After my adventures with Airtran yesterday, I still needed to get home from the airport. Of course, Amanda had offered to give me a ride. But when I heard that I had missed my connecting flight to Dallas, I didn’t want to burden her any further with picking me up the next morning.
So, I figured I’d just make use of DART, specifically the “Trinity Railway Express” — a rail line from the airport to downtown (where I could catch an ordinary transit train). I wasn’t concerned about this, as I had previously used the Trinity Railway Express when I went to visit my parents over the winter solstice. And, I knew that there was a DART bus that would take me right to the Trinity Railway Express station, just a short ride away.
So, I followed the signs in the airport for the “Ground Transportation”, and from there to the specific Trinity Railway Express bus-stop. My flight landed just after 2:00pm, so it was probably about 2:30pm at this point. I waited about half an hour, and a yellow DART bus came along. I checked its window-sign, but it turned out to be just an ordinary DART bus (not one that would take me to the Trinity Railway Express station). However, as 3:30pm rolled around, I became concered — “Are the Trinity Railway Express buses really that infrequent?&rdquo, I thought.
So, I used my mobile phone to call the DART number that was listed on the bus stop. After pressing just a few buttons to navigate through the voice-menu, I was able to speak with a real human. And, she sheepishly informed me that the bus from the airport to the Trinity Railway Express station doesn’t run on Sundays (bah!).
However, the DART-lady was happy to calculate a route — using other DART transportation — that could get me home. It would only cost me $4 for an all-day pass, so I figured I’d give that a try. And, as it turned out, the first segment of my journey was at 3:46pm (which was only a few minutes away at the time). For those curious, here’s how the route I took on DART:
- At 3:46pm, catch the 202 bus going downtown. At 4:55pm, get off at the West End station.
- At 5:07pm at West End, catch the Red Line train towards Galatyn Park Station. Then, at 5:27pm, get off at the Park Lane stop.
- Lastly, at 5:34pm, get on the “501 Mockingbird” bus, and that should take me where I need to go.
I received the complete directions, including arrival and destination times, right over the phone. And, DART was on-time as well — I could just about get-on or get-off based on the current-time alone. I ended up getting back to my apartment at about 5:45pm, which wasn’t that bad for $4.
My take is that DART may have some knuckleheads in the planning department (no Trinity Railway Express one-seventh of the week?!), but their “ground troops” can be rather helpful.
Talk to the people who HAVE to take DARt bus or trains regularly and you’ll get the real story. An occasional 3-and-a-half hour trip is ok and your connecting buses were miraculously on-time and well scheduled. But your tale is one of exception and not rule. DART is unrelaible, and their employees don’t care about you or the posted schedules. The only ones happy with DART are those who both live AND work near a station.
We need a dumpdart.org grass roots movement here in Dallas. DART wastes public money and gives us terrible service, is always late (or way too early, thank you very much), and only has frequent service to areas where nobody wants to go.
Everyone I talk to hates the poor service, unreliability, and couldn’t care less attitude of DART. Nobody uses it unless they absolutely have to or just happen to both live AND work close to a bus or rail station.
Dump the DART now! (come on everybody) DUMP the DART now!