Dallas Area Rapid Transit
transport company
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is a transit agency serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex of Texas. It operates buses, light rail, commuter rail, and high-occupancy vehicle lanes in Dallas and twelve of its suburbs. In 2025, the system had a ridership of 52,823,800, or about 157,300 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2026.
DART was created in 1983 to replace a municipal bus system and funded expansion of the region's transit network through a sales tax levied in member cities. DART rail began operation in 1996 and operates over 93 miles (149.7 km) of track. It was the longest light rail system in the United States until 2023, when it was surpassed by Los Angeles Metro Rail with the consolidation of the A Line.
DART jointly operates the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail line between Dallas and Fort Worth, with Trinity Metro. The agency also operates the Dallas Streetcar and provides funding for the non-profit M-Line Trolley.
History
Precursor agencies
The Dallas Transit System (DTS) was a public transit service operated by the city of Dallas, from 1964 to 1983. DTS was formed by the consolidation of various privately owned transit companies and streetcar lines.
The public source identifies “Dallas Area Rapid Transit” as transport company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dallas, Area and Rapid.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dallas Area Rapid Transit”, the useful work is to connect “transport company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q380660. VIAF identifies the subject as 134913722. The Library of Congress control number is n84026889. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2026, 1983 and 1996.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dallas Area Rapid Transit”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dallas Area Rapid Transit primary sources, Dallas Area Rapid Transit archive and Dallas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dallas Area Rapid Transit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.