Seeing Dallas Without a Car: Stay Central, Ride All Day for $6

Yes, if you sleep in the core. Stay Downtown, in Uptown or in Deep Ellum, and DART's trains, the free M-Line trolley and the $1 Dallas Streetcar reach the Sixth Floor Museum, the Arts District, Deep Ellum, Fair Park and Bishop Arts, with the Orange Line running from DFW for $3. A $6 Day Pass covers a full day. Save rideshares for late nights and places off the rail lines.

Where to stay so the trains do the work

Pick a hotel a short walk from a rail station or the M-Line, and most of the sights in our Dallas travel guide are one ride away.

Downtown. The guide picks it for the Arts District and the Sixth Floor Museum on foot, and the Red, Blue, Green and Orange lines all stop at its St. Paul station. EBJ Union Station is where the streetcar to Bishop Arts and the train to Fort Worth start.

Uptown. The guide's pick for a first visit sits on the M-Line trolley, which runs along McKinney Avenue from West Village through Uptown to the Arts District and St. Paul station. The underground Cityplace/Uptown station adds the Red, Blue and Orange lines.

Deep Ellum. On weekdays the Green Line reaches Deep Ellum two minutes after Pearl/Arts District and Fair Park six minutes after that, every 20 minutes for most of the day and every 30 minutes late in the evening.

Not the suburbs. The guide's warning against basing yourself in Plano or Frisco counts double without a car; its where-to-stay section has the full neighborhood rundown.

Fares: $3 for three hours, $6 for the day

DART keeps it simple: a 3-Hour Pass costs $3 and a Day Pass $6, and both cover trains, buses and the Dallas Streetcar (prices checked October 2026).

The Day Pass runs until 3 a.m. the next morning, which helps after a late show. Buy either pass in the GoPass app or from DART's ticket machines, which take cash and cards.

Or just tap. Hold a contactless bank card or phone to the reader on the rail platform, on the bus or inside the streetcar every time you board. Each traveler needs their own card or phone. DART puts a $1 hold on your first tap of the day and charges the real fare overnight, and registering the card at GoPass.org turns on fare capping, which DART says gets you the best fare for the rides you take.

DART runs on proof of payment, so keep the app, card or ticket ready to show. Two things sit outside these passes: the M-Line, which is free, and the TRE to Fort Worth, which needs a Regional pass (below).

From DFW and Love Field by train

From DFW, the Orange Line leaves Terminal A for downtown every 20 minutes for most of the day and gets there in under an hour; from Love Field, a DART bus links the terminal to the same line.

DFW. Terminal A Station is a walkway away on the lower level near Entry A10. If you land at another terminal with only carry-ons, ride Skylink to Terminal A before leaving the secure area; once you've been through baggage claim, take the free Terminal Link shuttle from the lower level instead. Trains leave every 20 minutes from 5:33 a.m. to 9:33 p.m. every day, then much less often, with gaps of up to an hour, until the last train into downtown at 12:48 a.m. The ride takes about 51 minutes to West End, 55 to St. Paul and an hour to Cityplace/Uptown, according to DART's timetable from 19 October 2026.

One catch for Uptown hotels: airport trains leaving after 9:33 p.m. skip Cityplace/Uptown and carry on from downtown to Deep Ellum and Fair Park, so change downtown or book a ride. Ignore the Silver Line at Terminal B unless you're staying out in Plano, Richardson, Addison or Carrollton; it never goes downtown. TEXRail, also at Terminal B, is the train to downtown Fort Worth.

Rideshare and taxis. At DFW, Uber and Lyft pick up at the upper-level curb of each terminal, and taxis wait on the lower level. It's a long way in: Uber's own DFW page put the average fare from Dallas at $40 for 18 miles and 26 minutes when checked in October 2026, against $3 on the train.

Love Field. DART's Route 5 Love Link picks up on the lower-level drive outside baggage claim and runs to Inwood/Love Field station on the Green and Orange lines, every 15 minutes through weekday rush hours and middays and every 30 minutes off-peak. If you'd rather ride, app pickups moved to the valet pavilion in January 2025, about a six-minute walk from the terminal, and taxis load on the first level of Garage C.

The trolley, the streetcar and the train to Fort Worth

Three smaller lines fill DART's gaps: the free M-Line for Uptown, the $1 streetcar for Bishop Arts and the TRE for a Fort Worth day.

M-Line trolley. Vintage cars run every 17 to 20 minutes: Monday to Thursday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 7 a.m. to midnight, Saturday 10 a.m. to midnight and Sunday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. It's free, though MATA, which runs it, asks riders to drop a donation in the fare box. Get off at St. Paul and Woodall Rodgers for Klyde Warren Park and the Dallas Museum of Art's main entrance, or Olive and Flora for the Nasher; the Perot Museum is five minutes' walk from St. Paul and Woodall Rodgers. MATA warns that Google and Apple Maps don't show the trolley in real time, so check its Rider App for arrivals.

Dallas Streetcar. It covers 2.45 miles and six stops between EBJ Union Station and the Bishop Arts District, every 20 minutes from 5:30 a.m. to midnight, and the whole ride takes about ten minutes. Older write-ups call it free, but it has charged $1 since July 2020. There's no cash option: pay in the GoPass app, with a GoPass Tap card or by tapping a contactless card on board, or ride on any DART pass.

TRE to Fort Worth. Trinity Railway Express trains take about an hour from EBJ Union Station to Fort Worth Central, roughly hourly outside the weekday rush, and only from Monday to Saturday: there's no scheduled Sunday service except during the State Fair. The trip crosses the TRE's fare-zone line at CentrePort, so you need a Regional ticket. DART's $9 Regional Day Pass, down from $12 since March 2026, covers the round trip and Trinity Metro's services in Fort Worth. What to do when you get there is in our Fort Worth travel guide.

When a rideshare beats DART

Book a ride late at night and for the guide's places that sit away from the rail lines.

Late nights. The M-Line stops at 10 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday and the streetcar at midnight, and Green Line trains to Deep Ellum thin to every 30 minutes late in the evening. After a show, a short ride back can beat a half-hour wait on the platform.

Off the rail lines. Cedar Ridge Preserve, the Dallas Arboretum and the guide's barbecue spots in South Dallas and the suburbs are easiest by car or rideshare; DART's Trip Planner will show you any bus option. The George W. Bush Presidential Library is the exception: from SMU/Mockingbird station, the next stop north of Cityplace/Uptown, the SMU Express routes 440 and 442 stop at the Bush Center's entrance.