Transportation

Unpopular Toll Road Idea We Said Was Dead Might Not Be Dead

North Texas' regional transportation officials recently announced that they would no longer recommend forcing people out of their homes in the countryside northeast of Dallas to build another toll road, because it turned out that people didn't like the idea. "We thought we had consensus that we sho ... More >>

Plans for Texas' First Private Toll Road Roll On -- and Right Over People in its Path

For the people who live in the countryside east of Lake Ray Hubbard and Lake Lavon, the appeal is in the quiet rural roads, dense trees, wild animals in the woods and bright stars shining in the night sky. To a Dallas company called the Texas Turnpike Corp., all that open space is a sign that not e ... More >>

Collin County Might Kill Planned Toll Lanes, but Dallas Never Put Up a Fight

There's something fascinating happening in Collin County. Residents are voicing an opinion on an issue -- in this case they loathe the idea of tolled "managed lanes" running down their portion of Central Expressway -- and, lo and behold, their duly elected leaders, including Collin County's entire l ... More >>

First DFW Tollway Became Toll-Free After Debt Was Paid Off. Why Not the Others?

If you've been trolling Reddit anytime in the last week, you may have seen this article from June 2, 1968, in which Jack Davis, an engineer and manager for the Texas Turnpike Authority, was quoted in The Dallas Morning News. He spoke about the fledgling Dallas North Tollway project, just two years ... More >>

Arlington, Now with a Single Bus Route, Loses Crown as Largest City Without Mass Transit

Arlington is celebrating this morning. After decades as the largest U.S. municipality without mass transit, the city now has a bus service. So park your Ford Excursion and prepare to retire your warmed-over gibes about Arlington as the ultimate suburban wasteland. All done? OK, now bring them back ... More >>

Meet Dallas' New Oak Cliff Streetcars

If you need a reminder that Oak Cliff and downtown will soon be linked by street car, head over to the Houston Street and watch as drivers try to get across the viaduct, which is closed for construction. Another reminder: DART just announced that it's officially sealed a $9.4 million deal with Penn ... More >>

DART Scales Back Expansion Plans in Hopes of Improving Current System, Upping Ridership

When DART last sat down to update its long-range plan in 2006, the agency was thinking big. With the recession still beyond the horizon, planners envisioned 86 additional miles of rail and 121 miles of new bus routes. Since then, the agency has added the bus routes, opened up the Green Line (making ... More >>

Oak Cliff Streetcar Poised to Get $30 Million, Connect to Convention Center and Bishop Arts

When Jason Roberts and his crew at the Oak Cliff Transit Authority first began trying to fund a streetcar line connect downtown with Oak Cliff, they asked the feds for around $48 million. They got only half of that. They've scraped together a bit more funding from various sources, but not enough to ... More >>

Arlington Finally Invents a Public Transit System Voters Can't Reject: A Single Bus Route

In 2002, Arlington voters considered a proposal to establish a public transit system. The system would have been funded through a modest quarter-cent sales-tax increase that had the support of the City Council and every major business group in town but not, as the News reported at the time, the Con ... More >>

North Texas is Angling for a Light Rail Manufacturing Plant (Translation: Jobs!)

When the Denton County Transportation Authority was shopping for rail cars for its A-train commuter line in 2009, it settled on 11 diesel-electric vehicles manufactured in Europe by Stadler, a company based in Switzerland. The cars are quieter, more fuel efficient and more spacious than the light ra ... More >>

Shocker: DFW Public Transit Does a Terrible Job of Getting People To Work

Splashed across the front page of the Morning News today, large and above the fold, is an article detailing a new Brookings Institution study that measures how well public transit connects people and jobs in the nation's 100 most populous metropolitan areas: "D-FW among worst for getting to work on ... More >>

Greyhound Drivers Union Says Texas Buses Are Being Driven by Crappy Drivers. Huh?

Anyone who has ridden cross-country on a Greyhound bus, and who walked by the bus station on Lamar Street yesterday, would have assumed that the group of protesters gathered there were speaking out against the inhumane conditions suffered by its passengers. On the contrary, the picketers were m ... More >>

American Airlines Flight Sent Back to Gate After Flight Attendant Rants Over PA About Crashing

Update, 12:30 p.m.: The flight's on the ground, but it will need to restock its alcohol supply. Details after the original. Update, 11:23 a.m.: American has confirmed the incident, and says two flight attendants were injured. The airline's statement is after the original item. Original item: An Am ... More >>

Survey Says American, Southwest Are the Top Two Carriers When It Comes to Losing Bags

​A Friend of Unfair Park passes along The Wall Street Journal's latest look-see at how well the big carriers handle passengers and their luggage, and per the annual Middle Seat survey the two locally based airlines don't do so well when it comes to getting your bags to your destination. As in: Ame ... More >>

Census Report on Transit Use Puts Dallas Area Near the Bottom of List. DART Explains Why.

​The Census Bureau released a lot of data this morning, including the 2010 American Community Survey Single Year Estimates; we'll get to that once we look over the charts and graphs -- fun! But among the docs dumped is Commuting in the United States: 2009, which says, among other things, it takes ... More >>

Transportation News is Bad, But the Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

​Straws in the wind: 1) Rick Perry, toll czar of Texas, still pushing private highways; 2) DART a dismal failure; 3) North Texas Tollway Authority still run by the good old boys. This could all be good. You know where we need to wind up with all this? A toll road from Dallas up to Lake Texoma ... More >>

Clang, Clang, Crunch: The Truth About Streetcars

Why should Dallas build a tiny, inefficient streetcar line when it's broke? Because trolleys are groovy.

Southwest's Flight Attendants Are Furious Over Pilot's Comments and Carrier's Response

​Perhaps you've heard: Back on March 25, a still-unidentified Southwest Airlines pilot was somewhere over the great state of Texas when he decided to use his open mike to review the Love Field-based carrier's flight attendants. Said the fellow, all he could find on his route were "11 fucking over- ... More >>

Nothing Rapid About DART in Ice and Snow

​Check me on this. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the outfit that runs the trains, didn't know how to keep their trains running in an ice storm. The same kind of trains operate in winter weather cities all over the world. There's a way to keep them running in an ice storm. But DART didn't know how. L ... More >>

Let Countdown Begin, As DART's Set to Award Streetcar System Planning Study Contract

David Spence/OakCliff.com​The Dallas City Council and Dallas Area Rapid Transit board will hold a joint meeting this morning during which they'll discuss, among other things, DART's long-term expansion plans, the planned Blue Line extension to the University of North Texas at Dallas campus and tha ... More >>

"The Much Anticipated Downtown Dallas Streetcar Project Is a Step Closer to Reality."

University of Texas at Arlington LibraryMain and Akard, circa 1953​That headline is the very first sentence in a press release from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration announcing that on Thursday, it and the North Central Texas Council of Governments finally signed the grant agreement that wil ... More >>

Putting the "Green" in Green Line, as Feds Give DART a Surprise Belated Christmas Gift

Dallas Area Rapid TransitThe North Carrollton/Frankford Station as seen during the early morning hours of Opening Day on December 6​A little while ago, the Federal Transit Authority announced that it's advancing around $182 million in New Starts grants to a handful of transit projects already unde ... More >>

Southwest's Flight Attendants Cheer TSA's Move to Let 'Em Through Without Scan, Pat-Down

​Seems like it was only Friday that Transport Workers Union Local 556 -- which reps Southwest Airlines's 9,400 flight attendants -- was sending Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John J. Pistole that note letting the officials know they most certainly did not app ... More >>

City Expects $2 Mil In Federal Money Will Spur Development Around Four Light-Rail Stations

The Hatcher Station, one of four light-rail stations identified as by the city as a recipient of the feds' grant announced this morning​This morning we've received several press releases from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation announcing ... More >>

Mayor Tom: "Dallas Is At the Heart of What is Happening in the U.S. Economy Today."

Chris Heinbaugh​On the other side is the final dispatch from Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom Leppert's chief of staff, who's among the traveling party wrapping up that trade mission to Spain and France. The quote in the headline comes from the release that follows, in which Leppert says the Euros are r ... More >>

McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, Fort Worth Receive Millions in Urban Circulator Grants

​A couple of weeks ago, we were discussing the future of the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority -- specifically, its plans to create a "connector loop line down St. Paul and up Federal to Olive," in the words of MATA's chief operating officer, John Landrum. MATA and Dallas Area Rapid Transit were h ... More >>

In the Loop: A Closer Look at MATA's "Urban Streetcar Track Extension" Downtown

Click to embiggen: DART sends this map of the MATA's downtown loop​Morgan Lyons, Dallas Area Rapid Transit's spokesman, and Jay Kline, DART's streetcar liaison with the city, were kind enough to forward along this map of the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority's "0.65-mile urban streetcar track exte ... More >>

DART's Point Man on Streetcars Talks About Runnin' MATA Track Into Downtown

When the boy and I were on Rosie a few days ago, we were the only non-tourists on the trolley. Trust me, I asked for a show of hands.​In the comments to yesterday's item about stumbling upon those streetcars in the Dallas Area Rapid Transit's rail yards, a few Friends of Unfair Park got to wonderi ... More >>

From OKC to Fort Worth, Heartland Flyer's Cow Fat Test Run Gets Nod in U.K.

​Meant to point this out last week, when I first saw the story on Salon. But now it's made its way to the U.K. -- this story of the little train that could ... run on cow fat, that is, all the way from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth every single day. (Though "with stops along the way in Norman, Purce ... More >>

Oh, Wonderview, "Car-Free" Kennedy Has Some Suggestions For You

Click to enlarge the Wonderview site plan from the March City Plan Commission briefing​Patrick Kennedy, the professional urban designer behind Walkable Dallas-Fort Worth, likes what he sees in Mark Cuban's proposed Wonderview development near Kiest Boulevard and Southerland Avenue. Only, he writes ... More >>

Does Dallas County Need More Toll Roads? Maybe So, Maurine Dickey Says.

Downtown Dallas Streetcar Project Takes the TIGER By the Tail to Tune of $23 Million

One of the proposed alignments for streetcars through downtown Dallas. Here's the January City Hall briefing containing all the options.​Sooner than expected, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced the 51 projects across the country to receive Transportation Investment Generating Economi ... More >>

Tracks of My Tears, | Slumming It, | Critics’ Pick: Tool,

According to UNT Profs, DART's the "Economic Engine Making Dallas a World-Class City"

Click to expland the image if you actually want to peek at DART's 2030 Transit PlanThis morning at Dallas Area Rapid Transit HQ, president Gary Thomas lauded the rail expansion as "on time and under budget," and presented a new study by professors at the University of North Texas's Center for Econom ... More >>

"Very Exciting Stuff" as Dallas and Fort Worth Apply for Federal Money for Streetcars

Courtesy Justin CozartIn 1945, Dallas city and transit officials, among them Mayor J. Woodall Rodgers, introduced "the first of twenty-five new, silent, streamlined street cars."Almost two months ago, the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environmental Committee got a peek at the proposed ali ... More >>

So, That Dallas Streetcar Grant Application? It's Really the Oak Cliff Transit Authority, Sorry.

Courtesy the Oak Cliff Transit AuthorityOne of the original streetcars that ran through Oak Cliff long, long agoJason Roberts -- a Happy Bullet, co-founder of the Art Conspiracy, Texas Theater-rehabber and, for the purposes of this item, Oak Cliff Transit Authority board member -- sends word that th ... More >>

Trinity Toll Road Isn't a White Deal. It's a Bad Deal.

The City's Considering Those Streetcars. But, See, They Cost Money.

Seven months ago, the word "streetcar" started showing up on Unfair Park -- seems Jim's plenty keen on the idea, along with other trolley-touters who look to yesterday's transportation option as tomorrow's development generator. Which is why, as the Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environme ... More >>

AA Flight Attendants to Work the Picket Counter at DFW Tomorrow

Airline Execs Now Have Common Enemy: Goddamned Oil Speculators!

So, from the looks of a letter that arrived in my in-box last night, most of the airlines' woes come from but a single source: oil speculators. At least, that's what American Airlines' Gerard Arpey and Southwest Airlines' Gary Kelly -- and nine of their fellow CEOs and presidents -- insist in a miss ... More >>

Looked Like You Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue

Not a scene from DFW's air traffic control, swear One week ago today, the Government Accountability Office released a report that noted the Federal Aviation Administration's stepped-up efforts to hire new air traffic controllers, to compensate for "the projected departure of over 15,000 air traffic ... More >>

Clang, Clang, Clang Goes the Downtown Trolley, Just Maybe?

Johns Hopkins University Well, thank goodness for Morgan Lyons, that’s all I can say. A little birdie called to alert me to a very important meeting taking place Friday at City Hall to discuss building a trolley line through downtown and also to talk about the second downtown light-rail alignm ... More >>

AA Flight 48, From DFW to Paris, Sounds Like One Hell of a Trip

Look at it this way -- at least Flight 48 to Paris wasn't late. It's the little things that matter. Editor's note: Edmund Newton, managing editor of our sister paper in Fort Lauderdale, sends along the following tale: Here’s the question: Is it safe to fly during times when commercial airlines ar ... More >>

Just Think of All the Free Travel

Your Spring Break Trip Just Got Officially Effed

If you're planning to fly American Airlines in to or out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport today, well, no, you're not. Friend of Unfair Park Tim Wagner, the Voice of American Airlines, was just on KRLD-AM (1080), where he said the airline has canceled its full schedule of flights to and fr ... More >>

American Airlines: They'll Get Ya There. At Some Point.

More good news for American Airlines, which is starting the year with two false-imprisonment lawsuits hanging over its head. Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation released its Air Travel Consumer Report for November, and of the 20 major carriers in the United States, Fort Worth-based American ... More >>

Aunt Fannie's Butt|Smogville|Douchebaggery

Michael Morris, King of the Roads

Michael Morris, Director of Transportation for the NCTCOG, lives in Arlington. Which doesn't stop him from poking his nose into other cities' bidness. Michael Morris sighting this morning. I want to read it into the record. Morris, of course, is my least favorite local politician. Nothing personal. ... More >>

Taking Its Toll

Almost done here. As in, the Trinity River toll road's damned near a done deal. With 355 out of 400 precincts reporting, it's 37,006 folks for the toll road and 33,011 against. --Robert Wilonsky

Streetcars Desired

Party for trollies in Oak Cliff