Formed in 1983, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency, or “DART”, is responsible for operating and coordinating transit services within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex – the central Texas metropolitan area that includes Forth Worth, Arlington, Dallas and it’s suburbs, such as Garland, Rowlett and Irving.
The agency was formed in 1983 to supersede DTS (“Dallas Transit System”), the Dallas municipal transit agency, wich itself was formed in 1964 by an amalgamation and municipalization of various smaller private streetcar and bus operators, and to restructure, expand and improve transit in the broader metropolitan region, beyond the bounduaries of DTS’ “jurisdiction”.
However, one of DART’s primary attributions (and one of the reasons why the agency was formed in the first place) were plans for a metropolitan-area-wide light rail system, wich the agency was to develop, refine, then eventually build and operate the whole system. The original plans for a light rail system, finalized around the same time as DART was formed, called for a 160 mile-long network (nearly 260 km), but these were later scaled down to 147 miles (237 km) after the suburbs of Duncanville, Grand Praire and Mesquite, wich were to recieve light rail lines, rejected joining the agency and funding their share of it. The plans for the systems were scaled down two more times, first to 93 miles (149,7 km) and then to 84 miles (135,2 km) due to cities and suburbs rejecting joining DART, or leaving after refusing, or voting against, the self-imposed 1% sales tax to fund the agency.
Nothwitstanding delays in the approval of the light rail plans, DART became fully operational in 1984, taking over the operation of suburban bus routes from several smaller operators (both pubblic and private), and then fully replacing DTS in the operation of Dallas urban and inner-suburban bus services in 1988.
1990 finally saw the light rail plans finalized and approved, even if at a much smaller scale than planned, and in the same year, ground was finally broken on the first segment of the network. The first rails were laid down in 1993 and finally, after several delays, the first 20-mile-long (32 km) section of Dallas’ light rail system opened for regular service on the 14th of June 1996 – a two-line system comprising the current section of the Blue Line from Illinois and the whole southern section of the Red Line from Westmoreland, with the two merging at West End and continuing along the city center shared section to Pearl Station (currently “Pearl/Arts District”).
Much to the surprise of critics, DART’s light rail was immediately embraced by Dallas residents, with ridership surpassing by far many of the initial meager ridership expectations. Expansion of the system thus continued, with the Red Line being extended northwards to Park Lane, on an alignment including an underground station (Cityplace/Uptown, opened in 2000) on the 10th of January 1997 and the Blue Line being extended southwards from Illinois to Ledbetter in May 1997.
On the 24th of September 2001, the Blue Line was extended northwards, branching off the Red Line at Mockingbird station and running to White Rock, then to LBJ/Skillman (opening on the 2nd of May 2002), giving the network an “H” shape.
The latter half of 2002 saw both the Red and Blue Lines extended northwards, the former to Galatyn Park on the 1st of July 2002, and the latter from LBJ/Skillman to Downtown Garland on the 18th of November. The Red Line was eventually extended to it’s current northern terminus of Parker Road on the 9th of December.
After nearly two years, the network was extended again, adding a short spur to “Victory” station, serving the “American Airlines Center” – a multipurpose arena, home to the Dallas Stars (NHL) and Dallas Mavericks (NBA). The station was provisionally opened on the 14th of November 2004, with trains shuttling between it and West End, the next station south and the interchange with the Red and Blue Lines, during event days only. Regular services along the “spur” began five years (minus one month) later, on the 14th of September 2009, with the start of Green Line operations between Victory station and a new eastern branch to MLK Jr. Station.
On the 6th of December 2010, the Green Line was extended both ways to both it’s current terminuses, adding 26,5 km to the north, from Victory to North Carrolton/Frankford, and 12 km to the south, from MLK Jr. to Buckner. On the same day, Lake Islands, an infill station on the eastern leg of the blue line, was also opened.
The 30th of July 2012 saw the introduction of a fourth service – the Orange Line – with the opening of a new 8,9 km long section, branching off the Green Line at Bachman and running to Irving Convention Center, with Orange Line trains running between the latter, via the city center shared section, to LBJ Central, on the “northern” Red Line leg (with services being extended to the norther terminus, Parker Road, on rush hours). Later that year, on the 3rd of December, the Orange Line was extended by 5,9 km to Belt Line station, and the Blue Line was extended 7,4 km from Downtown Garland to it’s current eastern terminus, Downtown Rowlett. On the 18th of August, the Orange Line was extended again, reaching it’s current northern terminus – DFW Airport. The final major extension to the DART Light Rail network was opened on the 24th of October 2016, with the Blue Line being extended 4,1 km southwards from Ledbetter to it’s current southern terminus – UNT Dallas station, serving the University of Northern Texas Dallas campus. The very lastest addition to the network is Hidden Ridge Station, an infill station on the northern leg of the Orange Line, wich opened on the 12th of April 2021.
Thus, as of today, the total lenght of the DART Light Rail system is 93 miles, or about 150 km. Plans for futher suburban extensions are aboundant, but have been mostly put on hold due to limited capacity within the “bottleneck” of the system – the city center shared section between West End and Pearl/Arts District. A proposed solution was the “D2” project, wich would’ve involved building a new underground shared section, parallel to the existing one, over wich most of the new lines would be rerouted. However, the “D2” project was subsequently put on hold as well, due to funding constaint and local opposition to the needed construction work, with DART opting instead to use the funding to increase capacity on the existing network and to expedite construction of the orbital “Silver Line” commuter rail line.
Indeed, besides the huge Light Rail expansion, DART has been active in regards to the other transit modes under it’s authority. For starters, as a replacement for the western section of a fifth potential light rail line, a 3,94 km long (2,45 miles) modern streetcar line opened in 2015 between Union Station (interchange across the street with the Red and Blue lines) and Bishop Arts’, serving the namesake district. DART’s whole bus network was also completely overhauled in 2022 (having previously been left mostly unchanged since DART’s formation in 1983), being restructured around 22 “core” lines with 15-to-20 minute frequencies.
DART’s current major project is the afromentioned Silver Line, a 42 km (26 miles) long orbital commuter rail line running to the north of Dallas, from DFW Airport (interchange with the Orange Line and the TEXrail commuter rail to Forth Worth) via Downtown Carrolton (interchange with the Green Line) to Cityline/Bush and 12th Street (both interchanges with the Red Line) and Siloh Street. Non-electrified, the line will be using Stadler FLIRT-3 DMUs running at 60 minute frequencies (or 30 minutes frequencies during rush hours) and is scheduled to open in 2026.
Besides these, DART is also active in the supervision of several other transit systems and smaller “suboordinate” agencies, among wich Trinity Railway Express, a 55km (34 miles) long commuter rail service between Dallas and Fort Worth, operated jointly with Trinity Metro (Fort Worth’s transit agency), the A-Train, a 34 km (21 miles) long commuter rail service functionally working as a northern extension of the DART Green Line into Denton Country (and as such, is operated by Denton County Transportation Authority) and the M-Line trolley, a heritage streetcar line operating in downtown Dallas, operated by the non-profit “McKinney Avenue Transit Authority”, wich DART partly subsidizes.
Trivia #1
Among the various “pull out (from DART)” votes held in the 1990s – where cities put to referendum the adhesion to DART and the mandatory 1% sales tax to be self-imposed to finance the agency – four in 1996 are notable, as the campaing to “leave” DART was in part bankrolled by Jerry Jones, the then-owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team, wich hoped to cash in the 1% sales tax for the Texas Stadium in Irving, the home of the Dallas Cowboys at the time. None of the four referendums succeded, with all relative cities voting to remain into DART – three of them with voting margins of nearly two-to-one.
Trivia #2
With it’s 150 km (93 miles) DART’s light rail system was the former largest light rail network in the United States, with the title having been passed over to Los Angeles’ LACMTA Metro Rail system, with the A, C, E and K lines holding a combined lenght of 152,1 km (94,5 miles) since the opening of the latter in 2024.
DART Light Rail – Red, Blue, Green and Orange Lines
