Just to throw something else into the mix: the Orange Line DART is at-grade in several areas (and around Las Colinas particularly). So you can't increase frequency too much without affecting traffic.
My in-laws live in Irving, near the Ritz (ex-Four Seasons). The only thing they would ever consider using DART for would be the Texas State Fair (including the UT/OU game), and only because the parking is so expensive and so far away if you drive down there that the time penalty is much smaller.
Then you have the facts on the ground that probably are older than DART: the North Lake College station is a perfect example of bad transit design, as the station is at the edge of the property while the buildings are centered. You could just as easily (with perfect foreknowledge) have put the buildings right next to the station and used the back of the property for parking lots, which adds almost no time to driving but makes transit much more appealing (as it is, those who disembark there have to walk across the entire parking lot to get to the school).
Even worse, the University of Dallas station that has almost no pedestrian access at all. It would take ten minutes walking just to get to the other side of the highway because of the convoluted route you would have to take.
Traffic has to be really bad before public transit with a lot of stops is faster than door-to-door in a car, assuming there's parking at the other end.
You can do many things to make cities more transit-friendly, pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly. But drivers aren't epsilon-minus semi-morons, and while a car in central Paris or Amsterdam is a liability, in most of Dallas it's at best a minor inconvenience to find parking. And there's absolutely nothing that can ever beat the convenience of a private conveyance. There's a reason really rich people fly private. It goes where you want, when you want.
I took my wife to the airport the other day. There is no public transit that goes to our local airport; you have no choice but to get in a private car or taxi unless you've got serious stamina for walking on fully-exposed public roads (no shade, no rain shield) with no sidewalks and 60+ mph (100 km/h) traffic for tens of miles. On the plus side (for the passenger), I dropped her off more or less right outside the check-in counter and security. She didn't spend more than a minute or two, tops, for all her indoor walking around to the gate.
My in-laws live in Irving, near the Ritz (ex-Four Seasons). The only thing they would ever consider using DART for would be the Texas State Fair (including the UT/OU game), and only because the parking is so expensive and so far away if you drive down there that the time penalty is much smaller.
Then you have the facts on the ground that probably are older than DART: the North Lake College station is a perfect example of bad transit design, as the station is at the edge of the property while the buildings are centered. You could just as easily (with perfect foreknowledge) have put the buildings right next to the station and used the back of the property for parking lots, which adds almost no time to driving but makes transit much more appealing (as it is, those who disembark there have to walk across the entire parking lot to get to the school).
Even worse, the University of Dallas station that has almost no pedestrian access at all. It would take ten minutes walking just to get to the other side of the highway because of the convoluted route you would have to take.
Traffic has to be really bad before public transit with a lot of stops is faster than door-to-door in a car, assuming there's parking at the other end.
You can do many things to make cities more transit-friendly, pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly. But drivers aren't epsilon-minus semi-morons, and while a car in central Paris or Amsterdam is a liability, in most of Dallas it's at best a minor inconvenience to find parking. And there's absolutely nothing that can ever beat the convenience of a private conveyance. There's a reason really rich people fly private. It goes where you want, when you want.
I took my wife to the airport the other day. There is no public transit that goes to our local airport; you have no choice but to get in a private car or taxi unless you've got serious stamina for walking on fully-exposed public roads (no shade, no rain shield) with no sidewalks and 60+ mph (100 km/h) traffic for tens of miles. On the plus side (for the passenger), I dropped her off more or less right outside the check-in counter and security. She didn't spend more than a minute or two, tops, for all her indoor walking around to the gate.