One of dallases biggest companies is ExxonMobil. They lobby the hell out of public transportation. It's amazing we have what we have. The world cup is going to be a shit show.
Good. They made their bed funding vanity projects instead of transit and now they can lay in it. But saying that the aftermath would be a wakeup call for them is wishful thinking. It'll take a complete restructuring of the politics and leadership of the city that I don't think will happen for at least a couple generations.
This is coming from someone who lived in Arlington for 5 years. The traffic was awful, it's gotten worse, and it'll only get worse before it gets better even worse.
ExxonMobil was headquartered in Irving, which has public transit. There is a bus stop about a quarter mile from the Exxon campus. But they moved their headquarters to houston.
What about privately owned companies? I don't quite understand why that hasn't popped up seemingly anywhere except Greyhound, which is dependent on government subsidies AFAIK. Are companies just afraid of competing with government transit authorities or are there deeper laws preventing any competition?
There are only 8 home games a year for the cowboys. Plus a bus only seats like 50 people and you'd have to run a bunch of them. I don't really see any way this would be profitable for a private company.
There's other events such as concerts held at AT&T Field, and Globe Life Field has plenty more Rangers games during baseball season, but your point there still remains valid.
Who says I'd have to run a bunch of busses? If I ran one bus with 50 passengers twice a day, at $10 a ride, that's $1000 a day, which isn't exactly a huge margin, but I feel like that's not nothing in the grand scheme of things and possibly sustainable if responsibly and efficiently managed.
Biggest concerns in my head would be storage and maintenance. Getting a bus depot must be hugely expensive, but maybe if I do truly get the capital to start and run a business, maybe I could propose some sort of storage rental deal with DART if they have extra space.
Because at one point there was a ton of bus companies. But they consolidated quickly to avoid death when fuel prices made their entire business model go up in flames.
It's vague but there. It's in there own report. Also ExxonMobil has a long history of lobbying and for there own self interest (duh). Just do some googleing and you'll find snippets of there hand pulling strings.
Don’t go looping Fort Worth into this. We have a train straight to AAC and straight into DFW airport (among other places). This is Arlington’s BS. I cannot fathom how tf there isn’t reliable public transportation to an area dead ass in the middle of the metroplex with multiple major sporting and entertainment venues. Yes, Tarrant County leans Republican, but FW has voted blue in multiple recent elections and we’re at least trying. We’re also extending the train down into the medical district and towards TCU. It’s red ass Arlington that can get ducked.
Every time I drive by the parking situation I shudder. He built blocks surrounding the stadium of just flat concrete. Why not save space & add more efficiency by building a parking garage?
Arlington has consistently lobbied against public transportation. They don't want the "kinds of people" who need and use public transportation in their city.
There are some local hotels/restaurants that run shuttles over to the stadium on game and event days.
I’m sure someone will chime in with which ones. I can’t remember.
"Privatized public transit" seems like an oxymoron.
Public means tax dollars fund it for the good of everyone because it wouldn't be profitable or it's a necessary service.
Private means it's a privately owned, most likely for-profit endeavor.
If there were enough demand for a private company to make some kind of bus service connecting DART and Arlington, there probably would be one. The problem is you need a mass of people who need to move from one to the other on regular schedules to make it profitable. Enough to mostly fill a bus.
If you want to do something smaller than a bus, congratulations: you have just invented taxis. Now do you want them to be on-demand from a phone app and driven by unlicensed drivers? Congratulations, you just invented Uber/Lyft.
Not to nitpick, but there are plenty of public transit systems around the world that are run like a semi-autonomous private business with enough revenue to cover operation a f future growth without tax funding. They're still public transit, even though its not running at a loss or funded by taxes. Now, they're often given right of ways, access to roads and sidewalks, and building permits that a fully private company wouldn't, so i guess you could take that as taxpayer support.
I would be very curious to see citations on that because without tax revenue or other government funding, public transit likely wouldn't be very affordable and wouldn't be able to retain the ridership necessary to self-fund.
Regardless, even if that is the case in some parts of the world, the population and culture between Dallas and Arlington specifically wouldn't support it.
Hong kong MTR is famously for-profit. And the Singapore transit systems are also land development based for revenue. The Singapore systems are partially public, where some assets are owned by the government and then contracts have a more private company run the service. Portions of the Tokyo transit system is profitable too. Some regional rail in Switzerland is profitable or self sustaining. The kxt high speed services in the Korean rail system are profitable, though their profits go towards sibsidizing the conventional metro system that runs at a loss.
So it's not as widespread as i thought. It's mainly high-density Asian systems with heavy TOD and property revenue. My point was that "public transit" is often a more complicated private partnership than just a government service run with taxes. Imagine a world where a private bus system in Arlington is so successful that the city builds big bus stops for them, and advertises their services through city websites, etc. That would be a private service, acting in the public interest.
Transit is extremely expensive, that's why you don't see privatized bus and train systems. The existing public systems have to be heavily subsidized to keep fares affordable, which last time I check was around $95 of taxes/grants/subsidies for every $5 of fares taken from riders.
The reason Arlington isn't part of DART is because they voted not to join back in 1983 when DART was founded, back when the Cowboys were still playing in Irving and before the idea even existed to move to Arlington. That was the only time a city could join without being next to another city that also joined. Since then DART's bylaws won't allow Arlington to join even if they wanted to because there are no contiguous DART member cities adjoining Arlington. Grand Prairie isn't in DART either.
Arlington has invested heavily in their venue district, using the share of sales taxes that other cities used to join DART, and it's not likely Arlington would be willing or able to give up half their sales tax revenue to create a public transit district. Arlington's expecting to get around $94M in sales tax revenues next year, half of that wouldn't buy much of a transit system.
Arlington has rejected public transportation in elections three times.
"And so, for the third time in 22 years, voters rejected plans for public transportation in Arlington, cementing the city’s status as the largest city in the country without a mass transit system."
Yep, they have. They've decided that spending their taxes on something other than public transit is what's best for them. Most of the complaints I see here are that people here can't get cheap bus rides over to Arlington's venue district, something that would have only been possible if Arlington had joined DART back in 1983 when Arlington didn't have the Cowboys and when the Rangers were still playing in an open bleacher stadium. Since then Arlington wouldn't be able to join DART because of DART's own bylaws, not because of any nefarious behind the scenes maneuvering by Jerry Jones or anyone else.
No, because Uber and Lyft are typically single-passenger services, and even their shared ride pricing is high.
I'm curious from a business perspective whether there's any active companies or past attempts by companies to run a bus service, not sponsored by any government, that would have pricing geared toward high-passenger transit. If I wanted to take an Uber Share ride from West End to AT&T Stadium right now, I'd pay around $23. I can't help but imagine that if there was a bus running the same route, or a similar one, there'd be an avenue to charge lower prices while maintaining a profit.
Would it be crazy of me to imagine/dream of getting a bus, hiring drivers, and running a route like that?
To my knowledge if you don’t want to use uber Lyft there is a share ride service called via. If going from downtown Dallas you can take the TRE to centreport station and go from there. Same thing for DFW airport there is a TRE Link bus that’ll take you to centreport station and use a via from there. Services is Mid at best and does take a while to get a ride.
this has been discussed hundreds of times already.
Only service is the TRE train service.
Arlington has tried many, many times to get bus service going but even with FREE rides, NO ONE was riding the buses. Arlington is more of a pass-through city than a city that needs busses and the residents have voted down bus service numerous times.
Arlington has tried many, many times to get bus service going but even with FREE rides, NO ONE was riding the buses.
Arlington has never had a formal city bus system, let alone one with free rides. I'm not sure which system you are referring to but, they had never had a traditional fixed route of any type. On demand para transit services or elderly focused routes that work like a school bus are as close as they have ever gotten.
The Ft. Worth bus system put into place several bus routes several years ago and offered free rides. They still had less than 100 people a day riding the buses.
There actually are privatized services than run busses to the stadiums on game days.
There are also privatized busses than drive around Highland Park/Preston Hollow for Christmas Lights viewing. And ones for parking and office worker/transport. Richardson telecom corridor and Legacy West I'm aware of, I'm sure there are others.
Honestly not the worst idea, because getting an Uber to go out to AT&T stadium is a pain in the ass, I do Uber part time and I know I reject all those rides because it's a pain in the ass for the driver as well to go all the way out there and then basically be stuck there until the game is over or you drive back empty.
Meanwhile if you started some kind of a private service selling tickets people would save money and they could just Uber to the bus/shuttle.
Games, concerts, etc. happen every day and people are constantly struggling to get to and from these event venues especially the ones that are in far out places or that don't have clear signage for Uber pickups
One of dallases biggest companies is ExxonMobil. They lobby the hell out of public transportation. It's amazing we have what we have. The world cup is going to be a shit show.
Arlington roads are gonna end up so damaged, backed up, and fucked in multiple ways.. more than they already are
Good. They made their bed funding vanity projects instead of transit and now they can lay in it. But saying that the aftermath would be a wakeup call for them is wishful thinking. It'll take a complete restructuring of the politics and leadership of the city that I don't think will happen for at least a couple generations.
This is coming from someone who lived in Arlington for 5 years. The traffic was awful, it's gotten worse, and it'll only get worse before it gets
bettereven worse.The bad part is this is not just affecting them, this affects everyone else too who uses those roads and surrounding ones.
They moved to Houston
but only recently, Exxon was in Irving for many decades.
ExxonMobil was headquartered in Irving, which has public transit. There is a bus stop about a quarter mile from the Exxon campus. But they moved their headquarters to houston.
What about privately owned companies? I don't quite understand why that hasn't popped up seemingly anywhere except Greyhound, which is dependent on government subsidies AFAIK. Are companies just afraid of competing with government transit authorities or are there deeper laws preventing any competition?
If someone could figure out how to profit from it they would.
There are only 8 home games a year for the cowboys. Plus a bus only seats like 50 people and you'd have to run a bunch of them. I don't really see any way this would be profitable for a private company.
There's other events such as concerts held at AT&T Field, and Globe Life Field has plenty more Rangers games during baseball season, but your point there still remains valid.
Who says I'd have to run a bunch of busses? If I ran one bus with 50 passengers twice a day, at $10 a ride, that's $1000 a day, which isn't exactly a huge margin, but I feel like that's not nothing in the grand scheme of things and possibly sustainable if responsibly and efficiently managed.
Biggest concerns in my head would be storage and maintenance. Getting a bus depot must be hugely expensive, but maybe if I do truly get the capital to start and run a business, maybe I could propose some sort of storage rental deal with DART if they have extra space.
That’s assuming you can fill up these buses and mayor Vander-grift made sure you can’t.
Wonder if he’s the same guy who bought all those dealerships. Can’t be.
He is.
And the DUI’s they give out make way way wayyyyg more money
Because at one point there was a ton of bus companies. But they consolidated quickly to avoid death when fuel prices made their entire business model go up in flames.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/busing-industry
You making stuff up. Please give me a source for this.
https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/-/media/global/files/policy/lobbying/exxonmobil-2021-lobbying-report.pdf
It's vague but there. It's in there own report. Also ExxonMobil has a long history of lobbying and for there own self interest (duh). Just do some googleing and you'll find snippets of there hand pulling strings.
Sure but a multinational like Exxon is not spending any time or effort preventing bus routes between Dallas and Arlington.
What page in the report is it in there?
ExxonMobil moved its HQ to the Houston area two years ago.
Arlington is the biggest city in the US with no public transportation. If you’re interested in learning more about it there are videos on YouTube.
Like this one: I visited the Biggest US City with No Public Transportation
What an embarrassment that DFW is home to a city with a status like that known by many across the country
What many of us out here complain about
Dallas has transit - the assholes in Republican cities (we are looking at you Arlington, etc.) are so anti public transit that it is nauseating.
The mindset is, public transportation = closer contact with homeless people
Don’t go looping Fort Worth into this. We have a train straight to AAC and straight into DFW airport (among other places). This is Arlington’s BS. I cannot fathom how tf there isn’t reliable public transportation to an area dead ass in the middle of the metroplex with multiple major sporting and entertainment venues. Yes, Tarrant County leans Republican, but FW has voted blue in multiple recent elections and we’re at least trying. We’re also extending the train down into the medical district and towards TCU. It’s red ass Arlington that can get ducked.
Fair enough!
Jerry Jones pays a shit load of $ for that not to happen. That’s how he makes so much damn $ from parking at AT&T stadium.
Every time I drive by the parking situation I shudder. He built blocks surrounding the stadium of just flat concrete. Why not save space & add more efficiency by building a parking garage?
Even more depressing… I could probably be happy living off of the salary of just 2 of those parking spaces.
Cheaper to buy land than go vertical
If I could take a bus to AT&T Stadium, Jerry wouldn't get my $80 for parking. Do the math.
Arlington is the largest city with no public transit. The long time mayor owned a big car dealership. Go figure.
Arlington has consistently lobbied against public transportation. They don't want the "kinds of people" who need and use public transportation in their city.
There are some local hotels/restaurants that run shuttles over to the stadium on game and event days. I’m sure someone will chime in with which ones. I can’t remember.
Grease Monkey Burger
J Gilligans
"Privatized public transit" seems like an oxymoron.
Public means tax dollars fund it for the good of everyone because it wouldn't be profitable or it's a necessary service.
Private means it's a privately owned, most likely for-profit endeavor.
If there were enough demand for a private company to make some kind of bus service connecting DART and Arlington, there probably would be one. The problem is you need a mass of people who need to move from one to the other on regular schedules to make it profitable. Enough to mostly fill a bus.
If you want to do something smaller than a bus, congratulations: you have just invented taxis. Now do you want them to be on-demand from a phone app and driven by unlicensed drivers? Congratulations, you just invented Uber/Lyft.
Not to nitpick, but there are plenty of public transit systems around the world that are run like a semi-autonomous private business with enough revenue to cover operation a f future growth without tax funding. They're still public transit, even though its not running at a loss or funded by taxes. Now, they're often given right of ways, access to roads and sidewalks, and building permits that a fully private company wouldn't, so i guess you could take that as taxpayer support.
I would be very curious to see citations on that because without tax revenue or other government funding, public transit likely wouldn't be very affordable and wouldn't be able to retain the ridership necessary to self-fund.
Regardless, even if that is the case in some parts of the world, the population and culture between Dallas and Arlington specifically wouldn't support it.
See Tokyo transit system. Some rail likes are government funded, but most (IIRC) are privately owned lines.
The Tokyo Metro Corporation appears to be owned by the government. If you're talking about Intercity transit rail, it's an entirely different thing.
Hong kong MTR is famously for-profit. And the Singapore transit systems are also land development based for revenue. The Singapore systems are partially public, where some assets are owned by the government and then contracts have a more private company run the service. Portions of the Tokyo transit system is profitable too. Some regional rail in Switzerland is profitable or self sustaining. The kxt high speed services in the Korean rail system are profitable, though their profits go towards sibsidizing the conventional metro system that runs at a loss.
So it's not as widespread as i thought. It's mainly high-density Asian systems with heavy TOD and property revenue. My point was that "public transit" is often a more complicated private partnership than just a government service run with taxes. Imagine a world where a private bus system in Arlington is so successful that the city builds big bus stops for them, and advertises their services through city websites, etc. That would be a private service, acting in the public interest.
Transit is extremely expensive, that's why you don't see privatized bus and train systems. The existing public systems have to be heavily subsidized to keep fares affordable, which last time I check was around $95 of taxes/grants/subsidies for every $5 of fares taken from riders.
The reason Arlington isn't part of DART is because they voted not to join back in 1983 when DART was founded, back when the Cowboys were still playing in Irving and before the idea even existed to move to Arlington. That was the only time a city could join without being next to another city that also joined. Since then DART's bylaws won't allow Arlington to join even if they wanted to because there are no contiguous DART member cities adjoining Arlington. Grand Prairie isn't in DART either.
Arlington has invested heavily in their venue district, using the share of sales taxes that other cities used to join DART, and it's not likely Arlington would be willing or able to give up half their sales tax revenue to create a public transit district. Arlington's expecting to get around $94M in sales tax revenues next year, half of that wouldn't buy much of a transit system.
Arlington has rejected public transportation in elections three times.
"And so, for the third time in 22 years, voters rejected plans for public transportation in Arlington, cementing the city’s status as the largest city in the country without a mass transit system."
https://www.dallasobserver.com/uncategorized/arlington-finally-invents-a-public-transit-system-voters-cant-reject-a-single-bus-route-7106436/
Arlington sucks.
Yep, they have. They've decided that spending their taxes on something other than public transit is what's best for them. Most of the complaints I see here are that people here can't get cheap bus rides over to Arlington's venue district, something that would have only been possible if Arlington had joined DART back in 1983 when Arlington didn't have the Cowboys and when the Rangers were still playing in an open bleacher stadium. Since then Arlington wouldn't be able to join DART because of DART's own bylaws, not because of any nefarious behind the scenes maneuvering by Jerry Jones or anyone else.
Just get Uber that's ur best bet
Other than Uber/Lyft? Are there any services providing this kind of transportation other than the services that provide this kind of transportation?
No, because Uber and Lyft are typically single-passenger services, and even their shared ride pricing is high.
I'm curious from a business perspective whether there's any active companies or past attempts by companies to run a bus service, not sponsored by any government, that would have pricing geared toward high-passenger transit. If I wanted to take an Uber Share ride from West End to AT&T Stadium right now, I'd pay around $23. I can't help but imagine that if there was a bus running the same route, or a similar one, there'd be an avenue to charge lower prices while maintaining a profit.
Would it be crazy of me to imagine/dream of getting a bus, hiring drivers, and running a route like that?
To my knowledge if you don’t want to use uber Lyft there is a share ride service called via. If going from downtown Dallas you can take the TRE to centreport station and go from there. Same thing for DFW airport there is a TRE Link bus that’ll take you to centreport station and use a via from there. Services is Mid at best and does take a while to get a ride.
this has been discussed hundreds of times already.
Only service is the TRE train service.
Arlington has tried many, many times to get bus service going but even with FREE rides, NO ONE was riding the buses. Arlington is more of a pass-through city than a city that needs busses and the residents have voted down bus service numerous times.
Arlington has never had a formal city bus system, let alone one with free rides. I'm not sure which system you are referring to but, they had never had a traditional fixed route of any type. On demand para transit services or elderly focused routes that work like a school bus are as close as they have ever gotten.
The Ft. Worth bus system put into place several bus routes several years ago and offered free rides. They still had less than 100 people a day riding the buses.
I wonder why mayor vandergrift made sure public transit was not a thing in Arlington. It can’t possible be all those car dealerships he owns.
There actually are privatized services than run busses to the stadiums on game days.
There are also privatized busses than drive around Highland Park/Preston Hollow for Christmas Lights viewing. And ones for parking and office worker/transport. Richardson telecom corridor and Legacy West I'm aware of, I'm sure there are others.
We had been told Arlington offered services via VIA. Is that not accurate?
Its a proud, patriotic, Texan thing to deal with traffic, and pay $50 for parking.
Privatized public transit
Honestly not the worst idea, because getting an Uber to go out to AT&T stadium is a pain in the ass, I do Uber part time and I know I reject all those rides because it's a pain in the ass for the driver as well to go all the way out there and then basically be stuck there until the game is over or you drive back empty.
Meanwhile if you started some kind of a private service selling tickets people would save money and they could just Uber to the bus/shuttle.
Games, concerts, etc. happen every day and people are constantly struggling to get to and from these event venues especially the ones that are in far out places or that don't have clear signage for Uber pickups
You mean busing? Bussing means kissing.😎