City of Carrollton announces partnership for last mile transportation solution

    May 6, 2020
    DART’s GoLink service will expand to the city through a public-private partnership.
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    DART
    DART's GoLink service will serve as a first-and-lsat-mile service in the city of Carrollton.
    DART's GoLink service will serve as a first-and-lsat-mile service in the city of Carrollton.

    The Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) GoLink service has been expanded to the city of Carrollton through a partnership with local business Western Extrusions, helping employees arrive safely to work from the transit station.

    The expanded service, set to begin in May, came in response to a project called the “Last Mile” initiated by the city and Western Extrusions, a private sector major employer in the Valwood Industrial Park area of Carrollton. Western Extrusions says it saw a challenge with last mile transportation in getting employees from the DART train to the manufacturing plant on Sandy Lake Road. The effort will be funded through a two-year agreement between DART and the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG).

    “We are proud to announce the partnership between the city of Carrollton, DART, NCTCOG and Western Extrusions to implement this new service in Carrollton that allows us to take care of this last mile of our transit system,” said Carrollton Mayor Kevin Falconer.

    The city supported the concept because it serves as a business retention initiative to help Western Extrusions keep and expand its employment base, which is approximately 850 jobs. Together, the city and Western Extrusions approached DART in 2019 regarding a lack of last-mile transit connections from the downtown Carrollton light-rail station to the manufacturing business development.

    The solution was an on-demand, personalized, curb-to-curb GoLink service with NCTCOG funding $325,000 for two years and DART monitoring performance, holding a public hearing, and evaluating a long-term service approach for the entire Valwood Industrial Park area, which is the third largest industrial park in the Metroplex ranked by completed square footage. Valwood is in the northwest quadrant of I-635 and I-35E and encompasses more than 2,200 acres. It has more than 26 million completed square footage with 500 buildings and 1,500 tenants.

    The GoLink service will run Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. with a dedicated on-demand vehicle and a connection directly to the Downtown Carrollton Station served by DART’s Green Line light rail.

    The expansion is part of the “Last Mile” program initiated by the city through an Economic Development Incentive Agreement. The land will also be the location for a transit shelter to be constructed by Western Extrusions. The shelter will provide covered space for employees and allow data to be collected from scanned badges for the ride share program supported by NCTCOG. The company will purchase DART transit passes for every employee using public transportation for work transportation.

    Kenneth Schappert, director of Human Resources for Western Extrusions, said, “Western Extrusions is extremely grateful for the support of our partners, including the city of Carrollton, NCTCOG and DART, supporting our efforts to create a transportation solution for our employees. This solution will be a competitive advantage for our organization and the city by providing reliable, safe and cost-effective transportation for employees traveling in [Dallas-Fort Worth] to Carrollton to work with Western Extrusions. We hope this model becomes the norm for other organizations around the Metroplex.”

    Western Extrusions is a privately held company that has been in Carrollton since 1979. The company manufactures products for clients nationally and internationally and is expanding operations by bringing its recycling in-house, adding a new 43,000-square-foot aluminum recycling facility at the Sandy Lake Road location that will include office, manufacturing and warehouse uses.