Courtney Hunter never thought she’d total her car. But on Christmas Eve in 2021, she stood by the wreckage of her 2008 Nissan Versa on the Dallas North Tollway, grateful to be alive. She realized her plans to go car-free had been expedited.
Hunter had commuted to school at the University of Texas at Arlington from Irving, and promised herself that when she graduated and moved to downtown Dallas, she’d get rid of her car. In five years, she reasoned, the city would likely have better public transport options and be more walkable.
The car accident sped up her timeline. Now, the 28-year-old is one of more than 200,000 Dallasites using Dallas Area Rapid Transit to make their everyday commute. She said it takes her 20 to 30 minutes to get to work using transit.
She and other Dallasites relying on alternative transportation say they are saving money, saving the environment and saving their sanity from Texas traffic by using public transportation. Car-less commuters say that although the lifestyle comes with its challenges, they feel safer and more connected to their community overall after ditching their wheels.
While living without a car is not always a choice, and deciding to forgo a vehicle is itself a privilege, some professionals see the benefits of navigating Dallas by train, bus, bike and foot.
A city built for cars
One of the biggest obstacles for the car-less of Dallas is overcoming the city’s car-dependent infrastructure. Only 5.3% of households in Texas do not have a car, according to 2022 American Community Survey Data. Nationally, 8.3% of households don’t have access to a car.
Like several cities in the U.S., Dallas was built to be traveled by car, Rice University Professor Christof Spieler said. Spieler focuses on urban planning and structural engineering.
“The people in Congress voting for the creation of the interstates really saw them as travel between cities, there was not a real full understanding that building the interstates would completely change commute patterns within our cities,” he said.
Plus, parking minimums — which require buildings to have a minimum number of allotted parking spots based on their square footage — have spread apart businesses and other services. That’s made the city less walkable, Spieler said.
The city voted to consider eliminating minimum parking requirements for developers in January. Recommendations for the parking reforms are expected to be considered by Dallas City Council this summer. But some worry abolishing the rule will cause cars to flood the sides of suburban roads.
Meanwhile, city councils across the Metroplex are proposing cutting funding for DART from their budgets. The Plano City Council voted on June 24 to ask the DART board to allow Plano and 12 other cities to pay 25% less in tax revenue over time, and Rowlett City Council followed with a similar plan.
DART also plans to hike fares for the first time since 2018 and eliminate less popular fare options next year. Staff said the changes aim to help the agency maintain and improve service in the face of higher costs.
Saving dollars makes ‘sense’
With a DART stop close to her new hybrid office job, Hunter saved money not having to maintain her car.
In order to cut costs, Hexel Colorado, a software developer and life-long North Texan, sold his car around December 2021. Because of the pandemic, he worked from home and decided to move from Grand Prairie to a more walkable neighborhood near Lower Greenville. He’s been car-free ever since.
“I just wanted to save some dollars,” Colorado said.
Colorado now documents his car-free lifestyle in Dallas on social media and is a member of the DART Citizen Advisory Committee.
Imani Lytle and Jonathan Zoccoli have also taken on the challenge to go car-free. The two work at Better Block, a nonprofit focused on urban design and placemaking. Lytle lives downtown and Zoccoli lives in the Bishop Arts area of Oak Cliff. They each decided it was worth living in a more expensive neighborhood that was more central and accessible on transit, rather than a more faraway, but cheaper, area.
While Lytle and Zoccoli don’t need to pay for gas, car insurance, parking or maintenance, there are still expenses that come with transportation for non-car owners.
Even though Colorado gets a free monthly DART pass as a member of its advisory committee, he still spends, on average, $120 a month on extra transit passes, trips on ridesharing apps, scooter rentals and other transportation-related expenses. DART passes normally cost anywhere from $80 to $192 a month.
When he owned a car, Colorado said he spent around $450 a month on the payments and insurance alone. On top of that, he paid for gas, maintenance and more — making his car expenses well above twice the amount he pays without one, he said.
Young people skipping driver’s ed
Finances convince some to make the switch to a lifestyle oriented around not having a car. But more young people are choosing not to get their license in the first place. In 1996, around 87% of people aged 20-24 had a driver’s license in the U.S., according to data from the Federal Highway Administration. In 2022, only 77% did.
Khaled Abdelghany, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Southern Methodist University, said there are many reasons young adults might forgo a license. Young people are more financially constrained, environmentally conscious and have less rigid schedules, he said.
Research by the Brookings Institution found many young people choose to drive and own cars less because of their circumstances more than their preferences. Young people have lower earnings and wealth than previous generations did at similar ages, and experience higher gas and insurance prices. They increasingly live in cities and are waiting longer to have kids, the report found.
Some believe many young adults will eventually decide to drive in their lifetime, Abdelghany said. But there may also be a more sustainable trend taking place that might actually reduce car use and ownership in the long term. He sees several changes that may make this possible.
Increased ride sharing options like Uber and Lyft and electric scooters and bikes make it easier for people to get around without a car. More transit-oriented developments, or multipurpose buildings close to transit services, increase access to buses and trains. Work-from-home lifestyles and online shopping also reduce reliance on a car, Abdelghany said.
“The fabric of the transportation system changed significantly,” he said. “That behavior [of] not getting a driving license, not obtaining a car, we expect it might be sustainable.”
DART at heart
While Zoccoli, Lytle and Colorado all appreciate DART’s services, they think there are some areas for improvement.
In 2022, DART made updates to its bus network that made using public transportation a lot easier for some riders, like Colorado. But several riders also cite issues with DART, including the number of daily trips, limited reach of routes, the need for better coordination between transfers and the need for more community engagement to increase awareness of public transit options.
No matter how DART evolves, riding transit takes some amount of pre-planning to coordinate a route based on bus and train schedules, Zoccoli said.
Colorado recommends people who are interested in using public transportation don’t give up when things get difficult, like if a bus doesn’t stop or if you get a route confused.
“Think about the first time you learned driving,” Colorado said. “There’s a learning curve for everything.”
Riding DART is more environmentally conscious, too, Lytle said, and keeps people connected to their communities. Hunter expressed the same sentiment — she said she regularly runs into several of her neighbors while on transit.
Lytle believes public transportation is not just for people without a car — it can also be an option for those with a car who are just interested in an alternative option. And Lytle and Zoccoli think people should be more aware of and open-minded to using Dallas public transportation, which can be stigmatized.
“There needs to be more dignity put on taking transit,” Zoccoli said. “It’s not bad to take transit”
Safety on transit vs. roads
DART data indicated that harassment, violence and a lack of safety at DART stations and buses were increasing in 2022, with hundreds of incidents and arrests reported within three months. But Colorado feels that there’s been a “noticeable” improvement in security on Dallas transit.
In 2022, when he first started riding DART regularly, Colorado said he would never see much security. Now, he said it’s more common to have his fare checked and to see a police presence. Last year, DART added more than 100 transit security officers, who joined the agency’s existing 252 officers.
“I think a lot of people will still feel like it could be better, but I’ve seen a tremendous amount of progress on that front,” Colorado said.
Lytle said she feels relatively safe on public transportation, and Zoccoli said it feels safer than being in rush hour traffic. Texas had more traffic fatalities than any other state in 2021, according to ConsumerAffairs.
“[Transit] is kind of an alternative world to sitting on a 10-lane highway where everyone’s driving like crazy and you’re scared for your life,” Zoccoli said. “People should have an alternative to not having to be on that road.”
The journey, not the destination
Coworkers Lytle and Zoccoli find living without a car has given them more freedom.
“In the U.S., a lot of people associate freedom with car ownership,” Zoccoli said. “For me, it is the opposite. … It’s so freeing to not have to pay for the car, to not have to spend 10 minutes looking for parking every time you go somewhere.”
For Lytle, living without a car gives her peace from the stress of traffic and has helped her mental stability.
“At the end of a work day, one less thing you have to worry about is driving,” Lytle said. “You can enjoy the process of getting home.”
Colorado said he takes the time he would be driving to read on the train, observe the world around him, explore his neighborhood or meet someone new. He stays fit walking and cycling more.
“[You] learn to see, appreciate and soak in the value of taking a little time,” Colorado said. “It’s more about the journey than the destination … I think there’s a philosophy to it that you start to learn.”
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