I Don't Think I Will Ever Get Maxed Out Riding Arlington's Public Transit To The Dallas Cowboy Stadium

Last week, the day before I drove to Arlington to watch the USA team get beat by Belgium in the Dallas Cowboy stadium I blog my lament about not being able to take any form of public transit to the Dallas Cowboy stadium.

That lament had someone calling him or herself Anonymous making a blog comment informing me that I could have used public transit to get within walking distance of the Dallas Cowboy stadium......

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Won't Be Pedaling The Cowtown Cycle Party To Arlington To Watch The USA Beat Belguim Today":

You could have gotten off of the Max bus at Collins and Andrews. It would have been a 10 minute walk to the stadium.

When I read the above suggestion from Anonymous I vaguely recollected reading about a new bus service in Arlington that was some sort of limited test type deal.

Googling brought me to the RIDE THE MAX website, a screencap of which is what you see above.

From the RIDE THE MAX website I learned that ".....for a roundtrip price of $5/day (or $80/month), Metro ArlingtonXpress buses will travel between the TRE CentrePort/DFW Airport Station and College Park Center at UT Arlington. From CentrePort/DFW Airport Station, riders access any DART bus or train or T bus to travel to Dallas or Fort Worth."

So, for me to take public transit to get myself to the Dallas Cowboy stadium I would need to figure out which Fort Worth T buses I needed to get on to get to the CentrePort DFW Airport Station where I would then get on a MAX bus which would then take me to the intersection of Collins and Andrews from whence I could take a brisk 10 minute HOT walk to the stadium.

Or, I could drive about two miles from my abode, to the Richland Hills Trinity Railway Express station and hop a train which would take me to CentrePort where I could get on a MAX bus to get to the point where I take a brisk 10 minute HOT walk to the stadium.

I am assuming that I would need to pay to ride the Fort Worth T bus or the TRE to CentrePort, adding to the $5 roundtrip MAX fare.

I don't think I burned $5 worth of gas driving to Arlington to watch the World Cup last week.

So, this method of getting oneself to the Dallas Cowboy stadium from my location in Fort Worth is what Anonymous thinks is functional public transit?

I have been in towns with functional public transit. I know what functional public transit is. You can use functional public transit to easily get yourself from one location to another. The town to the east of Fort Worth, called Dallas, has functional public transit in both bus and light rail form. Soon one will be able to take a DART train to D/FW Airport.

Vancouver, up north in this country called Canada, has a very cool public transit system called SkyTrain. You can get on SkyTrain south of Vancouver and have yourself a mighty fine ride into town, where you can hop on a seabus, included in your fare, and cross some saltwater to North Vancouver. And a SkyTrain line runs to the Vancouver airport.

Portland, in Oregon, has a light rail system which runs all over town, including the airport. If I remember right, and I am fairly certain I do, the Portland light rail is called the MAX.

Seattle, in Washington, has light rail known as the Link, which takes you from the downtown Seattle transit tunnel to the airport. Buses also travel through Seattle's downtown transit tunnel, with those buses taking you to locations all over Seattle, and beyond.

Unlike Arlington, one can easily take public transit in both rail and bus form directly to the sports facilities in downtown Seattle. You don't get dumped off a 10 minute walk from the Seahawk Stadium or the Mariner's Ballpark.

The video below, which I took in August of 2008, should give Anonymous an idea of what actual functional public transit looks like. First I walk across Westlake Center, which is Seattle's version of Fort Worth's Sundance Square Plaza, only bigger and surrounded by big stores, like Nordstrom. I then walk into Westlake Center, which is a vertical  mall and the south terminus of the Seattle Monorail. I then descend to the Westlake Center transit station. There you will see the transit tunnel which runs under Seattle. Near the end of the video I exit a bus and you will see a long line of buses, filled with fans heading to a Seattle Mariners game, with no 10 minute walk needed, just an escalator ride to the street level.....

Riding The Trinity Railway Express From Fort Worth To Dallas With Gail Galtex

I have not taken the ride on the rails to Dallas on the Trinity Railway Express, also known as TRE.

I have ridden a TRE train in Dallas though. From a parking lot east of the State Fair of Texas to an entry gate to the State Fair.

I live very close to the Richland Hills Station of the TRE. I don't know why I've never hopped on board.

And then this morning I got email from a young lady I will call Gail Galtex which leads me to think I might not enjoy riding the TRE to Dallas.

Below is what Gail Galtex had to say about the TRE....

Your question got me thinking about Dallas and the TRE.

We used to go there a lot on the TRE train. We were members of the Dallas Museum or Art, and would go there for the day, visit the Nasher, take the DART to Uptown to a pizza place we like, go to the State Fair, sometimes meet friends @ Union Station, and come home before the last train.

That was when a 2-zone day pass on the TRE was $5 a person. Now it is $10 bucks a person, or $20 for us to ride the train to Dallas for the day. Now we'd be better off driving, especially if we can park for free.

We take the TRE to the airport (Centerpoint stop) at least once a month when we travel. It now costs $14 round trip for both Mike and I to ride to the airport. We leave our apartment and roll our bags nine blocks to the ITC train station on Jones (there is no bus from where we live) and there is no park and ride there either. Even the park and rides along the train route won't let you park overnight. The price of the train has doubled since 2007, and sometimes on short trips we now drive and park in the DFW remote south lot ($8 a day) for up to 4 days because it is more convenient and doesn't cost that much more. The train is a no-brainer if we are gone for a week or a month because we don't want to pay to park the car that long.

Don't get me wrong. I love the TRE -- it is one of the coolest things around here because it is a real train. But there are some major problems.

The price has gotten too high for occasional users like us, probably for commuters too. And to make matters worse, they rarely check tickets. Even if they do, they don't enforce the fines. As a result, the trains are often loaded with homeless and questionable characters who don't smell too good.

The train doesn't run on Sundays, which means we can't travel in or out of DFW on this day. The last train from downtown Dallas back to FW is now @ 9:20pm. So people who go to games/concerts probably can't take the train now. The last train from Centerport to FW is at 9.48pm, so we can't fly back into DFW much past 7:30ish and expect to catch a train back home if there are flight delays. And if we miss the 8:48 train back home, we have to wait on the platform with our bags for another hour until 9:48. ONE train per hour in the evenings.

Since we've moved here, the TRE has added an extra rail line and doubled prices, but the service schedule and hours have not improved. And they still don't run on Sundays. I don't mind paying double, or even more -- if they give us something back in return. I would even go to Dallas more.

Even with all the problems, Dallas and FW are light years ahead of Austin in public transit. Austin is a complete joke and traffic is horrible. You'd think a city as progressive as Austin could get something like this right, but they are way behind.

Thanks for listening to my rant of the day. :-)

Gail Galtex

Thinking About Taking The TRE & DART Train To The State Fair Of Texas To Have Deep Fried Beer

That is me, stuck in a gondola on the Texas Star Ferris Wheel at the State Fair of Texas, in Dallas. The Texas Star is 212 feet tall. Some claim it to be the tallest Ferris Wheel in the Western Hemisphere, others claim it is only the tallest in North America.

All I know for sure is this is one big Ferris Wheel.

I don't know if the current Texas Star is the original, or a second or third or fourth generation Texas Star, but, I do know that in 1955 one of the Texas Star's gondolas, full of students from the Memphis Texas High School marching band, broke from the top of the Ferris Wheel, careening to the ground, killing only one of the students.

The State Fair of Texas starts this Friday, September 24 and runs through October 17.

It has been a couple years since I've gone to the fair. I'm thinking I may go this year. I have me a hankering to try me some Deep Fried Beer and a Deep Fried Margarita. I must remember to bring I.D., due to the need to be 21 to buy the Deep Fried Booze.

The last time I went to the fair I paid 10 bucks to park in a remote parking lot, east of the fairgrounds, with transport to the fairgrounds provided by a TRE (Trinity Railway Express) train.

I am thinking this year, rather than drive to Dallas, it'd be funner to take the TRE, since there is now a DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) line that goes to the fairgrounds. I have a TRE station, it being the Richland Hills station, almost walking distance from my abode.

So, who wants to go ride the Texas Star with me and get inebriated eating Deep Fried Beer?

Taking The Trinity Rail Express Train To Dallas

This coming Friday I am going to do something eco-friendly. And new.

I'm taking the Trinity Railway Express, aka TRE, to Dallas. I need to go to a meeting in downtown Dallas. Taking the train seems like a sensible thing to do. It only cost 5 bucks. That's roundtrip. And once I'm in Dallas I can ride anything on the Dallas transit system with my TRE ticket.

The TRE runs from Fort Worth to Dallas. I'm in east Fort Worth, so my closest train station is in Richland Hills, about 2 miles north of here. Unlike anywhere in Seattle, it's free to park in the TRE parking lot.

Dallas has many many miles of light rail called Dallas Area Rapid Transit. DART for short. I've ridden DART before. It is a good thing.

I'm not quite certain how one gets from the Dallas terminus of the TRE train to downtown and if getting on DART is involved. I'm sure all will be revealed on Friday.

I have actually ridden a TRE train before. Last year the State Fair of Texas used a TRE train as one of its ways to shuttle fairgoers from remote parking lots to entry gates. It worked slick.

If I muck something up and get stuck in Dallas I've got a backup plan already worked out. It doesn't involve hitchhiking.