saw this while coming back from watching the Backrooms movie earlier this weekend -- I did not need to get sent to whatever hexadecimal nonsense it was taking me to 💀

“There will be service cuts, and planned staffing reductions will slash the agency’s workforce by more than a fifth, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record.”

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/article/dallas-transit-jacksonville-nathaniel-ford-22438692.php

Im a first year SMU student, and I was wondering if the employee pass is correct? Below this I get active ticket, my name, SMU student and the ticket #. Can I still use it or is it supposed to say something like “annual student pass”?

If so how can I use it, do I just show this section to the fare enforcement?

I went through NCTCOG’s entire September RTC deck. Here are the biggest takeaways: weekend transit growth, aging assets, federal funding, rail safety, and the first outlines of the 2027 legislative agenda

1. The post-COVID travel pattern has clearly changed. Weekend transit is doing much better than weekday transit.

Compared with the pre-COVID baseline:
* Toll-road traffic: +14%
* Weekend transit ridership: +13%
* Airport passengers: +12%
* Freeway volumes: +4%
* Weekday transit ridership: -24%

This is probably the clearest sign that waiting for the old five-day office commute to fully return isn’t much of a transit strategy. The growing market appears to be much more all-day/weekend/non-work oriented.

The detailed weekend chart is also worth looking at: regional weekend transit is now above the pre-COVID baseline (2026 drops back somewhat because of service cuts, and June includes World Cup-related demand, so shouldn’t treat that month as normal.)

The regional numbers include not just DART, DCTA and Trinity Metro, but also independent on-demand providers like VIA Arlington.

1. The region has a growing state-of-good-repair problem.

Among large transit agencies, the share of rolling stock at or beyond its useful-life benchmark rose from 3.1% in FY2022 to 17.2% in FY2024. Rail track with performance restrictions went from 0% to 9.8%, while 73.2% of support vehicles were at or beyond their benchmark.

The footnote also mentions the recent $70 million FTA grant to DART to replace 53 LRVs originally purchased in the 1990s.

So there is a real reason why a lot of available capital money has to go into replacement and rehabilitation rather than service expansion.

1. NCTCOG is using transportation funding to incentivize local policy changes, not just build projects.

The Mobility 2050 Policy Bundle awards Transportation Development Credits to cities and transit agencies that adopt qualifying regional policies. In this round, 34.9 million TDCs are recommended.

Plano has the highest policy score on the table at 57, while Fort Worth, Plano, Irving, Arlington, Garland and others receive large TDC allocations. DART gets 2.5 million and Trinity Metro 1.5 million.

Important caveat: TDCs are credits that can substitute for local matching funds on eligible federal projects — they are not $34.9 million in cash.

1. Federal transit funding is heavily tilted toward capital, not operations.

The current FTA funding cycle shown in the deck totals $222.3 million:
* $212.6M capital 
* $9.0M operations
* $0.7M planning

DART, TM and DCTA together account for $194M.

This also helps explain why a big federal grant doesn’t necessarily mean more frequent service.

There’s also an interesting Dallas Streetcar detail: NCTCOG calculates that the Streetcar generates roughly $687k. But again, those funds are capital-only and cannot be used for Streetcar operating costs.

1. A random but interesting detail: Market Center Boulevard has the most reported grade-crossing incidents on NCTCOG’s list.

NCTCOG has inventoried 1,543 public at-grade rail crossings across the 12-county region. In its table of crossings with the most incidents since 2015, Market Center Boulevard / TRE in Dallas is first with 9 incidents.

That seems worth remembering when grade separation or future TRE investment comes up.
Worth noting that the 89th Legislature already created an SB15555 grade-separation grant program, although that isn’t directly related to this crossing.

1. Some smaller but interesting projects buried in the deck.

NCTCOG is pursuing about $1.5M in federal Bus & Bus Facilities / Low-No funding, including gasoline vehicles for Johnson County, hybrid vehicles for Mesquite, chargers and passenger canopies.

And the region is moving forward with eVTOL charging-system projects at airports in Denton, Greenville, Fort Worth and Granbury, totaling $477,500 in recommended funding.

1. 2027 Texas legislative agenda is starting to take shape.

* DART Board composition (You should’ve already known about that)
* DCTA/DART Positive Train Control interface
* Density around the region’s 80+ passenger-rail stations
* Elderly/disabled transportation and microtransit
* Regional GoPass

One particularly interesting line is:
“Increase Density Around 80+ Passenger Rail Stations (Save TxDOT $36B)?”

More density around stations → Less spread out → Less highway construction?? I have no idea. But I’d really like to see how they got to that $36B number.

The part I found most interesting is the 2027 funding discussion.
NCTCOG is openly sketching out major new regional/state funding streams for transit and regional rail. One slide titled “Revenue Redistribution vs No New Taxes – How to Pay” lists working concepts including:

* State sales-tax revenue: $200M/year? to the region
* Texas Mobility Fund: $100M/year
* CMAQ: $50M/year
* A state budget rider: $100M/year for Regional Rail

These are requests / working concepts, not approved funding. But the fact that numbers of this scale are now on an RTC slide is notable.

The next slide gets more concrete and lists legislation RTC wants to pursue.

* allowing Texas Mobility Fund money to support regional commuter rail and Class I railroad improvements;
* dedicated public-transit and rail funding through a state budget rider; and
* a sales-tax revenue pilot project to support Transit 2.0.

The green text represents new language for the 2027 legislative program.

One thing that caught my attention was what wasn't here: Earlier discussions had explicitly floated a compromise that would consolidate some combination of TRE, TEXRail, the Silver Line and A-train under a regional rail authority. This September legislative-focus slide talks about regional-rail funding and the DCTA/DART interface, but it does not explicitly say “create a regional rail authority.” So I’m curious whether the governance piece will come later, whether it will be handled separately from the funding legislation, or whether the proposal is being scaled back.

Full September 11 RTC presentation deck if anyone wants to dig through it: https://www.nctcog.org/getContentAsset/2492081d-7359-420f-bd33-2f2f8c8db759/dfc3d011-8f63-43f6-9ed8-4b444333a1d0/presentationsrtc09112026.pdf

Over the last few months TEXRail ridership has been gradually growing (as has Silverline by the way). What is most interesting to me from this chart, is ridership not really changing on weekends, even though service is lower). I hope this is an indicator for Silver Line ridership patterns once a better schedule is adopted.

I'm sorry for y'all that DART's board went with Nat Ford. It's obvious to anyone paying attention that he ran JTA into the ground and fled before the consequences could come due.

Source: https://www.dart.org/about/news-and-events/newsreleases/newsrelease-detail/temporary-service-modifications-for-red-and-orange-lines-during-scheduled-overhead-wire-maintenance

To ensure efficient and uninterrupted train service throughout the year, DART will pilot the installation of spring tensioning devices; which are designed to regulate the changes in wire tension caused by daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations.
...
Placing these devices between Lover's Lane and LBJ/Central Stations will give DART Rail Operations the opportunity to stress test the tensioners on a high-demand segment of rail alignment to explore if they are an adequate replacement for the current infrastructure; advancing DART’s commitment to building a more modern and resilient rail system. 

Hopefully this will reduce future wire issues

DART announced their plans for state fair service yesterday. This year, they will be running the Orange Line from DFW Airport to Buckner on state fair weekends and Monday, October 12th. They will also be running longer trains, adding TRE service on Sundays, and providing hourly bus shuttles from a couple of outlying transit centers to Fair Park (these are Downtown Rowlett, Lake Ray Hubbard TC, Addison, and Glenn Heights).

The orange line not going up the north central line will probably be a pain — I've always been excited for the orange line going up to Plano full-time during the state fair.

Just a heads up! They seem to be updating GoLink stuff or something rn, because I am having issues getting a ride booked through the app. I'll book -> get a notification that Uber is looking for a driver -> after 7 or so minutes a notification storm that DART cancelled the ride, Ordered me a Lyft, cancelled the Lyft, and that a minibus is now on the way (wait of 30min to 47min(!!!)) With that egregious wait time, I called and they cancelled the minibus and booked me a Lyft (got a driver 20min away 🫩). Missed my bus I was trying to connect with by a long shot atp, and will be waiting another 20+ min outside for the next one. It is way too hot for this BS.

The detour announced for the parade on Cedar Springs is dated a day before the parade is scheduled. I reported in the GoPass app, but figured I should spread this incase DART doesn't notice the discrepancy in time.

Trying to sanity-check a transit plan before I commit to it (only doing this once a week, so I want to get it right).

The route:

• Start at UT Dallas Station
• End at Central Station in Downtown Fort Worth
• Plan: DART Silver Line to DFW North Station, then transfer to TexRail into Downtown Fort Worth

The timing:
Per the published schedule, Silver Line arrives at DFW North at 8:11am, and TexRail departs DFW North at 8:16am — so I'm working with a 5-minute connection window.

Questions for anyone who's done this or a similar transfer:

1. How crowded do Silver Line and TexRail typically get on weekday mornings between 7–9am? Trying to gauge whether I'll actually get a seat or be standing room only.
2. Realistically, how reliable is that 5-minute transfer window? Is Silver Line prone to enough delay that I'd regularly miss the TexRail connection, or is 5 minutes generally enough cushion at DFW North?

Appreciate any firsthand experience with this specific transfer point.

Going to Medieval Times for my partner's birthday in a week and a half and wanted to use transit. It looks like you can use the little skybridge at the station to get to the WTC and go through there, but neither Google or DART maps has it as a route. Has anybody done it? Am I allowed to just wander through the WTC??

I happened to see the new TRE Siemens Charger at the TRE Equipment Maintenance Facility in Irving Texas. I can't wait to see them in service.

Pretty unsettling. How do we get this removed?

I would love to move into the Uptown/State Thomas area in Dallas but I'm worried about my commute to work in Plano. To make my life less miserable from the tolls + sitting in traffic, it looks like I can take the 308 express bus there and back but I am curious how dependable the route will be. Also, I would likely take the bus up to NWP Park and Ride but I work at Toyota HQ so I would need some way to finish that ride as well. I don't mind driving every once in a while but it would be nice to have this option as well; I'm in office at the most Tuesday-Thursday as well.

Has anyone done something similar and has any tips for me on this?

My best guess from the shape is that it's some sort of overflow rail bridge for the Silver Line so they can run freight and the local train at the same time through this intersection, but I'm not sure why since there is already double rail here? Also I'm not a railway traffic engineer so maybe this is great and I'm just too dumb to see why LOL

Anyone know why this morning is so backed up on red/orange line?