a bus or walking to
that station and then go whereyou're going.
Yeah, not ideal, not ideal.
So we're going to do that andwe're going to hopefully head
down to City Place and try tocatch the McKinney Streetcar,
which is like one of the morehistorical streetcar lines here
More historic restored streetcar.
(25:32):
Yep, we boarded a train atMockingbird Station without
issue and headed into the tunneltowards City Place.
City Place is the onlyunderground train station
currently operating anywhere inthe state of Texas.
It is on a three and a halfmile section of track that is
tunneled between Mockingbird anddowntown Dallas.
The station is about 120 feetbelow ground At the surface.
There are bus connections aswell as the terminus for the
(25:52):
McKinney streetcar.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Here's more info on the streetcar and what's really
amazing is that at this station,right outside the doors, is a
turntable like an old schoolturntable that actually spins
the streetcar around and lets itface the other direction and
literally we like walked out.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
we went up all the escalators and everything and it
happened to be turning aroundright as we were getting out.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So we got to Pretty amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, and it was, like you know, very old
school train.
Yeah, and it was, like you know, very old school train.
We actually got to like read alittle bit about the history of
the specific train car we wereon and kind of rattled our way
through the neighborhood intodowntown.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
I almost said downtown Austin Downtown.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Dallas I forgot where we were for a second, downtown
Dallas, where we are currentlynow at Clyde Warren Park.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, and my impressions of the McKinney
Street car.
So what you should understandis it is not part of the DART
system.
Yeah, so this is something thatis independent and it's
actually this streetcar's beenback in service since the 80s.
It was out of service for about33 years, where the streetcar
specifically the one we were onused to store hay bales.
What's really cool about thisis it can provide a sense of
(26:59):
transit if you're just trying toget, maybe, from uptown back
into downtown.
Right, but it seems a littlemore novelty and touristy than
it is real transit.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, most of the people on board seemed like they
were just riding it for fun,which is kind of what we were
doing.
But there was a woman who cameoff the same train we did who
asked the driver hey, does thisgo by Walgreens?
And he was like, yeah, it doesgo by Walgreens.
So she came on and she wrote itto run to Walgreens the rest of
the way.
So that's really helpful forher, Totally.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And what's also really cool about this is that
the train line's been runningfor about 35 years and it's not
publicly funded.
It is funded by donation, whichis really, really amazing that
they're able to keep this reallycool amenity for the community
up and running just by thosedonations.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So, like I briefly said at the start of this
section, here we're now in ClydeWarren Park.
If you're an avid listenerslash viewer of the show, you
know we've been here before.
We did an entire episode onhighway caps and stitches,
covering the one here in Dallas,one in Seattle, one in DC, as
well as talking about the futureof potential caps in Austin,
(28:02):
texas.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And now we've visited two of the caps, three of the
caps that we talked about.
We also talked about the otherone in South Dallas.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yes, absolutely so yeah, and we were right.
Recently we're in DC.
I was like what other one arewe going to do?
So, yeah, good to be back hereat Cloud Worm Park again.
I think this is like one of thebetter examples of highway caps
around.
But if you're interested in itwe talked at length about it
then so we'll just put a linkthere for folks and won't put
(28:28):
you through it again now my keytakeaways.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
while, yes, the system here is quite extensive
and you can get many, manyplaces, the frequencies aren't
convenient.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, that was kind of the issue all day, like I
compared to Houston, compared toSan Antonio, compared to Austin
, compared to the only one wherethis is, you know, new Orleans.
I feel like we ran into somefrequency issues as well, but I
thought the frequencies weregoing to be better, about 20
minutes on average.
There was nothing faster than20 minutes.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I'm sure there's express buses somewhere or rapid
buses that we haven't.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
We didn't find them on our route.
We didn't encounter them today.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, but the general routes we were taking, which
maybe aren't the most commonroutes people would take,
Totally Definitely were at20-minute intervals.
So if it's a really you know,not popular line, unused line,
then 20 minutes may be fine.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
To me, the biggest shock was the fact that the
light rail stayed at 20 minutesper line all day.
We were even on it around rushhour when we got off in City
Place.
At what time is it?
Right now?
We are here 6.06.
6.06.
So we were at City Place aboutan hour ago, around 5 pm, which
is the time frame you would havemore service running, and it
(29:31):
wasn't so.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, and I think if you're on a trunk line or like
one of the lines that havemultiple transit lines running
through it, the frequency is notas big of a deal, because if
they're each running at 20minutes you're gonna catch one
about every five to 10 minutes.
That's fine.
But if you are outside of thatzone, that's when it becomes a
little bit more of a headache totry to catch.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Totally the only other thing I would say, just in
the routes that we encountered,a lot of the ways to get around
on a bus without doing atransfer.
It was very much like rightinto downtown and then right out
of downtown, yep uh.
You had to get creative.
You wanted to do kind of pointto point on the outskirts, which
in houston, for example, andeven in san antonio we were
finding those more cross-townroutes houston.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
We had no issue trying to connect those points
right um in dc.
We don't have those issues,austin, you know it's a little
tricky, but you don't have asmany issues, but it did seem
like a lot of the transit wascentralized to Dallas and
centralized to the dark lines.
Right, yeah, yeah so, but withall that, there's definitely
more to Dallas that we didn'tget to.
So please, if you havesuggestions for others who would
(30:30):
like to see Dallas in a dayusing transit, please put those
in the comments.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Absolutely, let us know what we missed, and we've
talked about Dallas in the pasttoo, so we'll link some past
episodes where we've met withfolks from Data.
We're also, when we'rerecording this now, doing an
event tomorrow with Data, whichwill be another sort of episode
at a certain point here.
So check that out.
If you want to support the show, to get us to more cities, like
all the ones we've been to sofar, the best way to do so is to
(30:55):
support us directly on Patreon.
If you're on Patreon, you alsoget access to episodes early.
You get access to ourmembers-only Discord, all sorts
of stuff like that.
In addition to that, we've alsogot the new merch store, where
you can get sweatshirts, regularshirts, socks, hats, all sorts
of stuff in there and morethings to come.
Yeah, those are all great waysto help support the show, to
(31:15):
make sure that we can continueto keep doing this.
But yeah, with all that beingsaid, this was Dallas in a Day
using only public transit.
Thank you all so much forwatching and enjoy the rest of
your.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Transit Tangents Tuesday.
I'm saving that dough.
Public transit's where it's atWatch me go.
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