Bus Rapid Transit Is Coming
I've been looking through the TAM items, TAM is their state of good repair program. With DART's extra $500 million surplus, they have a lot of options on how it can be spent.
It cannot be spent on increased frequency, one time payouts like this will just get spent too quickly if spent on more service.
Whats interesting about state of good repair is that its much broader than what you and I might think of. Its not just making sure the buses are in good shape and that your train tracks are properly maintained.
Their state of good repair needs
These are some major improvements they want done in the next 5 years. Bus rapid transit corridor is huge. Weatherization would be nice, especially after what happened this winter. Better bus shelters are always welcome. There are some more immediate needs, like raising the station platforms because the new trains coming in 2026 will be low floor all the way, and this will make it easier for wheelchair users to board the trains. But the reality is that they will not be able to do all of this in the next 5 years. They have about $1 billion budgeted towards all of this, meaning they are $900 million short.
They have an extra $500 million from covid, and this is what that money would go to. We dont know what the board will do with that money, it seems somewhat likely that half of it will go to the cities if they can agree how it will be spent and on some of the details on how that money is allocated.
So okay, thats still a roughly $700 million shortfall, which sounds bad. The thing is, not all of these need to be done in 5 years. Maybe in the next 5 years, $200 million can be invested in BRT corridors, and in the 5 years after that another $300 million can be invested into BRT corridors.
Something else to note is that the TRE improvements are actually half of whats displayed here, since Trinity Metro and DART split those costs 50/50.
Federal grants have the potential to be used for some of these expenses as well. A DART board member actually asked about this, and their staff is looking to see what federal grants are avialable.
Lots of IIJA (infrastructure and jobs act) money coming to North Texas could potentially be used for this as well.
Here are some more specifics on how the money is going to be spent:
Transit signal priority, the description on the right is explaining what happens if DART doesnt fund this. Looks like more TSP Is coming
Another item is the "NC Tunnel", and the consequence for not funding this project is " Connectivity will not be available for passengers and DART will not be able to satisfy the objectives. "
If anyone knows what the NC tunnel is please let me know, I dont have the slightest idea, but it sounds like some sort of pedestrian amenity that goes under a freeway or road to shorten a walk to a station.. Not sure what NC stands for, maybe North Carrolton?
Glad to see they didnt forget about mobility hubs. The idea behind mobility hubs was to have these hubs with access to bus, rail, bike share, scooter share, ridershare, and car share. Being able to get off the train and onto a scooter would be great, and this is an item DART talked about in their 2045 Transit Plan. I would love to have car share, Im in a situation where I still need to drive once every 2-3 weeks, which is annoying because car ownership is expensive and my car is *almost* useless. These mobility hubs are basically just a more modern, better transit center.
The rest of the list mostly contains bus shelter improvements, rehab for platforms/facilities (smaller cheap repairs that could get more expensive later), police tools, and a bunch of random uninteresting items. The full list is here: https://www.dart.org/about/board/boardagendas/wholeitem19b_12jul22.pdf
I probably missed something, please take a look.
The most expensive item was this:
And I really dont know how necessary this is, or how many benefits this could have to the rider. Perhaps unifying the whole system to ATP could speed up the light rail because the increased safety means the trains can go faster and wait less at stops. I really don't have a clue though, gonna tag u/LittleTXBigAZ, maybe you could give us some insight?
My gut feeling is that if DART could push this expensive signal upgrade costs back to give us BRT sooner, that would be ideal, but maybe thats a very bad idea for many reasons I just dont understand.
But yes, BRT seems to be in the works, and who knows how long it will take but the new CEO is clearly very ambitious for wanting to take care of all of these projects in the next 5 years, which I love to see. Hopefully those federal dollars can expedite these items.