By Hexel Colorado on April 18, 2023

As someone who regularly uses public transportation and advocates for it, I enjoy volunteering to assist fellow riders and support the community. During the annual St. Patrick’s Day Celebration in East Dallas, I volunteered to be a station greeter at Mockingbird Station. However, the experience did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. While I expected a few small issues with such a large event, I was surprised by the significant mistakes made by DART’s professional planners, considering the event has taken place in the same location for decades. In this two-part series, I will detail the issues I observed during the event in Part One and provide solutions to these issues in Part Two.

Why This Matters

The costs of managing big events can be significant for the City of Dallas and DART. This includes expenses for additional security officers, train and bus operators, medical staff, mechanics, and support staff from morning till midnight. It’s crucial for both the city and DART to see a return on investment by gaining new ridership after the event. It would be a waste of money and resources if no one started riding DART after the big day. Additionally, if DART fails to handle annual events properly, it could lead to a loss of existing ridership. This is not an overstatement, as DART ridership declined every year prior to the pandemic. Although it has slowly recovered, it is still well below 2019 levels. If we want DART to exceed past performance, we need to value and retain all ridership.

Small Issues That Pile Up

Volunteer management is slipshod.

Although DART had previously advertised publicly their need for volunteers during the St Paddy’s Day Celebrations, there was no public call for volunteers this year. However, I emailed my DART contacts to offer help since I had volunteered with them before. After submitting the online signup form, I didn’t receive any guidance or instructions for the event day except to show up at my station to check-in at 6:00 am. The confirmation email only provided an office phone number for the staff contact person, whom I had never met before or during volunteering. When I arrived at the station at 6:30 am, there was no one there to check me in, and no cell number was provided to call ahead. Other volunteers arrived at 7:30 am, which was a more reasonable time. I wished that the email had instructed me to arrive at the same time as everyone else.

Staff and volunteers were uninformed about the day’s events.

I didn’t receive any guidance, training, or orientation either before or after I started my volunteer shift, and I didn’t receive any physical maps or printed instructions to refer to during my 7-hour shift at the station.

But to be clear, I came to the event already informed about the day’s activities. I knew the schedule for the 5K race, where it would start, and how to get there by train. I also knew when and where the parade would begin and which rail stations to take if you wanted to go to the middle or beginning of the parade. I was aware that the “block party” and the “parade & festival” were separate events that both took place on Greenville Avenue, but in different locations. The parade and festival were in Upper Greenville, while the block party was 1.5 miles south in Lower Greenville. In addition, I knew that the Route 3 bus through Lower Greenville was on detour, and I even knew which streets it detoured onto.

I didn’t receive any of this information from any DART coordinator. I already knew it from my regular use of the system and being a Dallas resident for years. Additionally, I spent just thirty minutes the night before researching the day’s events on Google to be even more prepared.

As an unpaid volunteer, I was determined to make DART look good for the thousands of people who would be using the system for the first time. Unfortunately, DART didn’t provide any training or guidance to the other volunteers who were also employees. Consequently, while I actively approached and assisted anyone who seemed confused, providing them with clear and precise instructions on how to get to their destination, the other volunteers waited to be approached and couldn’t answer many of the questions people had.

Fareboxes are slow and dysfunctional.

When there is a line of people waiting to buy tickets to board the train, waiting for the ticket vending machines to operate can feel like an eternity. Several people were confused by the interface of the vending machines because the buttons on the machine did not match up with the prompts on the screen. Additionally, there was only one ticket vending machine that accepted credit cards.

Furthermore, when people tried to purchase more than three tickets at once, the vending machine often failed to print the last ticket. This caused panic among groups, so we advised people to board the train and not worry about fare enforcement.

Tap payment system could’ve been perfect if not for lack of printed guidance.

I observed that the Tap To Pay system was efficient for individuals using credit cards to purchase passes for themselves. As the day progressed, I facilitated several people by inquiring whether they had either a credit card or Apple Pay on their phone. Everyone I assisted found the tap payment system to be simple and convenient. This investment in technology was a significant victory for DART.

However, as I have previously mentioned, there is a complete lack of printed instructions for how to use the tap payment system. If you believe that tapping to pay for your ticket is self-explanatory, you are mistaken. Based on my personal experience and that of others, both seasoned and new riders ask a series of questions: How much was charged? Where is my ticket? How can I prove payment to fare enforcement officers? Do I need to tap again for transfers? Do I need to tap out? Can I use my card to pay for someone else?

To make matters worse, the tap system is not functional on half of all buses. This means that individuals who learn they can use their credit card to pay for train rides are disappointed to discover that they cannot do the same on buses. You don’t win riders by embarrassing them over inability to pay while a queue of people waits behind them to board a bus.

Big Issue is Self-Sabotage

To grasp the major errors, we must first comprehend the overall situation that occurred on the event day. The map below shows the various events in green and the three bus routes depicted in yellow, orange, and pink.

One notable aspect is that there are two groups of activities: the block party in Lower Greenville, and the Race/Parade/Festival in Upper Greenville. These two groups are separated by a 1.5-mile distance, and Mockingbird Station is situated between the two.

The Sabotage of Route 3

The second important point to note is that the original Route 3 bus could have provided a direct route to the block party in Lower Greenville. This makes it an obvious choice for anyone heading south towards the block party after the parade, as they would need to pass through Mockingbird Station. Additionally, Route 3 passes through Ross Ave on its way to and from downtown, making it within walking distance for hundreds of people who would want to be picked up for either the block party or the parade.

Moreover, Route 3 connects to the West End Transfer Center downtown, allowing people to transfer from every rail line in Dallas, including not just the four light rails but also the TRE and Dallas Streetcar. As a result, Route 3 could have served as the gateway for thousands of people located south and southeast of the party.

Unfortunately, our ideal Route 3 was sabotaged by a series of confusing alterations.

To start, the route was redirected to bypass traffic: it shifted from one block east of Greenville Ave (on Matilda Ave) to two blocks west (on McMillan Ave). The detour alone wasn’t problematic. In fact, despite the chaos of the event, I noticed that Route 3 buses managed to remain relatively on schedule with 15- to 30-minute intervals. Take a look at the map below and observe how the original Route 3 in solid yellow runs parallel to the detour marked in dashed orange.

Here’s the sabotage: according to DART policy, buses never* stop on detours. Apparently, this policy even applies when the bus passes within yards of the top destination for thousands of people.

(*Their official wording is so confusing and unhelpful, it’s too much to explain in Part One. I promise to unpack it in Part Two. For now, just know that for practical intents and purposes, buses never stop on detours.)

This means that if you were one of the thousands of people planning to attend the block party and you followed DART’s social media marketing to “Enjoy St. Patrick’s Day Fun with DART” and took Route 3, you would have seen the party as the bus passed by, but the bus would not stop to let you out. If you were on a northbound bus on McMillan Ave, the bus would not stop until it reached Mockingbird Station. Similarly, if you were on a southbound bus, it would not stop until it rejoined the original route on Ross Ave, which is one mile south of the block party.

The fact that buses don’t stop on detours is not explained anywhere, neither on DART’s website, press releases, email alerts, social media, the GoPass app, nor on Google Maps. There are no signs explaining this at transit centers or stations, or on bus stops and shelters, nor on any brochure. I only found out about this policy after loading more than a dozen people onto a Route 3 bus, and asking the bus operator to stop at Vanderbilt Ave to spare the riders from missing their stop. The operator agreed to drop them off as a courtesy but warned that he won’t stop next time because of DART’s policy of never stopping on detours.

Phantom Bus Stop Covers

Temporary covers over bus stops for detoured routes can be a way for riders to learn about detours. However, I have never personally seen what a special event cover looks like and have no photo of it. With many special events happening in Dallas, I started to believe they were not used at all. When I have asked DART staff in the past about the need for temporary sign covers, they assured me that they do use them, but I have simply not noticed them before.

Surprise! It turned out that none of the bus stops along Route 3 had a temporary cover on them. I made this discovery after finishing my volunteer shift at noon and attending an activity in Lakewood before bicycling back to the station around 2:30 pm. Along the way, I checked every bus stop along Matilda Ave and found that none of them had a cover. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised given that even Mockingbird Station, where there were several employees and a supervisor around, did not have any sign covers.

Private Shuttle Shutdown

You might be thinking, “What’s the harm if Route 3 didn’t stop during the event? The private shuttle service provided transportation, so everything is fine!” If you are a planner and have this perspective, then I apologize, but perhaps you should reconsider your profession.

Let’s set aside how the preference for the private shuttle service is wasteful double-spending. Let’s also set aside how it spoils the opportunity to foster new long-term ridership.

Take a look at the routes again in the map below, and this time pay close attention to the operating hours of each route. Notice how while the block party officially runs until 5pm, unofficial festivities are expected to continue past midnight.

While Route 3 was rendered useless for the entire day, notice how the private shuttle didn’t start running until 2 hours after festivities had begun. Notice also how the private shuttle stopped running 2 hours before the party officially wrapped, and 11 hours before bars closed for the night.

At around 3:00 pm, I arrived back at the station on my bicycle. I missed an opportunity to take a photo, but at that time, there was a group of around 50 people waiting for the private shuttle. They were sitting on the curb and leaning on a concrete wall, completely exposed to the sun. Meanwhile, only a few yards away, a mostly empty Route 3 bus drove off towards Lower Greenville, the destination the sun-drenched crowd was waiting to go to.

As I was reporting my observations about the absence of bus stop covers to another staff member, a volunteer interrupted us to report that they had received complaints about the private shuttle not operating. At that very moment, the DART staff on-site learned that the private shuttle would no longer run for the day at 3:00 pm, as they had no prior knowledge of its schedule.

At noon, I had requested them to place a temporary bus stop on the detoured route in Lower Greenville, but they declined, citing their long-standing policy. However, by 3:00 pm, regular service on Route 3 was still unavailable. I didn’t follow up again that evening, but it seems that Lower Greenville had no bus service whatsoever to serve its numerous patrons for the remainder of the day.

Despite the crowd of fifty dispersing upon hearing the bad news, another dozen still arrived to sit on the concrete and wait.

To Be Continued

I don’t want to end this article without offering any constructive recommendations or solutions. I always aim to provide a balanced view with positive feedback and suggestions for improvement. However, this piece is already quite lengthy, and I don’t want to overburden my readers or myself. Therefore, I’ll reserve the discussion of solutions for Part Two, which I plan to publish soon. If you’re interested in reading it, please subscribe to our weekly digest to receive notifications.