The country’s longest light rail system, Dallas Rapid Area Transit (DART), has teamed up with Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to connect Terminal A to downtown Dallas. It is deemed a win-win situation in helping boost fliers in and out of the airport and implementing more transportation opportunities across the metroplex. 

Morgan Lyons and Mark A. Ball, DART’s media relations contacts, published a news release on Wednesday detailing the new rail line’s impending completion and hopeful effects in North Texas.  

The five-mile extension to the Orange Line is scheduled to open Aug. 18. Although not an express train, the extension stops at other major DART stations such as Las Colinas, Dallas Market Center and ultimately downtown Dallas.

A major plus in the rail connection is the convenience for work commuters. DART expects that many passengers will be airport employees. It is a cheap and convenient alternative rather than the congested highways and various interchanges needed to get to the airport. Orange Line fares are $2.50 per person. 

In addition, city officials hope that the rail line will put Dallas on the map for tourism, national conventions, conferences and corporations. Similarly, they anticipate that Dallas will become a well-known, international city like Chicago and Atlanta, the only other two cities that have rail lines connecting their airports to their respective downtown districts. 

As construction nears a close, DART officials are still tweaking the scheduling times for trains. So far, they have established 15-20 minute intervals between train departures, depending on the peak commuting hours. 

Maybe you can be one of the first to use the new Downtown-DFW DART connection when it opens Aug. 18.