Dallas’ public transit system has been getting a little attention of late. There’s the ongoing kerfuffle about the suburban bus rival that isn’t panning out to be as much of a competitor to the regional transit system. In October, the PBS Newshour produced a lengthy report on DART’s successes and shortcomings. Now there’s a new report out of the Kinder Institute that takes a look at Houston and Dallas’ divergent philosophies towards transit development.
In short, the Kinder report explains how Dallas opted for a regional rail network, spending oodles to build-out as many miles of rail as possible. Houston, on the other hand, concentrated on building rail through its most populated core, hoping that connecting destinations would make the system more usable.
The Kinder report doesn’t take a hard stance on either approach. DART moves more people than Houston’s METRO, but when you look at ridership by mile, the Dallas system is less efficient. On the other hand, DART has generated some transit oriented developments around some of its stations, so there’s an argument that the sprawling light rail system may promote smarter, denser development.
That’s all well and fine, but which approach is better in the long run? Well, the answer may actually be none of the above. Because as the Orange County Register reports, sunbelt cities from Los Angeles to Atlanta are all having difficult cracking the public transit nut. In fact, ridership numbers throughout the sprawling sunbelt continue to drop:
All Southern California’s Sunbelt rivals have done poorly in terms of transit share. Atlanta, which built its subway earlier than most, has seen its transit market share cut by more than half.
Or, take the Dallas light-rail system – DART – which serves growing Dallas and Collin counties, an extensive area where just 2 percent of metropolitan area employment is downtown. DART expanded its lines by approximately three quarters from 2000-14, but still lost commuting market share.
The story is similar in Houston, where the light-rail system opened in 2004. From 2003-14, the population in Harris County, which includes Houston, grew 23 percent, but transit ridership decreased 12 percent, according to American Public Transportation Association data. This means that the average Houstonian took 30 percent fewer trips on the combined bus and light-rail system in 2014 than on the bus-only system in 2003.
In all of these cities, the OC Register reports, driving alone has increased. Also interesting, more people are working from home in these cities than commuting on transit to work. The extent of the impact of technology on commuting probably couldn’t have been foreseen back in the early 1980s when the region was discussing its options for planning a rail system. Similarly, we can now speculate about how automated cars — which may be mainstream in a similar 30-year time period — will impact transit ridership.
In light of all of this, despite the shortcomings of each, I think I’m happier with the Dallas model than the Houston model when it comes to rail. Promoting dense development in places like Plano and Richardson seems like a positive fringe benefit particularly since, for all of Houston’s system’s efficiency, like Dallas, it is loosing riders all the same.
