Does anyone else find it very inconvenient to do things here due to distances?
Posted by boldjoy0050@reddit | Dallas | View on Reddit | 82 comments
I live in Bishop Arts and don’t like ever having to go more than 10mi outside of this area. The sad thing is there are so many cool places but everything is so spread out and it takes 30min to get anywhere and you have to deal with reckless drivers on the road. I go to Plano for Asian or Carrollton for Korean like once every 2 months which is a shame. And for Ft Worth, I’ve been to Seattle more often in the past year than FW. Basically I don’t want to spend hours of my free time driving places.
MadScallop@reddit
“Basically I don’t want to spend hours of my free time driving places.”
Pretty much just a fact of life in all the major markets except NYC and Chicago.
boldjoy0050@reddit (OP)
I’ve been to San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Boston this year and didn’t need a car the entire time. Everything is more compact and easier to access.
And medium sized cities like Kansas City or Pittsburgh are far less spread out so driving from downtown to even some far flung suburb will be 20min drive or less.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
I LOVED Portland’s light rail system, so jealous, Dallas and Austin could have made something like that happen. But Portland doesn’t care that “oh no homeless people ride it too”. Like yeah, it’s free, and goes everywhere you need to go.
TheFeedMachine@reddit
DFW is a lot like LA. Decentralized, everything is far apart, public transit might exist, but it is slow and takes you to a limited number of spots. LA at least has better weather, better nature, and better food (apart from BBQ). DFW is designed to encompass all the terrible aspects of sprawl.
crewsctrl@reddit
I lived in Los Angeles and over the years was able to do my commutes on public transit. It's not difficult to arrange, but first you need public transit. Arlington, I'm looking at you, pal.
onebread@reddit
My biggest takeaway from visits LA was how weirdly similar to Dallas it feels as far as logistics go. Terrible traffic, terrible driver, pain in the ass to park anywhere. DFW loves to harp on Cali, but we’ve really become Los Angeles 2.
mllllllln@reddit
LA part 2 with all the negatives, none of the positives
Wayfaring_Limey@reddit
We have better BBQ but in exchange, worse tacos.
kaptainkkk@reddit
I'm with you, been to LA many times and it's uncanny how it's similar but imo the parking situation is much worse in LA. It does take forever to get anywhere just like it does here.
DrHerbotico@reddit
It is completely disingenuous to at DFW traffic is remotely similar to LA
medisamurai@reddit
It’s utterly ridiculous to compare the 2
medisamurai@reddit
It’s 10x worse, even houston is much worse than dallas.
Icy_Huckleberry_8049@reddit
With everyone moving here, yep.
30 years ago, it wasn't.
People forget that even 40 years ago, just outside of Dallas or Ft. Worth, there were working farms. Irving, Mansfield, Addison, HEB, Flower Mound, Frisco, Plano, McKinney, etc., ALL had working farms.
Then people started moving here is droves and developers started developing ALL the farmland into housing developments and everything that goes with that.
Dick_Lazer@reddit
Yeah 30 years ago this area still made since. Now the negatives have amplified and the positives have mostly withered away.
Keep_Plano_Corporate@reddit
You need a car in Seattle. Even if you live somewhere hip equivalent like Queen Anne and need to go to Bellevue or elsewhere on the East Side or up north to Shoreline, Lynnwood, Everett, etc, you need a car.
You might convince me you don't in SF or Boston, and in Portland it's just a smaller city, so you could live downtown and stay downtown. KC and Pitt are much closer in size or even smaller than Portland and no where near the sprawl of Seattle or the DFW Metroplex.
Dallas Ft Worth is a top 5 metro in the US and and ZERO geographic barriers to sprawl. Not sure any of the other top 5 can say that. No mountains, no oceans, nothing. It can keep spreading as long as people have patience driving.
Frosty_Corgi_3440@reddit
Most of the southern states are spread out, wherein you have to drive longer distances to get to places, even in major cities.....It's likely due to the south originally being agricultural, and a lot of the infrastructure's fairly new compared to the north.
Northern states were built up long ago, and the industrialization of those areas kept everything compact.
ChelseaVictorious@reddit
Yeah in New York you spend hours on the train. At least on 75 in your car there's not the smell of fresh vomit while mariachis blast trumpets at you. (No shade to mariachis, just.. not on the train pls)
lindslonadier@reddit
Lived in nyc for 15+ years and never spent more than MAYBE an hour to get anywhere - lived all over the city and in Brooklyn (Bushwick, Williamsburg) and maybe 1 time a year if that … would end up having to go somewhere that was in a stupidly annoying inconvenient area where no subway lines remotely even logical for me to get to were the only ones to get there or closest and then another 10 min walk or less… rather than annoyingly wasting time taking a massive circle or going into Manhattan to go back out of it just to get from Bushwick to downtown, Barclays etc when literally I need to just got straight down not half or more of a circle then go down… just would uber in those situations and never crazy priced or anything either like some airport uber price which is insane at times from LGA or JFK to anywhere it seems even trying to go a few blocks away bc it sucks so much probably picking anyone up there and driving through there
Even Bushwick to NJ… less than an hour including walking and everything to a venue about 5-7 mins from the subway station (it was Jersey city which is like the first city you’d hit coming in from NYC but still … requires going through Brooklyn and over the east river … across all of Manhattan and then cross the Hudson River to finally land in NJ lol) and maybe same time to walk there factored in to that so totally not true
boldjoy0050@reddit (OP)
I can’t answer for NYC but I previously lived in Chicago and pretty much anything I needed on a regular basis was accessible by walking or riding my bike. Only time I ever needed to drive anywhere was Costco and Korean store and it was at most 15min drive. I’d assume it’s the same in most of NYC except for the far flung areas of Brooklyn and Queens.
ChelseaVictorious@reddit
Well yeah, all the places you mention are coastal(ish). North Texas is flat land in every direction, so there's no good reason not to sprawl and no major geographical feature to build towards. It means lots of driving but it's cheaper to build so that's what we get.
You also see much more pedestrian focused design in cities that were built up pre-1950's highway expansion. Dallas is newer than that for the most part.
Dick_Lazer@reddit
Having an explanation for it doesn't make it suck any less though. Dallas also had a head start with good public transportation until the oil industry deliberately destroyed it so that people would need cars. A lot of this sprawl wasn't necessary, but was prompted by motivations like racism and greed.
kjampala@reddit
If I go out in New York I meet friends at the most a 30 minute train ride away and then going anywhere else is like another 10 minute commute but usually even less and can even walk most of the time. This commute time is also door to door. If I wanted to meet my friends in Carrollton for some Korean food 20-25 minute drive then nothing else nearby and so to do anything else is another 15-20 minute drive not to mention if you want to drink this all just becomes a hassle but drinking and driving is so normalized in Texas that if you’re on the road later at night on the weekend chances are a high % of the people on the road with you are not sober. These commute times are just for the actual drive itself also not even including parking, and walking to and from the venue and anything else.
dm_me_cute_puppers@reddit
What’s funny is that it takes as long to get a lot of places in those same cities. I was in NYC two weeks ago and went to a warehouse party in Brooklyn from midtown manhattan. Took 45-50 min to get there via train and walking. Same shit, you’re just not in a car.
Chemical_Support4748@reddit
could read book on the train.. stop by a store a cool neighborhood. can't do that on 635
NewUser_Who_Dis@reddit
Absolutely. People's commutes in NYC are often crazy long. As the other commentator pointed out, it is on public vs driving, but the number of coworkers I have with over an hour and into two hours in NYC is significant.
kjampala@reddit
If you’re commuting 2 hours into NYC then you’re not even the people we’re talking about since you don’t even live there.
kjampala@reddit
Warehouse parties are known for being on the outskirts due to the nature of the parties and sound. The farthest commutes I’ve done in NYC are going to warehouse parties and venues in east Williamsburg. Don’t think it’s a good comparison for commute times when you go to a once a week/month event that is understandably going to be on the extreme of that commute time.
kjampala@reddit
Was this warehouse party in South Brooklyn or like east Williamsburg area? Because I’ve been to a lot of warehouse parties in those areas and you go to those once every few weeks and it purposefully takes so long to get there because they need big empty buildings where they can blast music without being as disruptive. These venues are so far out of the way for a reason and chances are unless you’re really into the scene you’re not going to more than 1 of these events every 1-2 weeks and more often probably closer to once a month. This is not a standard commute and something you would be doing often so I don’t think it’s fair to compare to a normal Dallas commute. If I wanted to compare me going 45-50 minute to a warehouse party in NYC that’s like me driving 90 minutes to Waco.
manabanana21@reddit
Sure but in public transit you can read, watch a show, listen to a podcast, work, whatever. Can’t (or at least really shouldn’t) when driving.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
You get used to it. I live in the suburbs now, and I also lived in downtown Austin for a bit. The scale of the Austin metro is so much smaller than DFW. I kept overshooting how far I needed to drive and ending up out in the hills by accident. It was sort of preset in my brain that I needed 30 minutes of highway driving to get anywhere 😂
It blows my mind too, when I visit the northeast that I can drive through multiple states in the distance and time it takes to drive across this metroplex.
B0B_Spldbckwrds@reddit
We need good public transit, but that might mean that plano people might have to deal with us poors, so it'll never happen.
SpaceYetu531@reddit
Unless DART gets a serious makeover thats not going to happen.
They soak up an obscene amount of resources for how shit the service is. Their FY 2025 budget was larger than CTAs (Chicago).
KawaiiDere@reddit
We definitely hate poor people in Plano, but that is rivaled by our hatred of traffic congestion. Hopefully the beautiful Silver Line convinces people to support infill and transit construction (it’s amazing to get to the airport)
okthen84@reddit
I think it was Allen (or maybe McKinney) who voted to not have the DART rail…there’s stations in East Plano (the “poors” of Plano).
Kineth@reddit
Absolutely. I'm thankful I haven't had to rely on DART since getting wheels again, since a one way trip would typically take at least 90 minutes, but was usually closer to 2 hours.
Just so we're clear though, it has always been this spread out so it's just something that we've accepted as part of the deal. Problem is with all the transplants and, now, the cost of gas, it's a burden to commute during regular traffic hours.
Historical-Cicada939@reddit
Thank goodness for this, otherwise I would be broke trying to get to Reclectic over in Grand Prairie
migs_003@reddit
Nah... i like driving
Suitable_Bike_9484@reddit
sometimes it takes me less time to fly to chicago than to get to ft worth from plano. isn’t that crazy?
Bout3Priddy@reddit
Unless you live in the airport or intentional try to find traffic idk how this is possible.
chinchilla2132@reddit
I think the point is that the sprawl is getting a little out of control. If you have a friend who lives in McKinney and you stay in Mansfield. That drive is easily going to be around an hour and a half during regular business hours.
consumer_xxx_42@reddit
I mean, I live in Wisconsin and could say the same thing about my friend in Chicago. Is that “sprawls” fault? No, we just live far apart
Dick_Lazer@reddit
I'd imagine in that case you're at least not both trying to claim you live in Chicago though. Here you can meet somebody that says they live in "Dallas" but then find out they're actually an hour+ away.
Beautiful-View-8670@reddit
Plano and Mansfield are just two different cities. 3 counties away from the other. No one is calling it all "Dallas". Y'all knew Texas was big as fuck.
chinchilla2132@reddit
Lol huh 😂 that’s two different states.
SunBearxx@reddit
Yeeep. I was born & raised in Dallas and this is one of the things that pissed me off the most… The DFW metroplex is so fucking big that it takes forever to get anywhere. Having to drive from Dallas to Fort Worth? You better have at least an hour of free time, more if there’s traffic. I will never live in a big city ever again.
SkyScreech@reddit
Suburban sprawl is the worst thing that happened to Dallas.
Dallas could have been the NYC/LA of the South. I’m not kidding. I truly mean that with my heart.
But we spread everything out, starved downtown Dallas, prioritized cookie cutter neighborhoods, failed to invest in communities over our individual self, distributed our pride and cultures to numerous different CITIES rather than neighborhoods or hubs, and have let suburbanites run their mouth telling everyone how much they hate living in Dallas while they reside 20 miles from the nearest Dallas address.
Now we have them Frisco folks genuinely believing their city will overpower Dallas by cultural and financial impact within 25 years.
God I mourn what my city could have been.
TuringTestDropout@reddit
Manhattan, San Francisco, Seattle are restricted by geography and thus must build up (or not at all in SF's case). LA and DFW are not restricted by geography and thus you get the sprawl.
SkyScreech@reddit
I mean yeah I know. Money drives decisions but I still wish we had built up not out.
medisamurai@reddit
Exactly
just-getting-by92@reddit
If you lived in lower Greenville you could walk to Knox Henderson, and have a 6 minute drive to uptown as well as deep ellum if you wanted. Bishop arts is just out on an island.
Chemical_Support4748@reddit
and get ran over
Jdrew_@reddit
So true! It's easy to hop to other neighborhoods or go up to the northern suburbs from Lower Greenville / Knox Henderson
TheJiggie@reddit
Traffic more than distance.
Dabclipers@reddit
It's honestly Bishop Arts that's the worst place for this in the city. I live in Addison and it feels like with the exception of Bishop Arts it's no problem getting anywhere I'd want to go.
medisamurai@reddit
it’s 13 mins from downtown to Addison on the tollway
SubstantialPoet8468@reddit
Tf lol
chinchilla2132@reddit
🤣🤣🤣
Strong_Comparison_34@reddit
You may need to move closer to the scene that you are into. Or plan your day and stay in the area for a night like a staycation.
earthworm_fan@reddit
No. It still takes me 30 or 30 mins to get around Manhattan.
medisamurai@reddit
I don’t want to drive 30 mins but a 4 hour plane ride plus a 45 minute trip to the airport , no problem. Stfu
Dull-Exercise8095@reddit
I lived in bishop arts for close to 10 years and it's a black hole.
I now live in Old East Dallas and I'm 5 minutes from everything.
I can be in Casa Linda or North Park in 10 minutes. If I'm going to Taco Y Vino it's 15 minutes without traffic
carenard@reddit
I don't mind the distance very much... its the other drivers that make me not want to leave a few miles from my place.
SharpAntelope9096@reddit
I have been living in North Oak Cliff for 6 years without a vehicle. I’ve learned to just cut out going to certain places mainly north of 30. Oak Cliff is huge and has a lot to offer.
bubba53go@reddit
It used to be no big deal to drive anywhere in DFW. Traffic moved quickly & pretty safely. An ever expanding number of cars & people did us in. There was a greatness to DFW & a lot of potential that's gone.
Glowinwa5centshine@reddit
Straight up...have you considered a move to a smaller city? I say this as someone who moved a mid sized city and is just much happier. I grew up in DFW and spent the last 12 years I lived there in oak cliff. I love it there but getting around and dealing with traffic at 2 pm on a Saturday going anywhere outside that bubble just wore me down so bad. And yes the drivers are unhinged! I definitely fell into a pattern of just not crossing the Trinity in my free time because it was a whole thing lol.
I'm sure so many people are like oh you can't handle a big city- I'd just rather not and that's okay. Dallas grew a lot while I was there and the Bishop arts you're in isn't even the same area when I was living there. Things evolve (especially in Dallas there's money and they are all about the new new) and if it's just not the setting for you it's cool. I miss a lot about Dallas (mostly friends and tacos) but the thing you're speaking to is a quality of life thing that personally mattered to me and the payoff was worth it personally.
TurtleJesus007@reddit
I know it may sound scary but take the DART on a free day with some friends. The travel time isn't as comparable but the time gained by not having to do the driving yourself is nice. There's a (less awesome but some good spots) Korea Town at Royal Lane Station and the Carrollton Korea Town can be gotten to by Trinity Mills Station and a bus transfer that drops you off behind the side with H-Mart. Take a Day trip to Downtown Ft. Worth on the TRE, or even take the bishop arts streetcar to Downtown Dallas and transfer there. I promise I know how not as convenient as you would hope, you may have to get up earlier but it can be worth the adventure to see the metroplex without staring at the road.
smoke_inyoureyes@reddit
You mean you don’t like like spending 2-3 hours of your day in a complete traffic gridlock? Crazy /s
My drive home today from FW took an hour and a half lol. I am so ready to move out of here this summer. These roads were able to handle DFW population in the 2000s but this is basically LA traffic now with how many people are here and how old these roads are.
deer_ylime@reddit
East dallas has lots of things to do close by
miiintyyyy@reddit
No, not really.
stewartdesign1@reddit
I hear you. I despise driving lately. I was rear ended last year by an uninsured motorist, and it feels like mad max out there sometimes.
Okay, hear me out: a bicycle + Dart will change your perception of what you can access in DFW. I can easily get from Richardson to Bishop Arts or virtually anywhere else in the metroplex with no need for a car, thanks to our 93 miles of rail line and extensive bike lane network. With the new Silverline I can now get from Richardson to downtown Plano, Carrollton, Addison, Grapevine, Coppel, DFW or Ft Worth without needing to ever get in a car. It is a total game changer! I have now added all these places to my regular rotation of venues I like to visit.
Our cycling group in Richardson regularly takes the Dart to the downtown Dallas farmer’s market for rides. We are more than happy to show you how it’s done if you are so inclined. Anyone is welcome to join our social rides on Tuesdays and Fridays at 6pm, leaving from the bike shop. Chill pace, nice group of people of all ages, and very welcoming.
Upstairs_Balance_464@reddit
I live downtown and almost never have to leave the area… but you’re bitching about going out to a suburb every two months? That’s not really reasonable, especially considering a lot of the places you’re talking about are transit accessible.
boldjoy0050@reddit (OP)
I’d love to get the things I get in the suburbs more frequently if they were in the city. But they aren’t, so I’m stuck driving to Frisco or Plano.
howwespendourdays@reddit
A little bit! I think I might get a self-driving car at some point.
guliamax@reddit
I rarely go outside 635. I do, but less common, travel outside loop 12.
masquefetiche@reddit
That’s why I moved to uptown so I could just walk, yet I still want to go everywhere else.
Dense_Sun_6119@reddit
You sound soft…scared of “crazy drivers”. Give me a break. You live in a big city, act like it. There’s nothing in any suburb worth seeing. If you feel you have to go, pick your times, so you’re not sitting in rush hour traffic. I live right in the middle of uptown and I have zero issues with getting around
snowDemon999@reddit
Last month my brother and his wife came over to visit from Manchester for the first time. They complained about this exact same thing any time I drove them to see anything and I live in Mckinney. You at least live in Dallas.
Still_Detail_4285@reddit
You live in a small section of the city that does not have many everyday amenities.
opinionsOnPears@reddit
I wouldn’t mind driving if I can get there and back without being hindered by traffic. I’d drive to work more if I could take a more direct route and traffic be minimal.
liatriss_@reddit
Moved here after living 25+ years in rural Texas. Living out in the BFE, I’d regularly drive an hour places no problem. Here, I find it hard to go anywhere more than 10 miles away. I definitely attribute it to dealing with the drivers and traffic
boldjoy0050@reddit (OP)
I have lived in rural areas and was used to driving an hour to “the city” but it was basically a set the cruise control and relax drive. Not so in this area where you have to be constantly on edge due to traffic and crazy driving.
cramothmasterson@reddit
Yep