A move to Plano, Texas isn't just a move to a charming semi-industrial city with an equal mixture of manufactured cargo to sling ropes over and office buildings where they make the rope slinging decisions, it's a move to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. As a suburb of Dallas, Plano is inexorably tied up in the fortunes of its larger neighbor. Though comprised of separate cities, the Dallas-Fort Worth area does a lot of things collectively, most notably the formation of its public transit system. The result is the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, or DART, system, which you'll probably be using a lot if you end up living in Plano. For that reason, we've created this overview.
Founded in 1983 the Dallas Area Rapid Transit authority began operating bus and light rail routes within Dallas and its twelve suburbs over hundreds of miles of roadways and 45 miles of track, the construction of which necessitated hiring foreign workers. Canada's closest equivalent is the Toronto Transit Commission. The DART fleet consists of 673 busses and 115 trains make nearly 12,000 stops at destinations in and around Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and other suburbs.
Obviously public transit is not for everyone. People going to an unusual or out of the way destination still need vehicles, as do those who are transporting large objects like boxes or a slurry mixer to make a concrete foundation. However, the daily ridership of the DART is over 200,000 people. And since the system is publicly owned, citizens of the greater Dallas area have a first-hand view of how their tax dollars are being spent. Created from the amalgamation of several privately owned transit companies, DART requires member communities to support it with a 1% sales tax. Though some cities have elected to pull out over the years, Plano voted in 1989 and 1996 to remain a member.
DART has several light rail lines. The Red Line begins in southwestern Dallas and progresses through 25 stations in a varied streetscape of downtown businesses, industrial custom lead casting studios, and suburbs until it reaches Plano in the north, where it has two stops: downtown and Parker Road. The Blue Line and Trinity Railway Express connect Dallas to other suburbs without passing through Plano. Two other light rail lines, the Green Line and the Orange Line, are planned for the future, but neither of those will service Plano either.
If you're going to be living in Plano and operating a strapping machine in a factory in Arlington, chances are you're going to need to transfer to one of the many bus routes as part of your commute. There are 120 bus routes in the DART system, 32 which serve Dallas, 29 suburban routes, and 30 which connect various locales with the light rail lines. You can tell the buses apart by their numbering system. 1-100s for inner-city Dallas routes, 200s for express routes, 300s for suburban routes, 400s for cross-town routes that connect disparate locales, and 500s for feeders to the rail lines.
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