DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) – In an effort to give patrons a smoother ride, DART is making some needed improvements to its track system in downtown Dallas and buses are being made available to riders while the trains are down during weekend construction.
“We’ve set up local bus routes that we’re going to take to those stations. In one instance, we’re going to have an express routes that are going to miss all the stations completely,” said DART’s Mark Ball.
Ball said DART will be replacing track along Pacific Avenue and Bryan Street, adding rail crossovers, making repairs to city streets and addressing drainage issues.
During construction, rail service will be interrupted on the Red and Blue Lines between Union Station and Pearl/Arts District Station, the Green Line between Victory and Deep Ellum Stations, the Orange Line between Victory and LBJ/Central Station and between Victory Station and Parker Road Station.
The buses will load and unload at the “Rail Disruption” bus stop located near each station.
Ball said while the track has to be repaired periodically, this project is unique because of the x-shaped design of the system.
“They all cross in the downtown area. So, no matter what direction the trains are traveling… they have to go through downtown Dallas and that’s also why if there’s an incident in downtown Dallas it impacts the rail system through out our entire system,” he said.
The improvements will make efforts to get passengers to their destinations easier in the event of an accident or malfunction.
“If there’s an incident on one side of the track… instead of blocking that whole track, we’ll be able to transfer the train over the other side so we’ll always have trains going through downtown,” he said.
Ball said the current X-shaped design system is one of the reasons why the agency has placed an emphasis on the need for an alternate route through downtown. The proposed project is known as “D2.”
“It’s slightly to the south of us, which would allow in the future some of our trains to pass on the north side some of our trains to pass on the southern tracks. Obviously, if there’s an incident on one of the tracks we could detour the trains on the existing tracks elsewhere,” he said.
Work on the rail system is expected to be completed in September.
Click here for more information.
Copyright 2019. WBAP/KLIF News. All Rights Reserved.
