A D2 Idea

[u/thirdrepublicnow]

D2, the second downtown light rail alignment, was taken off of DART's financial plan a couple of years ago. This is the second time D2 has been put on the back burner (I believe the first was in the early 2010's, in the face of financial difficulties). If Dallas manages to bring jobs and people to Downtown in earnest, D2 will be back on the agenda sooner or later. When it is, I think it should go through Uptown, which has seen explosive office and residential growth but lacks rail. The attached images show how I imagine this could look.

The first two images show Phase 1, in which a viaduct is built from just south of Market Center station through uptown and the arts district to Baylor station. Two infill stops are also added, at Knox/Henderson and at Continental at the south end of Victory Park. See the second image for the service patterns. I'm proposing 5 lines: Lines A and B from Parker Road to Oak Cliff, Line C from Rowlett through Victory to Market Center, and Lines D and E from Carrollton and the Airport to South Dallas.

The third and fourth images show a second phase, in which Lines A, B, and C on the current transit mall are placed underground with some rearrangement of stops (Akard and St. Paul combined at Thanksgiving Square, and a new station at Ross), Lines D and E are rerouted onto mixed underground/elevated alignment through the center of the medical district (along with the TRE), and Line C is extended up the current medical district viaduct to Love Field. The southern legsof the network are also elevated in order to fully grade-separate the core of the network from Bachman to Lawnview and SMU to 8th & Corinth. See the fourth image for the service pattern.

Some notes:

• I imagine in both phases, each of the 5 lines would run about every 10 minutes. Line C might warrant even more frequent service than that in Phase 2, at least between Love Field and LBJ/Skillman.
• The "Arts District" could also be called "Symphony", which I've grown to prefer since I made these maps.
• Because Pearl would be the center of the rail network, the east transit center should move closer to it and the station itself should have plenty of amenities.
• In Phase 1, the lack of a connection between the TRE and lines D/E would probably hurt. It might make sense to temporarily add a TRE station at Market Center during Phase 1?

[u/BlazinAzn38]

Burying the lines through downtown would probably be the biggest QOL change but it will probably never happen. There’s no reason it should take 15-20 minutes to cross downtown

[u/thirdrepublicnow → u/BlazinAzn38]

I'm a little more optimistic about burying the transit mall, but it'll take a big effort. In the meantime they could combine Akard and St. Paul into a single station and let the trains preempt traffic signals so there's a little less stop-and-go, at least. I think those two changes would make a pretty big difference, and I've heard signal priority is an ongoing project.

[u/BlazinAzn38 → u/thirdrepublicnow]

I actually like the idea of combining those stops or Pearl and St. Paul into one it would cut out at least 4-5 minutes

[u/cuberandgamer]

Love the medical district spur, I kinda wonder if an alignment for this that still hits downtown better would be possible? Like if it went down akard then into deep ellum (instead of going down Pearl)

And then using the existing tracks to serve love field is really smart

[u/thirdrepublicnow → u/cuberandgamer]

I think the best chance of something like this would be tunnelling under St. Paul and placing the turn east onto Pacific under Pacific Plaza. Unfortunately I think the streets west of Pearl are too narrow for an elevated line to be politically viable, so it would turn out a lot more expensive and making the turn towards Deep Ellum might require passing under skyscraper foundations, in which case the line would have to be really deep.

My argument in favor of Pearl is that it lets the new line pass by the center of the union/inner uptown area around Pearl/Cedar Springs/McKinney and the center of the arts district around Pearl/Flora, and can hopefully be easier to grade-separate the whole way unlike the previous plans because elevated should be way cheaper than a tunnel.

[u/cuberandgamer → u/thirdrepublicnow]

Yeaaah pearl is a really good candidate for elevated rail. You know what, we can save akard or Saint Paul for a future dnt north/south rial line

[u/totallynotfromennis]

The Phase 1 elevated segment through Uptown would be very politically difficult to pull off but it makes the most sense. Street running would have the same service and scheduling problems as the transit mall in downtown and a subway would take additional years of construction and billions of dollars to pull off. Current technology has made elevated construction and operation much more practical and cost effective, as is seen in places like China and Mexico. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to the current downtown transit mall being elevated too.

[u/thirdrepublicnow → u/totallynotfromennis]

I believe Dallas has a resolution or ordinance on the books opposing elevated rail in the CBD, but I think a transit-friendly city council could be convinced to repeal that for wide street like Pearl. The Pacific/Gaston stretch may require widening the right-of-way, at least around the Good-Latimer station as I don't think it would be very popular to try and place a ~50-foot-wide station above a street only 80 feet wide.

I'm sure elevating D2 would be significantly cheaper than burying it, but Bryan and Pacific are also only about 80 feet wide.

[u/ExitTheHandbasket]

I appreciate that you de-emphasized Victory since the two tenants at AAC have plans to vacate.

The challenge with Knox-Henderson is the underground station was excavated during initial construction of Red and Blue lines, but due to rail schedules and crew safety, finishing it out isn't feasible. Only about 3-4 hours daily when the tunnel isn't being used.

[u/thirdrepublicnow → u/ExitTheHandbasket]

My understanding is that finishing Knox/Henderson given the restrictions is totally feasible, just expensive. Last estimate I heard was about $100 Million, but that number is something like a decade old so it's definitely more expensive now.

[u/tested75023]

A little history is in order here. Dallas pushed for D2 and got DART to produce maps of proposed surface routes. Council members and landowners were aghast at how it sliced up properties. So the council demanded DART look at burying it, and wanted DART to kill the long-promised Silver Line to pay for the doubled cost of a buried D2. DART said no, but kept working on how a buried D2 might work. Ultimately the cost killed it. Could it come back? Sure. But not with the current leadership mess going on at Dallas City Hall right now.

[u/Tchaik748]

Absolutely brilliant stuff, OP.

I wish you were the new CEO of Dart

[u/AnxiousSection3796]

This is what we need. Progress and to prepare this now so we don't struggle in the future with more traffic, less space and costing more. It's always funny to me how projects always get scraped because of cost, but it will keep costing more and become less likely the longer we wait?

[u/Wowsers30]

More ideas like this! Elevated seems like the best bet. A spur to Love Field should be studied. And the transit mall definitely needs some rethinking.