Steves Salin, DART vice president of rail planning, spoke at the kickoff meeting for the South Oak Cliff Corridor Blue Line Extension. Salin discussed alternatives for providing improved public transportation between Ledbetter Station—the current south end of the Blue Line—and neighborhoods in South Oak Cliff including the University of North Texas at Dallas.
“We have the opportunity in this case to connect the university down here with the university complex downtown with the law center and then take it further up the green line to the main campus in Denton. Add to that the Dallas County Community College District facilities and there is a tremendous amount of leverage in terms of getting many more folks onto the system to be able to get to schools that they might not have been able to get to,” Salin said.
The alternatives analysis process is DART’s effort to identify and analyze options, potential impacts, the benefits of each option and to seek public input to reach a broad-based consensus.
Salin said the City of Dallas has worked on a number of alternatives for the alignment as it leaves the Ledbetter Station, and DART wants to make sure everyone is still on the same page before moving into the engineering phase of the project.
The transportation alternatives presented at the meeting included bus service, light rail and commuter rail service with three alignment options. Options presented include different technology options and alignments.
The cost of the project is about $80 million per mile, for a total cost of $240 million. DART hopes to begin construction on the extension in 2015 with service starting in 2019.
Two more public meetings will be held later this spring.
The University of North Texas at Dallas is a 21st century teaching institution and a component of the University of North Texas System. The University’s goal is to train citizens to be productive and lead in a global environment and to promote the values of virtue, civility, reasoning and accountability.