dfw – cityplace subway station. it’s kind of a texas experiment with a real subway.

 

wiki sez:

 

Cityplace Station is a DART light rail station located in the northern Cityplace neighborhood of Oak Lawn Dallas, Texas (USA) underneath Cityplace Tower at Haskell Avenue and North Central Expressway (US 75). As an infill DART station, it opened on 18 December 2000 as the first public subway station in Texas (the Tandy Center Subway in Fort Worth was a privately-owned subway) and is a station on the Red and Blue lines, serving Cityplace Tower and the nearby West Village and Uptown areas.

 

Cityplace Station also provides a transfer to the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority's M-Line streetcar, and is the only DART light rail station with such a transfer.

 

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cost = $20m for the station and $122m for the 3.25 mile long tunnel.

why I wondered? here’s what i found in a 2000 san antonio express article:

 

The official explanation is that it was impossible to plan a rail route compatible with U.S. 75, the busy North Central Expressway that was being widened from four to eight lanes in each direction.

Others insist the route alignment and tunnel came about because residents in some suburbs were alarmed by the idea of trains stopping anywhere near their homes.

 

Whatever the reason, DART was hidden underground for three miles.

 

City Place is about midway through DART's 3.2-mile tunnel and it will have the only "subway station" on the system. Some others are below street level, but are open-air facilities.

 

i also read elsewhere that most recently dallas & dart wanted a love field airport tunnel for a section of it's new upcoming green line, but fed funding was denied.

 

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more:

http://www.dart.org/riding/stations/cityplacestation.asp

 

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very modest entrance -- just off a highway access road.

it was quiet & there was a homeless guy passed out just inside. eh.

 

this station is no joke, its pretty deep (10 stories deep)  :-o

 

here comes the ride

 

nope – false alarm!

 

here it is

 

hey, dallas transit has poetry in motion too – nice!

 

and that’s all there is to it, here was my stop!

 

climbing back up the alpine escalator after the rebound trip

 

it would really suck if & when this breaks down…!  :?

 

*** well, dallas has proven it can do real subway stations well -- if & when it wants to! ***

 

 

TRASH!!!

 

Well, I do love...hmmm...they have good food.

Great photos... The station's configuration looks very similar to the Exchange Place PATH station in Hoboken, NJ.

 

The decor and finishes are a little too 90's PoMo for my taste, but it looks like a clean and well-maintained facility.

Not bad!

here is some interesting info about this dart subway section & more via a dallas resident on ssp:

 

 

 

I haven't kept up with the second light rail alignment through the CBD, but there was at least one proposal that was a subway line and I believe included a subway station at or around City Hall, but don't quote me on that.

 

I know for a long time there was talk of building an East/West connector line under I-635 in North Dallas which would have included various subway stations, but that idea was long ago abandoned as the costs would have been astronomical.

 

As for why CityPlace exists as it does, it's my understanding that when DART was first designing the light rail system they were met with opposition from NIMBY's in the Knox/Henderson neighborhoods that sit just North of CityPlace Tower. As a result, DART tunneled under these neighborhoods and built the CityPlace station which now serves CityPlace Tower and the Northern Uptown neighborhoods.

 

Fortunately though, DART was very forward thinking and envisioned the people of the Knox/Henderson neighborhoods would change their minds in the coming years and as a result, DART actually tunneled out two subway stations along the subway line. The opened CityPlace Station and a Knox/Henderson station that sits under the corner of Willis and the North Central Expressway.

 

 

This from Angela Hunt in 2005...

 

Quote:

I met with leaders of DART this morning to discuss the future downtown rail alignment, the possible Love Field DART connection, issues surrounding an Arts District LRT stop, and the possibility of creating a DART Rail stop at Knox – Henderson.

 

DART planners excavated the underground shell of a Rail station at Knox – Henderson when creating the current Red/Blue Line, but the station was never completed due to neighborhood concerns. As Knox – Henderson has evolved, I believe that now is a good time to consider creating a stop in this bustling, growing area. As always, finding the funding for this project will be the most challenging aspect.

 

http://www.angelahunt.com/tag/dart/#?&s=category

 

It is my understanding that the K/H subway station is almost identical to CityPlace and has already been completely excavated and in fact currently serves as an emergency exit along the line. It's hard to spot when you're on the train because it's dark and it's going so fast, but about a mile past CityPlace you can briefly make out where the station is though it has a wall separating the empty station from the tunnel.

 

There is a growing sentiment that the tides have shifted in the Knox/Henderson area and many of the people who initially opposed the station have died or changed their minds and would now welcome a DART station and the growth it has brought around virtually all the other stops. Since the dirty work of excavating has already been done, all that needs to happen is for the people to okay it and the money necessary to finish out the station. If that were to happen, that awkward gap between CityPlace and Mockingbird Station would be closed and the line would look something like this...

 

 

 

Ha!  I used to work in the City Place building...took the DART everyday.  Never thought to take pictures though!

 

My company had a gym on one of its floors and sometimes instead of going there during lunch, I would go down into the subway station and climb the stairs a few times...lol