Darting Around Dallas

Dallas, Texas, is one of the four non-stop destinations offered out of Baton Rouge Metro Airport. As the last destination in our four-part travel series, this piece confirms that these metropolitan centers are not only easy to get to ... but also easy to get around. American Airlines and US Airways both fly non-stop to DFW from BTR with fares often under $200 roundtrip. Read about the three other non-stop destinations here: Houston, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

“Ours is the longest light rail at ninety miles.”

That brought my conversation with Morgan Lyons to a sudden stop.

“Really?” I couldn’t help saying to myself, then out loud to him. “The longest light rail system in the U.S. isn’t somewhere up in the Northeast?”

Nope. As it happens, the longest light rail system in the country is now in … wait for it … Texas—connecting Dallas, Fort Worth, and all the surrounding communities. Morgan Lyons is with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, better known by its acronym DART.

But to be fair, we need to clarify terms. There are longer subway systems and “heavy” urban rail systems. “Those are the ones with a ‘third rail’,” Lyons explained, the power-supply rail between the two guiding rails. “The one you’re warned not to touch.”

“Light rail uses overhead power and runs on streets,” he continued. “Light rail is designed to interact more with the neighborhood.” And now that DART’s light rail line has been extended all the way to DFW International Airport, it has transformed Dallas from a place where you’re lost without a car into a city where a visitor can quite easily interact with its myriad fascinating neighborhoods using mass transit—as I had a grand time doing recently.

Here’s the adventure I constructed as a first-time Dallas mass transit rider:

My first stop was at the West End Station for the DART Rail Orange Line, the same one that serves the airport. That’s where you’ll find The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, located in the former Texas School Book Depository. Like many of my generation, I’ll never forget the moment that the PA system in my school crackled to life followed by the horrifying news that President Kennedy had been shot, from a corner window where you can now stand. The museum skillfully interprets the time frame surrounding the assassination and explores the questions surrounding it, some of which have still not been answered to the satisfaction of many. While it makes for an emotionally intense afternoon, the small, but superbly curated, Dallas Holocaust Museum is also just a block away.

I stepped outside The Sixth Floor Museum to wait for the D-Link bus. This free service operates a loop that connects a huge percentage of the city’s downtown tourist destinations. First I rode the entire loop to get my bearings, past a farmers market in a sculpture-filled downtown park, past Neiman Marcus, past the gorgeous Old Red Courthouse, built of red sandstone, that now houses a museum of Dallas history, and on to the Dallas Museum of Art and the cluster of other noteworthy art museums that surround it. The sixty-eight acre Dallas Arts District is among the largest urban arts districts in the country as well as one of the most easily reached by mass transit.

I’d return later to all of the above, but on this spin across the city, I stepped off the bus to my favorite new discovery this trip to Dallas: the Bishop Arts District. 

It’s hard not to love this wonderful, whimsical historic neighborhood, streets revitalized with over sixty independently owned boutiques, restaurants, galleries, and bars. I’m a word guy, so I loved the play-on-words name for party store Fete-ish and the neon Marshall McLuhan quote emblazoned on the back wall of Studio 410: “Art is anything you can get away with.” Round the corner, and there’s a quirky mural. Even some street curbs sport mini-murals.

Bishop is where you’ll find some of the city’s most popular dining as well: There’s white-linen Hattie’s (one of the flagship businesses that helped spark the neighborhood’s resurgence in the mid-2000s), farm-to-fork fare at Bolsa in a re-purposed old garage, and cowboy chic cuisine at Tillman’s Roadhouse—just for starters.

I’m obviously not the neighborhood’s only fan. Among the many others is Jason Roberts, founder of The Better Block project, which has taken off worldwide, including a recent demonstration of the concept in Baton Rouge. He gives the emergence of the Bishop Arts District credit for inspiring the first Better Block project. “I loved the feel in the area—the vibrant street life,” said Roberts, “We replicated all the things that we saw.”

The other jewel in Dallas’ surprisingly vibrant mass transit network is the M-Line, a free streetcar conceived and operated by passionate volunteers like successful local restaurateur and the line’s co-founder Phil Cobb. “We uncovered the original brick that had been asphalted over in the fifties. We also found in pristine condition trolley tracks, preserved in excellent condition because they’d been encapsulated in cement in the 1920s,” explained Cobb about the discovery that was made under the streets of a Dallas neighborhood and that seeded the idea for the M-Line. “That’s when the idea was born to use that track. We incorporated in 1983 as a nonprofit.”

“We’re a six-car fleet,” he continued. “They each have their own story. The oldest car we have was built in 1909. She’s called Rosie.” The group has managed to find and restore several of the streetcars that originally ran through the streets of Dallas, but the fleet also includes cars from Belgium and Australia as well as one that ran on the St. Charles Avenue line in New Orleans.

Since its founding the M-Line’s route has continued to expand and ridership has exploded. “Our average weekly ridership in 2013 was 7,700.” Cobb noted. “We’re now carrying eighteen thousand riders a week.”

Cobb credits much of that expanded ridership to a particularly popular destination that was added to the line’s route—Klyde Warren Park. “This was a park that was built over a highway,” he explained, calling it one of the biggest things that ever happened in Dallas. 

The park is, indeed, quite a feat of engineering and design. The deck is made of more than three hundred concrete beams arranged in groups with spacing in between the groups. Concrete slabs span the spaces, connecting to the bottoms of the beams and forming trenches. The trenches act like planter boxes, allowing the trees to grow to the desired size. A combination of Geofoam and specially designed soil helps keep the deck from being too heavy. In addition to bringing more green space to downtown Dallas, the park hosts myriad events and multiple weekly food truck roundups as well as a popular full-service restaurant.

And, noted Cobb about the M-Line’s route there, “We’re fifteen feet from restaurant tables when we come to a stop.”

There’s another new development that’s made exploring Dallas without a car magnitudes easier than before—one you probably have in your pocket. “For those who haven’t used mass transit before, it can be a little intimidating. One of the things we think helps is having that trip-planning and ticket-purchasing tool in the palm of their hand,” said Lyons.

And so, several years ago, DART built a mobile-friendly website and packed a wealth of tools to streamline the process of using its transportation network into a mobile app called GoPass. “You can purchase your ticket sixty days in advance,” he noted. “You get off the plane, and while you’re waiting for your suitcase you can go ahead and activate your ticket.”

There’s a lot more prep you can do in advance using the DART website. It gives you a comprehensive list and descriptions of all the hotels that are on the rail line, with choices that range from A to Z, literally: from the grand historic Adolphus to hipster Hotel ZaZa. I found its tracking feature handy; open the app while you’re waiting at any stop and you can watch the progress of trains and buses along their route to know exactly when your next ride will arrive.

Who needs a car when you’ve got the app?

Details. Details. Details.

Start your planning here:

dart.org • bishopartsdistrict.com • visitdallas.com

Act fast, and DART can whisk you to perhaps the most famous annual event in the region—the State Fair of Texas. Did you know that Fair Park, where it’s located, contains the largest collection of art deco exhibit buildings in the country? This year’s fair runs through October 18. bigtex.com.