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Houston's system is a tram. Been saying it for the past few years. It's not a rapid transit system. DART is streetcar like only in downtown. But outside of it, it becomes more rapid transit as it does not interact with the roads that often.
The streetcar is from downtown to Oak Cliff. But yeah, DART and METRO METRORail are obviously built differently.
But even the part of DART in downtown Dallas runs on dedicated roads. minus a couple spots that have a turn lane on the right side. Metro Rail in Downtown Houston runs in the street with cars driving on each side of it or in the same lane.
I wish they would build the current downtown rail corridor to be elevated like some other sections of DART rail after the subway line is done. It would be a lot more cost effective than building two subway lines downtown.
Dallas DART has better light rail coverage in this comparison because Dallas and Dallas county is landlocked. We have all these mega suburbs like Plano, Irving, Carrollton, etc. that have populations of (2) and 300,000+. It was easier to build light rail here because our suburbs are all packed one behind another. And the preference of people here are suburbs You can tell by looking at the numbers. The city of Dallas is just 1.4 million but our suburbs like Irving(283,000), Plano(286,000) and other mega-suburbs in the Dallas county says it all. And it makes light rail more efficient to operate than Houston. Dart doesn't even have 700 buses in their fleet but has 163 light rail cars that make up for the service area.
But Houston has the better bus system with over 1,100 buses and 78 light light rail cars and more to come from expanded light rail service. Harris county is built and laid out totally different than Dallas county so the Metro service area requires more buses because the city of Houston is larger than Dallas county just by borders and land size. Houston's suburbs are scattered out and around Houston with a lot of undeveloped land in between some of Harris counties suburbs. The preference of most people in Houston is to stay within Houston because the city by itself is a very large area. Dallas is too but not like H-Town. Even the type of buses both cities have are totally different. Dart has downsized the size of its Express or Suburban buses to regular size transit buses but Metro still has MCI or over the road style buses for their bus designs. Thats because Harris county and Houston itself is spread out a good far distance. But when Metro build its light rail out to capacity, they will out do Dart majority.
System, Country, City/Area served, Annual ridership(2017),Avg. daily weekday boardings (Q4 2017), System length, Avg. daily boardings per mile (Q4 2016), Year opened, Stations, Lines, Year last expanded
DART Light Rail USA Dallas 29,759,500 98,700 93 miles (150 km) 1,091 1996 64 4 2016
METRORail USA Houston 18,808,000 61,100 22.9 miles (36.9 km) 2,427 2004 37 3 2015
From wikipedia. Looks like overall Dallas is pretty firmly ahead. Dallas also has a commuter rail line, two streetcar lines, and a funny little people mover system in the suburbs that all feed into the system. Are there a lot more expansions under construction for Houston than there are for Dallas?
System, Country, City/Area served, Annual ridership(2017),Avg. daily weekday boardings (Q4 2017), System length, Avg. daily boardings per mile (Q4 2016), Year opened, Stations, Lines, Year last expanded
DART Light Rail USA Dallas 29,759,500 98,700 93 miles (150 km) 1,091 1996 64 4 2016
METRORail USA Houston 18,808,000 61,100 22.9 miles (36.9 km) 2,427 2004 37 3 2015
From wikipedia. Looks like overall Dallas is pretty firmly ahead. Dallas also has a commuter rail line, two streetcar lines, and a funny little people mover system in the suburbs that all feed into the system. Are there a lot more expansions under construction for Houston than there are for Dallas?
The only one I know of is the Hobby Airport expansion for the Red and Purple lines.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of either Houston's or Dallas' rail systems. They are both suboptimal for different reasons. DART just built where it was easy with a focus on system length and little else, creating a system that is highly underutilized, with long rush hour headways (7-15 minutes), and is perceived as unsafe in many places. Metro built a design that hits some high activity centers, but misses many MANY others, and exacerbates traffic congestion in most areas it operates, which is the exact opposite of what you want light rail to accomplish. It also has some safety perception issues, and completely screws up traffic light timing to an extent I've never seen with any other light rail system.
Both could have been done much better, but that ship has sailed at this point.
The only one I know of is the Hobby Airport expansion for the Red and Purple lines.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of either Houston's or Dallas' rail systems. They are both suboptimal for different reasons. DART just built where it was easy with a focus on system length and little else, creating a system that is highly underutilized, with long rush hour headways (7-15 minutes), and is perceived as unsafe in many places. Metro built a design that hits some high activity centers, but misses many MANY others, and exacerbates traffic congestion in most areas it operates, which is the exact opposite of what you want light rail to accomplish. It also has some safety perception issues, and completely screws up traffic light timing to an extent I've never seen with any other light rail system.
Both could have been done much better, but that ship has sailed at this point.
I think a plus for Dallas is a lot of it is on exclusive ROW even though it’s not through the densest parts of town that can change as the city grows.
Denver did the same thing with RTD as Dallas did with DART.
Dallas' DART is obviously much more extensive and much faster since Houston's system is largely a streetcar with minimal grade separation.
I am not a fan of downtown street running or street level service, and both cities have these. However Dallas is planning a downtown subway to relieve this situation (all lines converge on one street-level set of tracks). This should greatly improve DART's delivery of service and, hopefully, pump up its disappointing ridership.
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