DART Considers Moving Bus Stops to Areas Safer for Pedestrians

nbcdfw.com

Dallas Area Rapid Transit is reexamining the locations of some bus stops after a series of reports by NBC 5 Investigates highlighted locations where a lack of nearby crosswalks or sidewalks makes it more dangerous to cross the street.

DART CEO Nadine Lee said her team is assessing more of those problem locations, including one near Loop 12 and Bonnie View Road in Southern Dallas, where our reporting has shown pedestrians are dying at an alarming rate.

Video recorded by NBC 5 Investigates showed pedestrians dodging cars near one DART bus stop on Loop 12, in an area where pedestrians often cross in the middle of the street instead of walking a longer distance to find a crosswalk. Records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates showed five pedestrians were fatally struck on that stretch of Loop 12 in 2023. One of those victims was Betty Sue Fleming, who was killed in November.

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Lee said she'd like to see the city install a crosswalk and stoplight at that intersection and said she wants to work with the city on other dangerous intersections.

"I think it's really important for us to constantly evaluate the pedestrian access," Lee said. "And so, you know, if that's something that we need to coordinate with the city on, we can certainly do that."

Lee said her team has already consolidated thousands of bus stops city-wide, moving some to safer and more convenient locations. On Loop 12, DART has also been working with the city and TxDOT to build new sidewalks and bus stops with shelters.

Lee said she is open to moving the bus stop located along Loop 12 near Bonnie View Road, where there was the recent rash of 5 pedestrian deaths. DART said the stop was placed there many years ago because business owners wanted it there instead of closer to the crosswalk at an intersection up the street.

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Transit Plan Offers Smart Ways to Reconnect Fair Park to Downtown Dallas

dallasnews.com

Transportation can make or break a neighborhood. A railroad junction brought economic prosperity to Deep Ellum in the late 1800s. But in the 1940s, the railroad was torn out to make space for a new highway, and many residents were displaced. Today, Interstate 345 and Interstate 30 divide Deep Ellum and Fair Park from downtown Dallas.

Pedestrian caps to link parts of Oak Cliff over Interstate 35E, and the Cedars neighborhood to downtown Dallas over Interstate 30 recently won federal grants. Plans are also underway to reconstruct highways near Deep Ellum and Fair Park, but any deck parks over those projects are just ideas at this point. That’s why a plan to improve transportation links between downtown Dallas and these neighborhoods is promising.

The project is called Fair Park Links and is being spearheaded by the North Central Texas Council of Governments, our region’s transportation planners. The organization is studying confusing intersections like Exposition Avenue at Elm Street, where car traffic, Dallas Area Rapid Transit rail, and runners and cyclists coming off the Santa Fe Trail converge. There are plans to realign Grand and Haskell avenues to make driving safer. A section of Elm Street could become a two-way street.

Pedestrians familiar with the area know that walking down Commerce Street under the highways can often be faster than waiting for DART buses or the Green Line to take one to Deep Ellum. The plan proposes increasing the frequency of Bus Route 214 that currently runs every 30 minutes during peak hours. The plan also proposed dynamic electronic signage at transit stations to make DART more intuitive for new riders.

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