April 13, 2022 - TRA Newswire -

With the Dallas City Council in agreement, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) will advance the D2 downtown subway project to the Federal Transit Administration to review under the FTA Capital Investment Grant Program. 

There may still be some modifications to the rail line on the eastern side of downtown to satisfy concerns of the Deep Ellum Foundation. The new route for the project avoids crossing under I-345 and will veer to the north instead, completely avoiding Deep Ellum and leaving the current station intact.

The east end alignment change results in a new operating plan for DART Rail and can be found here: https://www.dart.org/shareroot/about/expansion/d2/D2SubwayNewsletterMarch2022.pdf

The Orange and Blue Lines would use the D2 corridor, while Red and Green Lines would stay on the existing downtown transit mall.

The Green Line would operate from Buckner to UNT Dallas, while the Blue Line would operate from Rowlett to Carrollton. 

Transfers between all lines could occur on either the west (Metro Center & West End stations) or east (Pearl/Arts District & CBD East stations) side of downtown.

D2 will result in four new stations: Metro Center, Museum Way, Commerce Street and CBD East. The D2 tunnel will run from Victory Park to the established tunnel close to Ross Avenue.

The project will allow DART to add more train capacity through the entire downtown area and will increase train frequencies. The second line will also serve as a backup if a line has to be taken out of service.

Photo credit: DART