 the offical newsletter of DALLAS AREA RAPID TRANSIT - Summer 2009 |
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Enjoy the Wait and the Ride
New customer shelters and other amenities are on their way to DART’s bus system, thanks to a $5.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration. "DART will use this money to improve the quality of bus service and the riding experience of bus passengers throughout the Metroplex," says U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a longtime supporter of DART who announced the grant. The funds will help DART acquire and install bus shelters, route signs, trash cans and other items to improve existing bus facilities and add to customer comfort.Young Artists Tout DART
A Texas "Lone Star" formed by hands around the DART logo is the grand-prize-winning design in DART’s 2009 Poster Contest. Luis Lopez, 16, a freshman at L.G. Pinkston High School in Dallas, won the top prize out of 155 entries by students from kindergarten through high school. Lopez’s poster is featured on DART buses through August and on www.DART.org. Lopez and 15 additional winners were chosen from five grade-level categories. First place winners in the kindergarten through fifth grade categories will receive a Radio Disney presentation for their class. First place winners in middle and high school levels will have their artwork featured at DART rail stations. All winners and runners-up were honored at the May 26 DART Board meeting.Traveling Man Strolls into Deep Ellum
Green Line passengers riding into Deep Ellum Station in September will be greeted by "The Traveling Man," a mammoth three-part sculpture installation. The tallest of the three curvilinear, stainless steel forms – "Walking Tall" – will feature a loping, jovial "man" who stands as high as a four-story building. The other two sculptures, "Waiting on a Train" and "Awakening," will feature the same fellow strumming a guitar and rising out of the earth, respectively. All three will be situated along Good-Latimer from the station (at Swiss Avenue) to as far as Elm Street. Brandon Oldenburg of Reel FX Creative Studios and Brad Oldham of Brad Oldham Inc. were awarded the contract to create the sculptural series after their concepts were selected by DART in 2007 for "The Deep Ellum Gateway Art Project," a moniker signifying how the three sculptures will serve as a welcoming gateway to Deep Ellum. Get a preview of "The Traveling Man" at deepellumgateway.com or at "Traveling Man Dallas" on Facebook.Remembering Rosa Parks
Construction is finishing up at the new Rosa Parks Plaza in Dallas’ West End, with service expected to begin later this summer or early fall. Situated on a quarter-acre at Elm and Lamar streets, the plaza will serve more than 1,400 daily bus customers with sheltered waiting areas, a drinking fountain, a peaceful water wall and attractive landscape. A focal point will be a life-size bronze statue of Parks, the “mother of the civil rights movement” who in 1955 stood up for her beliefs by sitting down in the front of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala.Park it Here!
Parking lot expansions at two outlying transit facilities will be ready in time for another summertime ridership surge. By the end of June, the parking lot at Parker Road Station will have 2,140 spaces – an increase of 585. And Bush Turnpike Station will expand from 807 spaces to 1,193 – a gain of 386. A similar expansion under way at the Glenn Heights Park & Ride south of Dallas will be completed this September. The parking lots swelled beyond capacity in the summer of 2008 as gasoline prices skyrocketed to $4 per gallon. DART ridership has continued to increase even as gas prices have fallen to the $2 range.Return to the Inmotion front page