SURVEY
Welcome
DART may redesign its bus network as early as 2022. Every bus route could change.
In this survey, we will first show you our bus network today, and then two Concepts for how it might change. These Concepts are not proposals. We need to know what you think of the Concepts so we can design the best possible plan later this year.
Whether you ride transit or not, the DART transit network is part of your community, and your taxes help pay for bus service, so we want your opinion.
Existing network
Red lines arrive every 15 minutes or better.
Purple lines arrive every 20 minutes.
This is a map of the existing DART transit network.
The color of each line tells you the maximum wait for that bus or train, on a weekday. For example, on a purple line, a bus comes every 20 minutes. On a light blue line, a bus comes only once every 40-60 minutes.
Many more people use the frequent routes (red and purple lines) because a bus is usually coming soon. These lines typically offer better night and weekend service, which makes it easier for people to use the bus for all sorts of activities.
But DART doesn’t run many frequent routes (red and purple lines). Most routes come every 30, 40, or 60 minutes, even on weekdays.
For more detail, you can visit the interactive map or download a larger map.
* Click image to enlarge
How should we design our new network?
It depends on our goal.
If our goal is to get lots of people to ride the buses (high ridership), then we would run very frequent service (every 15 minutes or so) where there are lots of people and lots of jobs close together. But where there are fewer people, jobs, and bus riders, we might not run buses at all.
If our goal is to reach as many places in the area as possible (high coverage), then we would spread out our bus service. But when we do that, very few bus routes can offer frequent service (most routes run every 30 or 60 minutes), and fewer people find the bus system useful because they can’t travel when they need to.
* Click image to enlarge
High Coverage
When we spread out our bus service, we get:
- Bus service in more areas, even if not many people use it
- More bus service in low-density areas
- Lifeline transit access that might not exist otherwise
* Click image to enlarge
High Ridership
When lots of people ride the buses, we get:
- Less traffic congestion
- Less air pollution
- Most people have access to more jobs and opportunities
The two Concepts show how we could design the new network depending on which goal is more important, using the same budget we have today. Your opinion will help us understand what to do when we design the final plan.
The Concepts are not proposals. We will design the draft plan later this year based on your input.
