Plenty of North Texans live inside the DART service area but a solid mile and a half from the nearest useful bus stop, which in a July parking lot might as well be Amarillo. If that describes your street, there is a DART service you may be paying for and not using: GoLink, the agency’s on-demand ride program, where a small van or even an Uber shows up at your curb for the price of a regular transit fare.
GoLink is not a secret, but it is chronically under-explained. Here is how the zones work, how to book, what it costs, and the fine print that trips up first-timers.
What GoLink actually is
Think of it as a shared ride-hail that only works inside a drawn boundary. DART’s GoLink page describes it as curb-to-curb, on-demand service within a designated zone: you request a ride, a vehicle comes to you, and it takes you anywhere inside that same zone. Every zone includes a rail station or transit center, so the classic use is the “first and last mile”: GoLink from your house to the station, train the rest of the way.
In most zones the service runs 5 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. The exception is the Inland Port Connect zone in southern Dallas County, which runs 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays.
Where the zones are
DART lists more than 30 zones covering big patches of the service area that fixed bus routes serve thinly. On the north side they include Far North Plano, Legacy West, East Plano, North Dallas, Preston Hollow, University Park, Farmers Branch and Northwest Carrollton. To the east: Lake Highlands, Rowlett and Southeast Garland. To the south: South Dallas, Glenn Heights, Kleberg, Rylie and the Inland Port. To the west: West Dallas, Mountain Creek, South Irving and North Central Irving, among others.
Each zone’s page on DART’s site shows its exact boundary and key destinations. The simplest way to find out whether GoLink works for a specific trip is to punch it into DART’s trip planner; if your ride qualifies, GoLink appears as an option.
How to book a ride
There are exactly two doors in. The first is the GoPass app, DART’s fare-and-planning app: tap Plan, enter your pickup point and destination, and if GoLink covers the trip you can book it right there and watch the vehicle approach on the map.
The second is a phone call to 214-515-7272, where a booking agent does the same thing for riders who do not use smartphones. Reservations are taken from 4 a.m. to midnight daily, and only same-day trips are accepted; there is no booking tomorrow’s ride tonight. Inland Port Connect customers use a separate line, 877-631-5278.
Either way, no walk-ups: every trip requires a booking before you board. A few more house rules from DART: children 12 and under ride with an adult who has a valid fare, riders needing an ADA-accessible vehicle should say so when booking, and if you need to cancel, do it before the vehicle arrives, in the app or by phone.
What it costs, and how to pay
Here is the pleasant surprise: a GoLink ride is covered by an ordinary DART fare. If you already hold a valid pass in the GoPass app or on a GoPass Tap card, the ride costs nothing extra, and your GoLink trip and train trip travel on the same fare. Current fare types and prices are on DART’s fares page, including the reduced fares for seniors 65 and older, Medicare cardholders, students and riders with disabilities.
The catch for cash users: GoLink is contactless only. Drivers do not take money, and neither do phone agents; pay in the app, with a linked credit or debit card, or with a GoPass Tap card, which sells at retailers around the region for those who prefer to load cash onto a card. Each rider needs their own card.
The Uber and Lyft wrinkle
To shorten waits, DART supplements its own GoLink vans with Uber and Lyft vehicles. If you opt in, once in the app or by text through a booking agent, DART automatically sends whichever vehicle can reach you fastest, van or ride-hail, at no extra cost beyond your fare. Riders must be 18 or older to be matched with an Uber or Lyft, and you need at least a text-capable phone to use that fleet. If you never opt in, GoLink still works; you will simply wait for a DART van, which can take longer at busy times.
Whether it beats driving
For a solo trip across town, probably not. GoLink shines in three situations: households with one car and two schedules, teens and older relatives who do not drive, and the daily station run where parking or a long walk is the obstacle. At regular-fare pricing with reduced fares for seniors, it is dramatically cheaper than ride-hail for the same short hop. If a zone covers your neighborhood, it costs one same-day booking to find out how well it works. That is a cheap experiment for what might become the household’s second car.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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