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.....

Going Stir Crazy With Fort Worth Buses On Day Two Of The Great North Texas Ice Storm Of 2013

Today, December 7, 2013, a day which will live on in infamy as Day Two of the Great North Texas Ice Storm, saw conditions worsen.

Yesterday, on Day One of the Great North Texas Ice Storm, I was a little surprised to see the Fort Worth buses busy rolling over the ice, with no noticeable problem getting up and down the hills which were being major vexations for those driving cars.

I thought the Ice Storm may have grounded the buses. I thought wrong.

Today, on Day Two of the Great North Texas Ice Storm, with the ice having grown much slicker over night, I was again surprised to see the Fort Worth buses busy rolling over the ice.

However, today the buses were rolling noticeably slower. And whilst I was helping Miss Puerto Rico deal with a fallen tree this morning we saw one of the buses come down the hill, slowly, and then have a little sideways sliding action whilst maneuvering around a couple stuck cars.

With the Fort Worth bus system, known as the "T", delivering its people packages so reliably under these dire conditions, it occurred to me that it would be an excellent idea, excellent, I tell you, if the "T" would announce via radio and other means that bus service, system-wide, was free during the duration of the dire weather event.

Free bus service on an occasion like this would accomplish several things.

One good thing would be offering free bus service would likely cause a lot of people to decide to take the bus, rather than risk driving.

Another good thing is offering free bus service under these dire conditions would cause people to ride the bus for the first time, and thus discover how good the Fort Worth bus system is.

Additionally, getting extra weight on the bus, in the form of extra humans, would likely make the buses more stable in these slippery conditions.

Also, offering free bus service would likely cause more people to decide to risk the ice to go shopping or to a restaurant.

Due to going slightly stir crazy I was tempted to go on a bus ride today, and pay the fare, which is still way cheaper than driving. And safer.

The stir crazy thing had me back in the outer world late this afternoon. I managed to slip my way up to Albertsons, which is where I saw the Fort Wort bus in the picture above. I saw three Fort Worth buses in the short time I was exposed to their route this afternoon.

Speaking of the sliding. I saw some major slipping issues in the Albertsons parking lot. One was a pickup truck which could get no traction. And then, after many minutes of tires spinning the truck began to slowly move. Another vehicle, of the car sort, could not make it up the gentle slope which leads to the parking lot.

On my way back to my abode I had myself one incident of extreme sliding. I had no control. I was able to ride it out without falling. That slide was at least 20 feet. Very unsettling. And yet, also sort of fun.

I am ready for this to end. But, I believe we are scheduled for several more days of ice and the deep freeze....

The Befuddling Mystery Of Tarrant County & Texas Public Transit

A couple months ago Steve A commented on a blog post where I said something about riding a bus, or public transit, the specifics of which I don't remember, but I remember the comment was about Steve A being able to ride a public transit bus from his vacation spot of Ocean Shores, on the Washington Pacific Coast, to Olympia.

Ocean Shores is in Grays Harbor County. Olympia is in Thurston County, about 70 miles from Ocean Shores.

When Steve A told me he could take a public transit bus from Ocean Shores to Olympia I realized I could take public transit from my old home zone in the Skagit Valley, all the way to Ocean Shores, because of the Washington public transit system of Inter-county connectors.

This got me thinking about the extremely sad state of mass public transit in Texas.

One would think that the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex zone of around 6 million people would be all connected by mass transit, but one would be wrong to think that.

The Washington county I lived in, Skagit County is served by public transit, called Skagit Transit, known as SKAT. SKAT has a Skagit Transit website, is on Twitter and there is a Wikipedia article about SKAT.

Skagit County covers 1,731 square miles. Tarrant County covers 897 square miles. Skagit County's population is 118,109. Tarrant County's population is 1,849,815.

Skagit County is about twice as big as Tarrant County, with Tarrant County having a population about 15 times bigger than Skagit County.

So, how is it that Skagit County has public transit, while Tarrant County does not? When Fort Worth decided to have a public bus system called  The T, why was no effort made to make this a county-wide public transit system?

From the SKAT website, their mission statement...

Our goal is to provide high quality public transportation that meets the needs of the citizens of Skagit County at the least cost to the taxpayer and the user and in the process contribute to the county's economy and quality of life. To do this, we provide traditional Fixed Route bus transportation to most shopping, medical, employment, recreational, and governmental locations. Buses operate Monday through Sunday except on certain holidays.

What is it that stops Tarrant County from having a similar lofty goal?

Tarrant County can not plead being poor as its excuse. The per capita income in Tarrant County is $39,380. Skagit County's per capita income is $37,904. The cost of living is higher in Skagit County than it is in Tarrant County.

The Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metropolitan zone is served by mass public transit in various forms, including rail, bus and ferries. The Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metropolitan zone is not served by a cohesive mass public transit system.

The Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metropolitan zone covers 5,894 square miles with a population of 3,500,026. The Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metropolitan zone covers 8,991 square miles with a population of 6,526,548.

So, the Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth Metroplex is more densely populated than the Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metroplex, but does not have a public mass transit system serving the population.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made to bring mass public transit to D/FW International Airport.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made to bring mass public transit to Arlington's Entertainment District, that being the location of Six Flags Over Texas, Hurricane Harbor, the Ballpark in Arlington and the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

I have been told by more than one Texan that Texans don't ride buses because buses are for poor people.

I guess Washington has way more poor people than Texas does. Watch the video below and eventually you will see a lot of poor people on buses in the transit tunnel that runs under downtown Seattle.