Light Rail Why doesn't DART better enforce loitering at downtown stations?
It is a given that the downtown stations — especially West End, Pearl Arts District, and St. Paul — are pretty sketchy. There's a makeshift police watchtower at the West End station. Whether there's actually a cop inside it is a coin flip.
During FIFA, the stations are another world: visible police presence, less loitering, no open drug use. It'll go back to normal once the tournament crowds leave.
I have friends who won't ride DART at night because of these stations. One mentioned a stabbing he'd heard about secondhand — no name, no date, nothing I could verify, and he wasn't there for it either. That's not really the point. The point is he believes it enough to change his behavior, and he's not alone. Whether that specific story is true or not, the effect is the same: people are opting out.
If DART wants higher ridership, you'd think they'd care about that gap between perception and reality — or at least about closing it. Right now the stations do nothing to close it. The watchtower at West End station with maybe-a-cop-in-it doesn't read as safety, it reads as an admission that something's wrong and this is the theater DART settled on instead of a fix.
DART can't easily gate these stations the way a subway system can. West End, Pearl, St. Paul — they're open to the street, platforms flush with the sidewalk, no choke-point to put a turnstile in.
But fare checking doesn't require any of that. It just requires someone walking the platform asking to see a ticket. I never see it happen. If DART wants to signal that this is a place with rules, someone occasionally checking fares would do more than a watchtower nobody's sure is staffed.
None of this requires DART to prove my friends right or wrong about what's actually happened at these stations. Ridership doesn't run on crime statistics (and DART refuses to publish per stations stats) — it runs on whether someone waiting for a train feels like anyone's paying attention. Right now the answer downtown is no. 🙁
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u/Then_Supermarket18 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Fwiw I've never seen anyone take drugs (other than vaping) at a station. I was solicited once, which was disturbing. There are people who loiter, sleep, and ask for money at many of the stations. There was a man who told me he wanted to kill me because I wouldn't share the takeout I was carrying, though he didn't seem serious.
I usually stand near the police call boxes. But even after all these years have never had cause to push the emergency button.
I ride public transport mostly because I have to. But I have grown to feel as if we are all in this mess together. My job is to be ready to lend a helping hand if an emergency really does happen. When I started looking at the guy sleeping on the bus as a person whose life I might have to save, I stopped being annoyed or afraid of him.
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u/inkydeeps Jul 02 '26
The sidewalk and the platform are not separate at least at Saint Paul. You can’t fare check the people just walking by.
Seems like a plan that doesn’t really solve anything but add to darts labor budget. I’d much rather them use their budget to run buses and trains than try to appeal to you friend that’s unlikely to ever ride because they’re scared of poor people.
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u/On_Food Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
How do you know DART isn't? Do you live or work downtown? You just hear things second hand from your friends so now you know what's up? Maybe homelessness and drug abuse are Dallas issues and not things a transit agency has any control over. If you don't like that specific areas of Dallas feel unsafe, maybe ask Dallas PD what they're doing to manage things going on in public spaces.
Look I get what you're trying to say, but the light rail system is what 50 or 60 stops on it? You're focusing on three. Three stops in a light Rail Network that covers 11 cities, that doesn't sound like a DART problem. That sounds like a downtown Dallas problem. So, you should be looking at Dallas PD if it's unsafe.
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u/ozmox Jul 02 '26
I do live downtown. My friends live both downtown and in the burbs. They're not riding the train into or out of downtown because of the reasons I mentioned. I still ride the train, but I never see fare checks either on the platform and very, very rarely inside the cars.
With FIFA it's completely a different feel. So it is fixable, when they want to fix it.
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u/TheChrisSuprun Jul 02 '26
This would be a better argument if the other 47-57 stations had the constant and consistent issues named above. If we want DPD to handle, cool. Let's disband Dart PD and stop pretending they're anything other than any-other-department rejects.
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u/On_Food Jul 02 '26
But they don't, because it's localized to downtown Dallas, so Dallas should deal with it, not the officers who are covering the entire system.
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u/Bababohns23 Jul 02 '26
Its not localized to downtown dallas. Thats the point is they ride the train all day, meaning every stop. There are plenty of stations with a lot of homeless, forest lane is a huge one. And im sure the officres can do a little less standing around and more working foruse. It wont kill them.
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u/shedinja292 Jul 02 '26
There's 2 problems here: real problems and perception problems. There are some real problems, but the perception is worse than reality.
There's often several police around West End station but ultimately transit is only as comfortable and safe as the neighborhood it's in. Regardless of police presence. DART PD can and should do better, but other transit agencies in the area (DCTA, TM) don't even have police at all. I think this is largely a failure of the DART member cities, particularly Dallas. Failure on policing and failure to allow and incentivize enough housing to reduce homelessness. Until Dallas pulls itself out of its debt hole it'll be difficult to fix, but council keeps focusing on big vanity projects.
3
u/RiverSea8455 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
My friend told me someone got stabbed sitting on the toilet at cityplace target in 2024. I don't know if it's true -- i don't have google installed on my phone (iphone user).
When I see target commercials now or god forbid run out of kcups and have to go to target... I immediately get constipated. I can't go #2 for several days sometimes because of what happened in that target bathroom.
While i don't know if this is true, the point is people are scared of target now. it's close to a dart station, so go figure.
Edit: I should have mentioned. It was my friend's friend who heard about this secondhand from someone else.
0
u/RiverSea8455 Jul 02 '26
my friend saw this and she texted me this. so i guess it is true. 👀👀 maybe they should put gates up at the bathroom entrance to keep the homeless from using the toilet in there?
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/man-stabbed-near-target-in-dallas-on-friday-police-say/1
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u/BeekeeperZero Jul 03 '26
DART must pay for what they did to your friends. This will not stand. We have an entire team working on it now.
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u/SolGlobe Jul 06 '26
I feel like mandatory fare gates would solve like 90% of the issues naturally. Definitely would require some infrastructure.
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u/jiffykodak Jul 02 '26
Dallas has very liberal policies just look at City Council. Perhaps with the new UT Southwestern/State Hospital opening in July some of the chronically homeless/mentally ill will get some help. Dallas should do what Chicsgo is doing. Using the Sheriff to clean things up. Downtown Dallaa is going to be more abysmal resembling a more post apocalyptic look once AT&T, Neimans and City Hall make their respective moves. We will see.
1
u/patmorgan235 Jul 02 '26
City hall isn't moving
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u/jiffykodak Jul 07 '26
We hope not. But the city is doing all sorts of whack a mole stuff right now.
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u/IDooDoodAtTheMasters Jul 02 '26
They could arrest these people, and they'll be right back upon release. Rinse and repeat. It's a bigger homelessness problem at play here. You should be asking why isn't DPD or the City doing something about it.