u/TorTheMentor

My wife and I had a day out planned in Dallas. Yes, I know, please hold off on comments about how sucky Texas is, I can't help it (I don't disagree, but this is where i am for now), my job is here but we hope to move elsewhere in the next few years. Possibly to either Toronto if we can get PR approval or otherwise to Portland or Denver.

Brunch at a little bistro on Harwood. Dallas Museum of Art or Nasher Sculpture Center. Then a bit of window shopping and exploration in Bishop Arts followed by a show at Texas Theatre.

I had planned to drive in from Denton, park downtown, and then use the green or blue line to Union Station and then the Dallas Streetcar to Bishop. Easy peasy. A few bucks each for fare once we'd parked and about a 40 minute light rail and streetcar trip with maybe 10 minutes of walking total.

She got cold feet about it. Something about how "we don't do that here. It feels wrong." So we ended up back in the car and paying for more parking.

We've traveled other places where we got from point to point by rail. Toronto. New York. Even to a degree in Las Vegas with the monorail. But for some reason she couldn't bring herself to use public transit at home.

What to do to make it more appealing? I already drive an EV, so gas savings isn't as big of a concern.

I've been playing around on Google My Maps with making up transit services Denton doesn't have. My last one included a ridiculous subway connecting UNT, downtown, and TWU with endpoints at Precision Parkway and Discovery Park.

IMPORTANT EDIT: apologies if your map got stuck with the additions. I can't find the comment anymore asking how to remove a shared map. *Here's how:

1. Log in to your Google profile in Chrome
2. Go to Google My Maps
3. Select not owned in the drop-down menu
4. Tap the 3 dots and choose remove from view.*

This one might still be a bit silly, but I got stuck on the idea of streetcars, particularly trackless trams. I'll admit that I don't know what the response of drivers in Denton would be to dealing with tram right of ways, and that I know our roads present some challenges (what about the overhanging trees on Carroll? The craters on Sherman? The hump at North Locust and Windsor?). Even so I can dream.

So this "plan" has two new A Train stations, two crosstown express bus lines, and four streetcar loops (ideally trackless tram so you wouldn't have to build rails). The exisiting 3, 6, and 7 lines are approximated in black. I didn't include UNT transit lines because they would have been a pain to draw in (I haven't learned the import features yet).

Immediate disclaimer. This is the first time I've made one of these and it's a bit rough. The colors aren't meaningful at this point, they're just what Google My Maps had available.

A trip to NYC inspired this. Key features include five streetcar loops that would probably be done with autonomous rail trams that can run without tracks, two new A Train stations between Med Park and Highland Village, and a completely ridiculous subway line because why not.

Enjoy. Or laugh. Either way.

I grew up mostly in Texas, but with one side of my family being from the city (I joke about being Brooklynese once removed), I used to visit a lot more often.

There's one particular smell that defines this city for me, and it's not what people might think. It's the combination of iron, rubber, and ozone (electricity, at least) that rushes at you at station entrances and from the gratings when you walk over one as a train is going by down below. I noticed it most prominently while walking along Central Park West in the upper 50s. Sometimes it also mingles with the scent of hot batter from the Sabrett carts parked nearby. I don't know if it really exists anywhere else.

It felt like a welcome back.