DART Should Consider 24 hour Service

Less DUIs & benefit to local industries predicted with Extended Rail Hours.

DALLAS - What do Chicago, LA, New York and Berlin have in common? The trains in those cities operate 24 hours a day, to the benefit of the residents and local economy. Even London is going 24/7 in 2015. So why does a big city like Dallas stop running the trains around midnight?

Public transportation is a good thing for a city. Rail connects its residents with essential destinations and services, more safely than commuting in cars and with less pollution. European cities have less drunk driving deaths and DUI arrests, which is attributed to their use of rail. With this in mind, let’s consider keeping the train running later at night. The costs of additional operating hours would be offset by increased ridership by graveyard shifters. Adding subscription based wifi for commuters could add revenue to the system. Improved hours for rail service would benefit the citizens of Dallas economically, helping our city better compete with other major metropolitan areas in America.

Rail connects riders to services and benefits night shift workers, non-drivers like the disabled & elderly.

The DART trains only run from 5 am till around midnight, even on weekends and holidays. Several bus routes and the A-Train connecting DART to Denton do not even run on Sundays. This means that often Denton students who take the train to Dallas to see concerts have to leave long before midnight, before the trains stop running. Many of these students get DUIs since the train is no longer an alternative. The gap in rail service from Saturday night till 5am Monday morning does not make our city safer.

This late night system stoppage leaves many people stranded. DART uses this time to do maintenance on tracks and cars, and has crews clean the train inside. Other systems in Europe and New York circulate the trains in service to keep everything maintenanced on a schedule without missing a beat. The show must go on, and thousands of Dallas residents have jobs that “require late-night or early-morning schedules. Many U.S. factories run around the clock with three full shifts. Americans are staying up later and getting up earlier…. More than 10 million people in this country are up at 3 a.m., and 7 million of them are working,” said a report from 7-11 on its late night demographic. For the disabled and elderly who do not drive, DART rail provides convenient access to essential services.

This means that expanding the hour of rail service will tap into a huge number of riders, theoretically increasing revenue for DART.  However, the community safety benefits of public transit should also be discussed when considering the move to 24 hour service.

Studies show that rail transit is safer than car commuting in general. European cities with rail also report less drunk driving deaths.

Riding light rail is 30% safer than driving, based on the number of traffic fatalities per mile traveled in the US. Plus, people riding public transit are less likely to be victimized by crime than car drivers/passengers. It is true that users of both cars and trains experience crime, but they see it in different forms. Rail passengers may have a rare chance of property theft or assault, but car users frequently see more auto theft, road rage and vehicular assault.

MADD’s newsletter reported, “Europeans do have fewer alcohol-related traffic crashes, probably because they walk and take mass transit (such as the bus, train or subway) much more often than Americans.” In Texas, 1,338 drunk driving fatalities were reported in 2013 by NHTSA/FARS. Uber in partnership with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) estimates that every 52 minutes another person dies in a drunk driving crash. Uber also found that ride requests spiked in Pittsburgh after bars closed around 2am. Not only is riding rail safer than commuting during the day, but our city is safer when public transit options are available after bars close as a convenient alternative to dangerous drunk driving.

What type of riders are up at such a late hour? 7 million Americans are at work at 3am.

Honestly, the majority of the people who are awake late at night do so for work instead of play. Turns out these riders are often hard working people on the third shift who pay taxes and have careers in industries that help keep the city running like first responders and medical personnel to name a few. In fact, the parent corporation of 7-11 did the study quoted above and also listed some of the quite respectable careers with late shifts that would benefit from having extended hours for DART rail services.

Careers with night hours “range from police and firefighters, to hospital and manufacturing night-shift employees. They are parents with sick children and travelers who simply need a ride a back to their hotels. Factory workers, airport employees, office cleaning service crews, security guards, emergency hotline workers, people "on call", musicians, actors and other entertainers (are all graveyard shift careers).

We may be asleep, but they are not. They are earning their livelihood and need services through the night and (ways) to and from their place of work.” These extended hours will require a larger operation budget for DART but it will positively impact hard working people in need of a way around.

DART could increase revenue by adding subscription wifi and adding these 3rd shifters to rider counts.

DART can increase its revenues by both extending hours to include those 3rd shift workers, and by offering commuters subscription based wifi services. Offering wifi thoughout the rail system would increase safety by improving the ability to report crimes or suspicious activity. Berlin’s U-Bahn has mobile phone coverage throughout its tunnels. Seoul, Korea already offers underground wifi access to its passengers. Dallas could partner with a wifi equipment provider and recover the costs of improving the system in no time. With the size of the impact to our city, we have to consider budgeting for late night service.

Maybe a test run could be done on holidays, during monthly Friday Late Night events in the museums of the Arts District, and during the entire run of the State Fair; all which bring lots of new riders into the system. How many lives would be saved from drunk driving accidents if DART ran till 3 a.m. just on New Years Eve to see if it makes a difference statistically?

By running the trains later at night, it will make Dallas a safer place to live.

Over 103,000 riders take light rail in Dallas every weekday over 90 miles of track. The number of riders buying tickets would just increase if the hours were extended. By expanding hours we will make our city safer from drunk driving and give low income graveyard shifters a fair shake on the rails.

WORKS CITED:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Area_Rapid_Transit

http://corp.7-eleven.com/corp/open-around-the-clock

usa.streetblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-transit-is-compared-to-diving/

http://Responsibility.org/get-the-facts/state-map/?state=texas

http://www.madd.org/media-center/press-releases/2015/new-report-from-madd-uber.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

www.madd.org/underage-drinking/the-power-of-parents/high-school-parents/highschool-toughquestions.html

https://newsroom.uber.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/UberMADD-Report.pdf

http://msummerfieldimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/US-TX-000049-Edit.jpg

https://dartdallas.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/cedars-station-lrt-dallas-skyline-3.jpg

Banksy / Gaza Graffiti / Art Value / Property Ownership

“Stop and Search,” an Uncommissioned Exterior Wall Painting by Banksy

Figure 1: Jiminez, Rafael Rafa59. "Exterminio de Palestinos, Gheto de Gaza.” January 4, 2009. Exterior Installation on a West Gaza butcher shop in Bethlehem, Palestine. “Banksy” group on Flickr.com. Photograph. September 10, 2015.

At first glance, it looks like a child is frisking a soldier (see Fig. 1). This exterior figurative painting is by British artist, Banksy, and features a female child with braided pigtails wearing a pink dress and black mary-jane shoes. To her right, a stenciled automatic weapon appears to lean against a rough, gray, stone wall. This placement balances out the composition so the softly colored girl is given focus as the central figure, flanked by two darker colored images. The weapon appears to have been put aside from the action in the painting, disconnected from the girl and the detained soldier. This disconnection gives the weapon emphasis, as it sits unattended, unused and alone. This might be interpreted as a symbolic call for disarmament by the artist.

The unarmed girl is seen patting down a soldier to her left, giving the painting a sense of movement and the illusion of rhythm as the viewer imagines her tiny hands searching his uniform, questioning what the military powers have to hide in this region. The uniformed soldier has assumed the position to be frisked against the wall. The soldier’s uniform is colored army green, in striking contrast to the pastel color of the girl’s dress. He wears a helmet on his head and his uniform matches those worn by the local military force that patrols the West Bank warzone in the Middle East.

The soldier depicted would be a common cultural sight in the location the work was placed, contributing to an uncanny valley effect for viewers. As seen in the archival photo of the work above (see Fig. 1), the repetition is almost inherent to the location since the painted military subject matter is repeated every time an actual flesh and blood soldier walked by this site specific installation.

Banksy’s painted soldier was placed to blend in with the seemingly never ending pattern of uniforms moving around this area of the West Bank. This repetition of green soldiers both painted and real would create a sense of visual unity between the art object and the original environment that it was displayed in. The subjects would be familiar to the viewer when they came upon the artwork in their daily life, although the subject matter is satirical.

“Stop and Search” is painted in urban graffiti style, also referred to by collectors as an uncommissioned exterior wall painting (Corbett, “Galleries Defend…”). Banksy “cut a specific stencil or printed a wheatpaste that could only ‘work’ in that one location. The artist then risked arrest and considerable fines to make sure that all of us have the pleasure of seeing the work as we explore the locations where we live” (Schiller).

Banksy’s medium was at least four colors of spray paint/aerosol enamel, multiple layers of stencils per subject, and masking. He uses tightly painted black outlines to unify each subject into a highly defined visual element. However, the viewers’ attention is first captured by the pop of colors on the largest subjects in the paintings, the fragile pink of the child and fatigued green of the soldier.

After removal, the 2007 work on stone measures 83” x 63” and weighs over a ton (Okpaku). The front facing exterior surface features the painted side, which is covered by bullet scars. The backside of the harvested work reveals a portion of the tiled interior wall of the butcher shop that was chosen as the original installation site for the artwork’s placement (Corbett, “Galleries Defend…”). Banksy deliberately chose to create this work during a time of war, using a provocative subject matter and placing it publicly into a society known for destructive bombings, unrest and very few children standing up against the soldiers they often fear or grow up to become. The contrasting size and proportions of the child in a position of overpowering the soldier lends to the humorous interpretation of the subject matter. 

However, “the work, like most street art, is often placed on private property, and in the process, the artist ceases to own it. The fate of the work is left in the hands of others.” (Vartanian) This placement can be interpreted as an aesthetic gift to the locals, giving them a little beauty and humor on a piece of property neither they nor the artist own or have permission to decorate.

Therefore, it should not seem out of character for this artist chose such a challenging “canvas” in the West Bank for “Stop and Search.” Banksy is a reclusive street painter and conceptual artist from Britain thought to have been born in 1975. His work has been shown around the world including exhibits at respected cultural institutions such as the Tate Modern in 2003 and British Museum in 2005. (“Cave art hoax…”) However, this early work was not installed upon invitation and his work was removed after the “pranks” were discovered, archived digitally by the audience and subsequently publicized. These exhibits were appropriate introductions for Banksy into the high art world, considering the majority of his works are done on uncommissioned walls without the permission of the property’s owner.

“Almost unique to Banksy's street art however are the shrewd use of context… and humour that define graffiti in a historical sense. He is also distinct in his democratic vision, for example favouring the populist mass media as a means of communication rather than… his own niche demographic.” (Lazarides)

Figure 2: “Vartanian, Hrag. “Banksy. Stop and Search, 2007; stencil and spraypaint on stone taken from Bethlehem, West Bank; 83 in. x 63 in.” 2012. Installation view at CONTEXT Art Fair, Keszler Gallery with Bankrobber Gallery exhibit in Miami, Florida. Hyperallergic.com. December 14, 2012. Photograph. September 9, 2015.

II.

Market value and assessment of worth for an art object is determined by the following criteria: condition, subject matter, size, provenance, and recent sales history of the artist’s work. The size and subject matter of “Stop and Search” have already been discussed earlier in this essay.

Art dealers, Stephan Keszler of Keszler Gallery New York and Robin Barton of Bankrobber Gallery London, “tracked down the works (by Banksy), purchased them from the unidentified owners, shipped them to Israel and a fresco specialist in Britain to remove excess dirt” (Corbett, “Galleries Defend…”). Restoration took over three years but it created a stabilizing frame for the work in its present condition (see Fig. 2).

“According to Barton, the Palestinian owners excavated the works and had intended to sell them on eBay. Instead, they ended up abandoning them… in a stone mason’s yard (outside of public view) when they realized it would be too difficult to move the two-and-a-half-ton works across tightly monitored border controls” (Corbett, “Galleries Defend…”). According to this, Keszler rescued abandoned art from an uncertain future and gave it a new audience.

Keszler originally asked $450,000 for “Stop and Search” at his 2011 show in the Hamptons. During 2012 Miami show, he had raised the asking price to $650,000 saying “now that they’ve garnered so much attention… (they’ll) be worth more and more over the years,” (Corbett, “Keszler and Banksy”).  His statement is accurate. Artwork that has been the focus of published criticism and academic evaluation is known to experience an increase in the work’s value, adding credibility to its provenance claims. Provenance is increased with every photo of the artwork and critical review that is written about it.

Banksy’s 2013 residency in New York City led his fans on “daily scavenger hunts… in which people searched for the latest work or installation following clues or images on the artist’s website. Each new discovery would then be captured in still pictures or video, posted on social media, and tagged with the location so others could flock to it and document it themselves.” (Landes) New Yorkers were given a tour of their own city with Banksy acting as tour guide in absentia through the deliberate placement of his work.

“Street art is concerned with the function of the symbolic structures and systems embedded in the material locations where it exists. This is underscored by the networked dissemination of the medium’s digital documentation.” (Okpaku) It seems exterior site specific installations are often transitory, as the outside world can be a dangerous place for the condition of artwork left out to weather the elements. Thanks to the heavy archiving of Banksy’s work by the public, there are still images online of work that no longer exists because it was destroyed or removed.

The few pieces that do survive," Keszler said via email, "represent a small but significant record of the artist's early output, and that in a world where our physical exposure to such works is restricted to staring at the myriad screens and gadgets that increasingly fill our lives, the ability to offer people the opportunity to get up close and personal to such a collection of genuine Banksy artworks in a sympathetic environment is something to be celebrated rather than criticized. To be able to walk freely around the monumental Stop + Search, exploring its bullet-scarred surfaces and tiled butcher-shop interior has been made possible only as a result of painstaking restoration (Corbett, “Galleries Defend…”) and overcoming the “challenges of removing them from their original sites. (Keszler) will pay for the cost of transporting them back to his galleries or other storage areas… when those fortunate enough to find and/or take his public works sought a place to sell them” (Landes). Sales history and provenance of these types of restoration efforts heavily impact the value that museums come up with for insurance purposes.

Condition definitely effects the value of artwork, especially after taking into account the cost of restorations and transport. Which begs the question, is it better to move the work or just leave it put? “Street art by its very nature is an act of faith in the public trust. You place the work — most often illegally — in public, and you kiss it goodbye. A photo online is usually the only residue of most of the ephemeral work” (Vartanian). The canvas appears to be out of the control of the artist almost immediately due to the sites chosen.

If the canvas is not owned by the artist, then who owns the work? Legally, the property owner owns the art object or mural placed on their real estate. “Building owners tend to become irate when their doors go missing because of a stencil….” Keszler said, “Banksy needs to either cease painting on other people’s private property or at least let the fate of those works be decided by their legal owners” (Corbett, “Keszler and Banksy”).

This means a mural artist can only copyright prints since they do not own the original artifact. However, that is where their control legally ends. “Issues of site specificity and property rights aside, for Banksy to admit authorship would be a confession to criminal activity” (Okpaku). This may be why Banksy's authorized authentication service Pest Control never seems to verify street installation work.

2010 Video documenting the Transport & Preservation Efforts

III.

When determining the value of this type art as a piece of property, we must ask if graffiti is a form of aesthetic rebellion against the idea of private property ownership itself. “Street art is willfully done on the property of others, but that is part of its power. ‘Property is theft,’ goes an old anarchist phrase.” (Vartanian)

“Graffiti is art attacking architecture, (symbolic of) the marginalized attacking the mainstream. In painting your name on a "public" space, graffiti writers symbolically take possession of that which society has made inaccessible to them (economically). Simply stated, name plus place equal possession. In re-appropriating an urban built environment engulfed by skyscrapers and privately owned spaces, graffiti is a declaration of identity and an assertion of power. In the middle of spaces that have excluded them, graffiti empowers the marginalized to inscribe signs of their own” (Giller).

This idea of the economically marginalized who live in properties they will never own, rising up to take aesthetic control over their environments is revolutionary and also illegal. “Pest Control deals only with legitimate works of art and has no involvement with any kind of illegal activity (such as graffiti)…. Pest Control is now the sole point of sale for new (print) work by Banksy” (“What is Pest Control”). This leads us to conclude that the uncommissioned exterior paintings are really more like artifacts, giving profiteers a nicer way of seeing their rush to seize the works from public eye before Banksy’s paint has even dried.

“It is no longer street art; it is a historic artifact much in the way Assyrian murals stripped of their original temples and public buildings are displayed in museums the world over. This is history, and this needs to be preserved…. They’re more akin to relics of the Berlin Wall that were salvaged for display around the world…. We often justify those thefts because they preserve the (value of the art) objects and save them from vandals, profiteers, pollution, or iconoclasts. Others have preserved Banksy’s work in other ways, like an owner of a wall Banksy ‘blessed’ in Toronto, who chose to protect it from vandals using tightly sealed Plexiglas… the vandal is now being protected from other vandals” (Vartanian).

In consideration of the design elements used to create this piece by an established mid-career artist along with the work’s substantial provenance and steps taken to preserve its condition, I judge this work to have value because auction history proves people are willing to pay for it.  However, I feel the nature of owning graffiti is flawed since it really is commodifying a revolutionary public statement as an artifact that is often hidden away in a private collection, thus silencing the artist’s voice and original intention.

  

WORKS CITED:

"Cave art hoax hits British Museum." News.BBC.co.uk. British Broadcasting Channel. May 19, 2005. Web. September 9, 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4563751.stm

Corbett, Rachel. “Galleries defend Controversial Banksy Show.” Artnet.com. Artnet Magazine.  September 1, 2011. Web. September 10, 2015. <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/corbett/keszler-gallery-on-banksy-controversy-9-1-11.asp>

Corbett, Rachel. “Keszler & Banksy: Pest Control Stymies Keszler Gallery Sales.” Artnet.com. Artnet Magazine.  October 12, 2011. Web. September 10, 2015. <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/corbett/keszler-banksy-10-12-11.asp>

Giller, Sarah. “Graffiti: Inscribing Transgression on the Urban Landscape.” Graffiti.org. Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall. 1997. Web. September 3, 2015. <http://www.graffiti.org/faq/giller.html>

Jiminez, Rafael Rafa59. "Exterminio de Palestinos, Gheto de Gaza.” January 4, 2009. Exterior Installation on a West Gaza butcher shop in Bethlehem, Palestine. “Banksy” group on Flickr.com. Photograph. September 10, 2015. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/26154230@N05/3166250580/in/dateposted/>

Landes, Jennifer. “Art Dealer Casts Himself as ‘Villain’ in New Banksy Film.” East Hampton Star Newspaper. East Hampton Star. November 12, 2014. Web. September 13, 2015. <http://easthamptonstar.com/Lead-article/3/Art-Dealer-Casts-Himself-“Villain-New-Banksy-Film>

Lazarides, Steve. “Banksy.” Lazinc.com. Lazarides Gallery. After 2009. Web. September 10, 2015. <http://www.lazinc.com/artist/banksy>

Okpaku, Temisan. “Review From Miami: Banksy Out of CONTEXT.” ArtPractical.com. Art Practical. January 17, 2013. Web. September 4, 2015. <http://www.artpractical.com/review/banksy_out_of_context/>

Schiller, Marc and Sara. “The Banksy Exhibit We Won’t be Seeing at Art Basel Miami and the Reason Why You Shouldn’t Either.” WoosterCollective.com. The Wooster Collective. December 4, 2012. Web. September 9, 2015. <http://woostercollective.com/post/the-banksy-exhibition-we-wont-be-seeing-at-art-basel-miami-and-the-reason-w>

Vartanian, Hrag. “Street Art Isn’t a Crime Until Somebody Steals It: Banksy in Miami.” Hyperallergic.com. Hyperallergic. December 14, 2012. Web. September 9, 2015. <http://hyperallergic.com/61522/street-art-isnt-a-crime-until-somebody-steals-it-banksy-in-miami/>

Vartanian, Hrag. “Banksy. Stop and Search, 2007; stencil and spraypaint on stone taken from Bethlehem, West Bank; 83 in. x 63 in.” 2012. Installation view at CONTEXT Art Fair, Keszler Gallery with Bankrobber Gallery exhibit in Miami, Florida. Hyperallergic.com. December 14, 2012. Photograph. September 9, 2015.

“What is Pest Control.” pestcontroloffice.com. No date listed. Web. September 13, 2015. <http://pestcontroloffice.com/whatispco.html>