Transit Tangents

DART Silver Line Opens!

• Louis & Chris • Season 2 • Episode 95

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We mark the launch of DART’s Silver Line with a first-hand ride, a look at the trains and stations, and frank talk about service levels, airport access, and what success would look like. Local leaders and advocates weigh in on ridership, TOD, and how policy shaped the project’s path.

• Why the Silver Line matters for regional mobility  
• Route overview and service span  
• Airport access and frequency trade-offs  
• Opening day impressions and rider experience  
• Planning history, funding, and political hurdles  
• Ridership recovery and demand forecasts  
• Enrique McGregor on economic growth and connectivity  
• Tyler Wright on TOD, housing near stations, and perception  
• Next steps: messaging, partnerships, and bus signal priority


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SPEAKER_00:

This week marked a major milestone for public transit in North Texas with the launch of the Dart Silver Line. Now I was fortunate enough to be invited by our friends at the Dallas Area Transit Alliance to join them for the ceremonial grand opening of this new line. This was a whirlwind of a trip. Lewis and I had just wrapped up filming our first European cities tour where we visited Vienna, Munich, and Zurich. So stay tuned for those episodes because they will be coming out over the next few weeks. I then had a quick trip to Barcelona to visit a friend before I hopped on a flight to Dallas to catch this exciting event. So what is the Silver Line and why is this new train so important? The Silver Line represents the largest investment in transit for North Texas since the opening of the Dart Green Line back in 2010. This is a 26-mile regional rail corridor stretching across three counties in North Texas, including Collin, Dallas, and Tarrant, and will be comprised of 10 new stations along that corridor. Now, unlike other Dart lines that are really centralized to a downtown rail spine, the Silver Line is more of a cross-radial connection, connecting cities to Dallas, cities like Plano, Richardson, Grapevine, Addison, Carrollton, and Capel. And all of those terminate at terminal B at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Also, unlike most of Dart's light rail system, the Silver Line runs along a freight corridor called the Old Cotton Belt. Now, Dart and the freight railroads, they did work out an arrangement called temporal separation, which means that freight runs at night and passenger trains will run during the day. In most areas, Dart has even built a second track to avoid any conflict with freight operations. But interestingly, this created a deviation in the design of this line compared to other existing rail operations. Due to freight height requirements, there are no catenary wires, which means this new train set is made up of diesel-powered units. There is a fleet of eight Stadler DMUs, which are very similar to what you would see in various European markets or countries, rather, where there's non-electrified regional rail. The Silver Line will operate during a large span of the day as well, from as early as 4 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. with 30-minute headways during peak hours, those hours being 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. And off-peak headways will be hourly. That's a little disappointing to hear as this line has so much opportunity to connect North Texas residents with economic centers sort of throughout the line. And that's really the way that you spur regional growth is through more frequent rail connections. Now another major selling point for this line is that it provides convenient connection to the DFW airport. DFW reported 88 million passengers in 2024, making it the second busiest airport in the US and the third busiest in the world after Atlanta and Dubai. So we can compare the service to other global airports that do get served by public transit, where we see regional trains about every 15 to 30 minutes, and we would typically see metros every 5 to 15 minutes. So serving this airport with hourly service for the most part feels inadequate. There is the Orange Line, which supports for downtown Dallas with much better frequencies throughout the day, but I would think with the Silver Line, with its connections to the Orange Line, the red, and the green lines, that that would serve as a more useful link to DFW for a much larger population of DFW's residents. I guess the upside here is that there could be opportunity for more frequent headways in the future as more people start to use this line to get to the airport or to even use it to connect between all of the cities that are that are on this regional railroute. So after flying from Spain to DFW, I set out for the grand opening celebration, meeting members of Data at the Cyprus Waters station. Now I arrived around 8:30 a.m. and despite it being an early hour, uh folks were really excited about this grand opening celebration. And Dart, they rolled out all of the stops for this, including a free breakfast for everybody who came to attend, a live band, and then they even invited local cheerleaders from one of the high schools to come and get everybody really rallied up or pepped up for this event. This is also when I had a chance to tour the new train set, and I have to say, it's really nice. These trains are about 266 feet long. They are made up of two cab cars, one on each end, uh two coach cars, and then an engine module in the middle that you can actually walk through to connect to both ends of the train. They have a capacity of about 230 people seated and up to 490, including standing room, although that would be a very, very packed train. There's also separate space for wheelchairs and luggage and bikes and all the things that you would really expect on a regional train. Now, after just spending a lot of time in Germany and in Austria riding similar trains, these instantly felt familiar, just like something you would find in Europe. The stations are also really well designed with really good digital signage. There's really frequent audio updates over the speaker system, and the pace stations are really convenient. There are no turnstiles to get onto the train, uh, so no like fair verification, but there will be uh fair enforcement agents on the train. So make sure you are buying your ticket. And on that note, tickets are really easy to come by. If you already have a pass for Dart, it will work seamlessly with the Silver Line, which is great because the Silver Line really does work as a connector to multiple metro lines as well as transit hubs where there's buses that serve many, many neighborhoods in the Dallas area. So having that ticket and being able to use it across all modes of transit is also very, very helpful. So after concluding my tour of the train with no one being on it, which was very, very cool, we then uh had everybody come and board the train at about 9-10 in the morning, and then we set off from the Cypress Water Station to Addison. Now, typically that trip would only take about 15 minutes. I think with the demo ride, it took just a little bit longer for us to get there. Riding the entire length of the silver line, say from DFW to its other terminal point at Shiloh Road in East Plano, would take you about 60 to 65 minutes to do the entire 26 mile route. Once we arrived in Addison, that's when the celebration really kicked off. And to my surprise, it had a little bit of a Mardi Grash theme or Mardi Gras flair. Now look, I'm from the Gulf Coast. I love Mardi Gras, but Dallas is not of the Gulf Coast, so I was a little surprised, a little confused, but hey, laissez-le bon sans roule. The festivities they continued with some speeches from local leaders uh from that area, and they really stressed the importance of this line to the community.

SPEAKER_06:

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome all of you to this very special celebration of the launch of the Dart Silver Line, a 26-mile regional rail service that will truly connect our region in exciting new ways.

SPEAKER_04:

We are delighted to have all of the city leaders, regional partners, and business and community champions, all of whom have supported this project every step of the way.

SPEAKER_05:

So great to be back here in DFW as opposed to the hot mess of the DCs these days. We could use a little bit more DFW leadership up there, I gotta say. Every day, hundreds of people move to the Dallas Forward Hydroplex and are coming here for opportunity for innovation and for community in the home to make a better life for their families.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a privilege to be here today to join you as we celebrate the opening of the Don I feel the line, a project that represents not only years of planning and collaboration, but also the future of mobility, connectivity, and opportunity across our region.

SPEAKER_00:

This is truly a really big deal for North Texas and has been a long time coming. This corridor was recognized for potential passenger rail back in the 1970s. In the 90s, Dart formally included the Cotton Belt Corridor in its sort of long-range plans as a future passenger rail corridor. In 2006, it was added to Dart's 2030 plan, so we're right about on track. Then in 2008, DART began the initial studies of the corridor to see what it would take to build the line, and then also what would potential passengers' uh passenger numbers be. Through the following years of the project, uh it faced financial questions, potential cancellations, all kinds of things happening. But Dart did secure uh partial funding through a 2016 federal RRIF loan, and that really helped the project move forward and allowed Dart and the other communities around this North Texas region to commit to building the Silver Line. That led to the project breaking ground in 2019, which then it immediately faced pandemic delays, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, all the things that came in the COVID era. But despite all of the challenges and the very, very lengthy planning process, the Silver Line officially entered revenue on October 25th, 2025. So 26 miles, 34 new bridges, and 50 grade crossings later. Yes, this is a huge milestone to celebrate. But how many Texans are actually going to ride it? Dart, like many transit systems across the country, continue to recover from the pandemic with ridership currently sitting at about 80% of pre-pandemic levels. Now, to add a little perspective, fiscal year 2024 closed out with nearly 58 million boardings for the region. So still a pretty significant ridership. The North Central Texas Council of Governments, which is a mouthful to say, currently estimates that the silver line will attract approximately 18.8,000 riders per day by 2045. So quite a bit of room for growth here, and we're gonna see how ridership actually corresponds to those uh to those estimates.

SPEAKER_01:

We're gonna jump right back into this episode in just a second. But first, if you have not liked this video, go ahead and do so. Also leave a comment. We love reading all of them and respond to as many as we can. Uh, and be sure that you are subscribed so that you catch every episode as they come out.

SPEAKER_00:

Please share this with your friends. And if you don't have time to watch YouTube videos in the future, you can catch us on any of the podcast platforms that are out there. Uh, just be sure to leave us a rating and uh give us a comment. While at the event, I did have the honor of meeting up with Enrique McGregor, who is a DART board member, to ask him about the impact of this line and the impact it's gonna have on mobility for residents in North Texas.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, the opening of the SERO line is a very important step for the entire region. And I think it was best uh described by the mayors of several different suburbs and member cities who they all talked about the same thing. The fact that the um DART and the rail system is really an engine for economic growth. But the fact it's also gonna connect quite a few people to downtown Dallas. Uh UTD students will be able to go to um sports events. Of course, the connection to DFW is critical. Uh businesses who have offices for global companies, uh in other words, uh people that would come to Dallas for their job uh and would travel quite a bit. Uh the connection to DFW is critical. You know, it it just creates a whole new opportunity for development to that particular niche of people. It helps students, we already said. And uh for me today, the biggest thing was really, you know, to get to the point where we could uh uh open the silver line today, uh we had to go through quite a bit of back and forth with many of the mayors, and sometimes those tensions with the cities and the city members. Uh today everybody spoke in unison about uh the the great benefit economic and uh people connecting benefit of Dart. So it's it's a great day for all of us.

SPEAKER_00:

If you've been following the show for a while, you may recognize Enrique McGregor. He was part of a live panel discussion that we did at the Dallas Library earlier this year. That was an event that we hosted with the Dallas Area Transit Alliance, and the focus of that event was discussing the looming Texas legislative session where there was an effort to reduce Dart funding by up to 50%. Had that legislation advanced, we may not be celebrating the Silver Line today. In fact, we'd probably be having a very different conversation about how does Dart continue to provide service if they don't have or if they lose 50% of their funding. Similar situation to what we're seeing at SEPTA in Pennsylvania. Data, the Dallas Area Transit Alliance, they were really instrumental in helping defeat this legislation at the state house and helping it knock it out of committee. They took all of their members down to Austin, they lobbied the state reps and state senators and made sure that they knew the impact that passing this legislation would have for the DFW residents. And happy to say that legislation did not move forward. In light of all this and Data's hard work and being great community advocates for writers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I asked Tyler Wright, the vice president of Data, what this momentous occasion, what this grand opening means to his organization.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, this is really big, one because it's I was telling the data members this morning, like just being able to just celebrate something and not be like, well, we got a small win with this loss. Just being able to just say, hey, something cool and new is coming has been really refreshing. All of our, you know, hanging out with everybody here, all of our group chats are really just excited for for something new and uh just just a win. Um from a personal perspective, I mean, I live just here in the neighborhood, so having a 30-minute ride to the airport really excites me. Um and you know, hopefully I'll be able to give my wife and everyone else on on transit a little more with with this opportunity. Um as far as for data goes, you know, I think this is just another opportunity for a lot of people who don't usually ride transit to try it and realize hey, you know, it's pretty good. Because I was one of those guys who was a little nervous coming from the suburbs. I moved to a city, saw the buses, didn't really know what they were about, but having tried it, I like it. And uh, you know, I've I've formed my lifestyle around it and I'm happier and healthier for it. So, you know, the opportunity to capture more of that would be good for people. And uh, you know, as long as the silver line is successful, it helps us, you know, with any fights at the legislature that might come. Uh hopefully they don't, but you gotta be prepared for anything. So, you know, we're excited for this to be a win. Um, excited just to ride a new train just because just for the love of the game. Um, and you know, hopefully, hopefully everything goes well starting tomorrow. This is kind of a different class of train. One, it's brand new. Um and there's a kind of an equivalent line over in Fort Worth that goes from downtown Fort Worth to DFW as well, called TexRail. And um that's I mean, that's the same same train set, a little bit more quality with uh, you know, a conductor and an engineer always on board. People tend to feel a little more comfortable with with staff walking around and just the kind of the premium feel of of these new train sets are gonna be really good. Um, you know, I took people on Texrail and they're like, oh wow, it's really nice because it's literally the same trains they use in Europe. And um, I think that will kind of enhance the perception of of having something premium feeling but still the same price as all the other Dart trains.

SPEAKER_00:

Um five that's a good frequency. I was also curious to know how data viewed the larger impact of this new service in other realms like transit-oriented developments and housing.

SPEAKER_07:

From a TOD perspective, you know, I'm I'm on the Addison planning and zoning here, you know, for at this station, and uh I'm excited for the TOD coming in. It's unfortunate that we lost the housing aspect of it. Um but there's a bunch of uh a bunch of success stories uh uh on the Tex Rail line, like in Grapevine. They built a bunch of new retail, commercial, and housing, and it's one of the coolest places in DFW. So I'm hoping Addison will, if they don't build it in the initial TOD, see the importance of housing somewhere that way uh so that nice and close to the station and we can really kind of grow this area into it. Carrollton's gonna be another win because they've been building housing for years, and I think they've got the most housing of any uh of any one station. We we technically have a station across the bridge, so we share the housing across the bridge at that station. So if you divide it by two, but um I'm hoping people will see living right next to transit is valuable because this is a high quality line. Westbound DFW and the rest of uh and the rest of Dart is pretty good too. Um so I I'm excited. I think it'll be good for perception and just good overall.

SPEAKER_00:

This is a huge investment in the DFW Metroplex, and we may not see anything like it for quite some time. So I also asked Tyler, what comes next for local riders and how could transit continue to be improved?

SPEAKER_07:

I'm tempted to give a really technical answer like bus rapid transit or something like that. And I think a lot of that stuff is good. Um, but I really think it it comes down to messaging and partnerships. You go to city councils around here and they're some of them like Addison and Richardson are pretty much pro-Dart, um except for one or two guys, but um you know, other city councils don't seem to get the message and they seem like they just heard of these things. And so I think a little bit more partnership there with communicating to your citizens and Dart communicating with them needs to be improved. Um because the service there is already good and comp it's it's good, it's comprehensive. You can get anywhere um with a little bit of planning and just streamlining that messaging would be good. And then probably uh if I had to pick a technical one, signal priority for buses, good god. Well, you know, we we sit at red lights for for a long time, or uh especially the express buses as they they leave coming back in rush hour. It's competitive because the traffic's so bad, but it could be even better, right? And so I think a few small things like that to make the uh the the transfers easier, the the ride a little bit quicker would be good.

SPEAKER_00:

After decades of planning and persistence, the dark silver line is finally here, connecting Collin, Dallas, and Tarrant counties through one seamless corridor. For North Texas, this isn't just another transit project. It's a statement that rail has a real place in the future of America's fastest growing regions. Is this the standard that we need to compete on a global scale? I would say no, it's really not, especially when you compare this to similar-sized metro regions in Europe or Asia. However, this is a huge leap forward for American cities, especially those that are located in Texas. Beyond the Metroplex, the Silver Line could have a much larger impact on cities across Texas. For every train that rolls out of one of its stations, it really challenges this old notion that Texans just won't ride transit. If the Silver Line succeeds, and I think that it will, then maybe other cities will follow suit with other regional rail plans, cities like Houston and Austin and San Antonio. And maybe that helps shift the conversation statewide from if we should build these rail projects to how can we continue to grow without them? For Dart, for North Texas, and for anyone who believes in a more connected and accessible future, this really is a turning point that's worth celebrating. If you like this episode, please go ahead and hit that subscribe button, share it with your friends, or support us through the multiple ways that we have available, which include joining our Patreon, buying from our merch store, uh, or even using the Buy Me a Coffee. We greatly, greatly appreciate the support and it allows us to be able to travel and do more episodes like this, where we get to be on the ground for things like groundbreakings and doing interviews, or maybe doing another series of European city tours, which I'm really excited for you all to see that. If you have any feedback on this episode, or maybe you also will be using the Dart Silver line, please feel free to read to send us a comment, to send us an email. We love to hear from you. But with all of that being said, thank you so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.