DFW Transit — Hypothetical Network Model

A from-scratch model of a hypothetical mass-transit network for the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex — a Fort Worth subway core plus commuter rail, BRT, and the existing systems across the wider metroplex. It's a single source-of-truth database that drives an interactive map, demand scoring, a trip planner, and time-series build-out visuals.

Speculative urbanism, not an official plan. Geometry and phasing are the author's own; demand figures use real Census + LODES data where noted.

The four routing rules

Every line in the model is checked against four rules:

1. Commuter rail follows existing rail lines.
2. Minimize tunnels under rivers where possible.
3. Metro follows existing right-of-way (ROW) when possible.
4. BRT only follows existing ROW.

How it works

The network lives in four CSV tables (db/) that are the single source of truth — edit a year_opens cell, re-run the build, and every artifact updates:

Table	Rows	What it holds
stations.csv	536	id, name, mode, lat/lon, year_opens, activity (pop+jobs within 1 km), serving lines
lines.csv	44	line id, name, mode, color
station_lines.csv	686	line ↔ station membership + stop order
segments.csv	613	geometry (WKT LINESTRING) between adjacent stations, with per-line open years

From those tables, the pipeline (data/build_*.ps1 + two C# engines) generates:

• maps/FW_map_interactive.html — a Leaflet map rendered entirely from the DB.
• Time-series build-out maps (maps/FW_timeseries_P*.{png,svg}) — the network growing over time.
• A demand engine (data/DemandEngine.cs) — scores stations by population + jobs accessibility (2020 Census + 2022 LODES).
• A road/ROW router (data/RoadRouter.cs, data/build_rail_router.ps1) — snaps lines to existing rail/road right-of-way per the routing rules.
• A trip planner (data/plan_trip.ps1, data/route_graph.json).
• Audits & validation (data/audit_*.ps1, validate_network.ps1) — ROW conformance, river crossings, orphan segments.

Repository layout

db/        the 4 source-of-truth tables (+ geojson exports)        ← edit here
data/      build_*.ps1 generators, DemandEngine.cs / RoadRouter.cs, source data
maps/      generated visuals: interactive map, time-series, Phase One review
reports/   analysis notes (DESIGN_STANDARDS, DEMAND_ENGINE, TRIP_PLANNER, audits)
edit/      editable line geometry (geojson + kml)
refs/      README pointing to the design-standard source PDFs (the PDFs themselves
           are not redistributed — see below)

Start with reports/FW_PhaseOne_Review.md for a worked analysis pass, and db/README.md for the data model.

Data sources & attribution

• US Census Bureau — 2020 Decennial (block-group centers of population), 2022 LEHD LODES (origin-destination + jobs). Public domain.
• OpenStreetMap — road/rail right-of-way extracts. © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the ODbL.

What's excluded from this repo

To keep it lean and avoid redistributing third-party material, .gitignore omits:

• refs/*.pdf — copyrighted design standards (TCRP, ITDP BRT Standard, TxDOT specs, FRA superelevation). refs/README.md lists each document and a free download source.
• Large raw geodata — the multi-megabyte OSM network extracts and Census LODES files (data/dfw_arterials.json, data/tx_od.csv.gz, etc.). They're reproducible from the sources above; the curated db/ tables and smaller derived data remain.

Stack

PowerShell · C# · Leaflet · CSV/GeoJSON/WKT · Census + LODES + OSM data.

License

MIT — covers the original code and the author's network data, not the third-party datasets or reference documents it draws on.