Last week, I wrote about my visit to the Dallas Museum of Art, but the one thing I didn't mention was the parking situation. There's a great imbalance between supply and demand when it comes to parking spaces downtown! This got me thinking about how car dependent we've become in the Dallas area, not to mention the rest of Texas or the nation. Cars give us a lot of freedom to move around as we please, but sometimes we need to ask ourselves if all the traffic congestion, the cost of gas, and the pollution are truly worth it? Here are some ways we can all reduce or eliminate our car dependence:

1. Public Transportation

After wasting so much time trying to find a place to park, it occurred to me in hindsight that riding the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) rail line could have saved me the hassle! Dallas isn't designed to accommodate public transportation as well as a larger city like Chicago or New York, but DART is becoming a more appealing option for getting to, from, and around the city. It's not free (fare is $5.00 for a day pass, but discounts are available), but it's at least half the price you'd pay for any garage or metered space. Unfortunately, not all the surrounding suburbs can afford to pay into the system and some may not even be interested. DART still needs some kinks worked out, but there seems to be serious effort to do so!

2. Carpooling

Ok, this doesn't eliminate cars from the equation, but it does keep your friends or coworkers from having to drive. In theory, HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes were supposed to encourage carpooling, but they haven't been very effective to that end. For one thing, they're almost completely inaccessible on DFW area highways! Plus, very few of the vehicles in it are highly occupied. As far as forming a carpool goes, talk to your coworkers, or whoever you're going the same direction with. If talking face to face isn't your thing, social networking or ride sharing services are a good resource!

3. High Speed/Commuter Rail

Maybe this could have gone under public transportation, but I draw a distinction because these kinds of trains tend to connect multiple big cities over greater distances. The TRE (Trinity Railway Express) connects Dallas to Fort Worth, but it uses more traditional trains as opposed to the high-speed bullet trains found in Japan and Europe. In the US, there's currently only one high-speed system running between Boston, New York, and Washington D.C., but there are proposals for high-speed rail lines in California, Florida, and Texas. The Texas line would run from Dallas to Houston, and according to Texas Central Railway (the firm spearheading the project), the trip would take about ninety minutes, as opposed to a three and a half hour (or longer) drive. The project is still very early in the planning stage, so it could still be derailed (pun completely intended) by special interest groups or a lack of funding!

4. Walking

This is almost impossible in some parts of Dallas and the nearby suburbs, but that's because Texas cities were pretty much built with cars in mind. The Dallas Arts District might just be one of the most (relatively) pedestrian-friendly parts of the city. Visitors can easily walk between the museums and Klyde Warren Park under normal conditions, but good luck getting around during any big events.

5. Pneumatic Tubes

I saved the most fantastical for last. Pneumatic tubes were originally used to transport mail over long distances during the late nineteenth and part of the twentieth centuries and are still used at bank drive-thru windows. They were used in New York until the 1950s and in Paris until 1987. The mail tubes were designed by Alfred Ely Beach in 1867, but Beach's real ambition was to create a subway system that would have used air power for locomotion! His subway never took off, but the idea of using pneumatic tubes to transport people became a sci-fi trope. You may have seen the tubes used this way on Futurama, or more recently, in the movie Kingsman. Needless to say, we probably won't see this in our lifetimes (maybe no one ever will), but that hasn't stopped people from dreaming or even drawing up their own designs!