I like Dallas. But there are many things I don't get about Dallas. One of those things in their transit system. They have a very extensive system, and with exception to this new line, it seems well thought out. The suburban park and rides are cheap and easy; the rail in the inner city services many of the old business districts; and they have developed many TOD's around new stations. Yet on visits to Dallas (including my most recent), no one uses the system. I mean, Generation X and Y'ers will use transit purely on principal. I mean common, Portland built an entire city overnight based on that principal. Now the city is dependent on their system.
Then enter Dallas. The system has been in place almost as long as Portland's and Washington, DC's. yet it obviously hasn't taken hold like those two cities. Mind you, I haven't been there during the work week and I can only hope it's utilized by commuters. But the fact people my age never consider the alternative, I don't have high hopes. Maybe the system is still too new. Maybe the car is just too prevalent. Maybe it's just the south. But even people in New Orleans use the highly inefficient Streetcar just, well, because.
But the only thing that I can think of is the CATS tax initiative and how the Dallas outcome would kill anything transit in Baton Rouge forever. And as always, I fear the worse. People say they would definitely ride a train over a bus. Yet at the end of the day, the underlying concepts are the same. And those underlying cocepts need to be at the forefront from the planning stages, all the way through to execution. Somewhere it was lost in Dallas. And Baton Rouge doesn't have the convenience of a nice highway infrastructure to fall back on like Dallas.
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