The State Fair of Texas will open on Sept. 25 and host two of the four stops on the new DART Green Line. Incentives are in place for fair goers to ride the Green Line with discount ticket options available.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Green Line, which opened Sept. 14, brought trains to the front of Fair Park for the first time in 50 years. The first phase of DART’s largest expansion plan, which will lead to the doubling of its rail network to 90 miles by 2013, opens transit riders to four new stops: Deep Ellum, Baylor University Medical Center, Martin Luther King Jr. and Fair Park.
The two stations at Fair Park are a part of DART’s 28-mile, a $1.8 billion dollar project to connect the people and places of North Texas. The Fair Park station drops fair goers off in front of the fairgrounds at Parry Avenue, and the Martin Luther King Jr. station is located at Gate 6, the entrance to the Cotton Bowl Stadium.
Fair goers who plan on riding the DART’s Green Line to the fair can pick up the DART/State Fair combo ticket at participating Kroger Food Stores. The combo package is $16 and includes a one-time ride on the Green Line to and from the fair, along with admission into Fair Park. For SMU students, DART has coordinated with Mustang Express and offers students an opportunity to purchase a $5 pass for unlimited access on any DART service in the metroplex. Students must obtain a SMU Transit Pass from the Pony Express office by paying the fee and showing their SMU identification cards.
Morgan Lyons, director of media relations for DART said: “We know the Green Line will be a very popular way for people to get to the State Fair. We began receiving inquiries about our State Fair service on our Web site, at dart.org/statefair in late July and early August. The traffic to this page is dramatically higher than it was this time last year.”
The current state of the economy and gasoline prices may be responsible for an increase of riders on the DART system, and will also make Kroger’s discount package ever more appealing to customers. Trinity Railway Express rider Ramses Hernandez said he can connect from the TRE to the new Green Line to Fair Park.
Hernandez said: “I basically utilize the DART for events like Maverick games and the Beyonce concert this summer at the Victory Park Station, so I’m excited about the fair and will be riding the Green Line to the Texas – OU game this year. I like that I can travel from Irving to Dallas so quickly and not have to worry about parking.”
Office Depot employee and DART Red Line rider Jay Henderson said: “I’m a student at the Art Institute and use the Red Line to get to and from school and my job here at Office Depot. The Mockingbird Station drops me off a block away from work; you can’t beat that, especially with uncertain gas prices. My school doesn’t offer a DART pass, but I know others like El Centro and SMU do, I wish they did. It’s $75 if you get caught riding the train without a ticket.”
The completion of the Green Line is expected in December 2010. It will then reach the cities of Farmers Branch and Carrollton. Goals of the DART expansion are to improve the air quality and mobility of North Texas, and in the process, ease economic woes of riders.
Lyons said: “We hit all-time records in 2008 during the period of high gasoline prices; however, we were able to keep many of those riders once the prices fell. Still, the lagging regional economy and higher unemployment rates have affected overall ridership, particularly buses. That reflects the fact that more than 70 percent of trips made on DART are work related. In other words, if people aren’t working, they’re not riding. We’ve seen this pattern during previous recessions and are confident we’ll rebound. The good news is, in spite of all the bad economic news, we’re more than holding our own in ridership.”
