Dallas Public Transit

If there is one defining characteristic that sets a good city apart from a great city it is a reliable, affordable and comprehensive public transit system. Cities like New York, San Francisco and Vancouver distinguish themselves by providing their residents an affordable way to get from point A to point B without clogging the roads with cars.

Dallas is rapidly moving in the direction of these other great cities by providing their citizens with a simple and easy to figure out way to get around. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, or DART for short, operates buses, light rail and commuter rail within Dallas and 12 of the surrounding cities. By building such an extensive network of rapid transit, more and more residents of the Dallas Metroplex are leaving their cars at home and helping to ease the predictable congestion that comes with any major metropolis.

The DART light rail system was implemented in the 1990’s and has seen consistent ridership throughout its life. The system is currently divided up into two lines, a red line and a blue line, with two further lines, an orange line and a green line scheduled to open in a few years. The current system serves almost 60,000 riders per day, which makes it one of the top ten light rail systems in the United States.

Dallas is also served by a fleet of buses that are also part of the DART system. As of 2006, there were 120 regular bus routes that ran daily and many smaller community shuttle routes that serviced outlying areas or inner city areas on a short route. Included in the fleet of buses are 11 express routes that eliminate most stops and bring passengers more directly from one part of the Metroplex to the other. If a bus needs to travel on the local highway system for any period of time, they will often use the HOV lane, or high-occupancy vehicle lane. All major highways in and around Dallas have HOV lanes to encourage people to carpool to save on gas. If a single rider car is seen using the HOV lane, they can be pulled over by police and ticketed.

The DART bus system uses a common numbering system so that even visitors to the city can easily learn how the system works. Buses numbered 1-185 serve Dallas and urban areas around the city. Buses in the 200’s are express routes and should only be taken if your destination is one of the few stops on the express route. Buses in the 300’s serve the suburbs. With this easy to learn numbering system, the bus system gets to be second nature very quickly.

Dallas is served by DFW, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. The airport is a hub for several major airlines such as American Airlines. DFW is the second largest airport, in terms of size, in the country and the third largest on earth. Love Field, the home base for Southwest Airlines, is located in Dallas and serves as a secondary airport.