Quote:
Originally Posted by drummer
I think it's pretty encouraging to see forward thinking, for sure. The people mover reminds me of a newer version of the one in Las Colinas. I'm just not sure if that's a reasonable idea when it may be better to actually run a unique DART line through the district...maybe split off from the Red Line and run it over to this area, the Galleria, and up DNT to the new Silver Line? Far fetched, sure, but would this people mover actually be used that much? How much is the Las Colinas one used?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by llamaorama
The Las Colinas people mover isn't well utilized, for a long time it was taken out of service or would run on weekends and the only thing that really saved it was the DART Orange Line getting a direct connection. People movers seem obsolete with autonomous vehicles around the corner, plus having to up and down a flight of stairs to travel a short distances doesn't seem convenience.
I don't have high hopes for this to be honest. It's gimmicky. There are more interesting features they could add.
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If Walt Disney had ever gotten to build his absurd city it would have been an utter disaster for a myriad of reasons, but the one idea that stuck out as appealing to me was the layout of transportation. It would have had city-wide trains, but the train stations themselves would be served by hyperlocal people-mover systems meant to navigate individual neighborhoods. From what I remember
all cars were going to be buried underground, meaning no buses to speak of for neighborhood navigation, so the people-movers would have served that function.
Seeing such a plan implemented in an existing city presents its own challenges, but I still believe it's an interesting idea. Except, that's not what we have here nor what we had in Las Colinas.
This hypothetical people-mover would be a few miles from the nearest rail station. And even though the Las Colinas APT eventually got a connection to DART it was rather late in the game.
The APT being shut down indefinitely was a bummer for me. I found out only just recently as well. I last rode it shortly before COVID and adored it.
Construction is still going on in Las Colinas so I hope it can return someday as the area continues to fill out.
Also, I don't believe that autonomous vehicles are the key to future. Automating routes and pick-ups can only cut traffic by so much; at the end of the day individual vehicles, automated or not, will always be the most inefficient way of using land for moving people.
Consider this: the DFW population is expected to grow to 10 million sometime in the 2030s. That's ~2.5 million more people than there are right now.
Let's say we get this autonomous thing going. If automating our fleet manages to take even a whopping million vehicles off our roads by then our roads would likely be experiencing the demand they are right now, and right now things already aren't great. Meaning we'd still be wasting money and space on finding ways to accommodate our vehicles. I think population growth will outpace automation's ability to reduce traffic, so things like people-movers should continue being explored and implemented in tandem with all other options in our toolbox.
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