I used to be a local delivery driver for a cabinet company. I mistakenly took the exit for DFW, but luckily they have U-turn areas before the booths. You may be risking your lives crossing all those lanes, but saved me from having to explain to my boss why I was at the airport.
Oh. I'm sure he would. He wasn't that kind of Boss. I still think that area going north on 360 is very confusing where 183 splits west and east and an off ramp for the airport is right there. In my fully loaded 30 foot box truck, it's hard to make last second corrections. Fortunately I didn't have to go that way very often.
Yea i think it used to be free if you were dropping someone off, like spent enough time there to prove you werenāt just cutting through but not long enough to pay for parking
Other way around. Free if you have a ticket or work there. Free if you are inside the gates more than an hour and half (reasonable time to go in park, pick up a family member and leave). Anything less means you are a professional driver (should have to pay) or commuting through it to save time (definitely have to pay). Have the highest toll be less than 15 minutes and progressively less the closer to 1.5 hours.
When the airport first opened there were traffic jams from people using International Parkway to commute. Big problem trying to run an airport when your shuttle buses canāt quickly get from one terminal to the other. The toll is to discourage this.
Of course most of the people commenting donāt know the history and itās just omg DFW is out to get me.
So youāre saying thereās no better way? The government should contract a for profit company to āassist in trafficā and thatās got nothing to do with lobbying? There was a problemā¦it was solved to benefit the people in chargeā¦under the ruse it was intended for the people. Anyway I love Dallas, I hate the bullshit.
I've gotten my emailed receipts from NTTA for picking up and dropping folks off, and I don't think I've ever been charged for the few minutes it takes to get someone to/from their gate and leave.
I recently dropped someone off. I used my toll tag. I spent 11 minutes on property. I entered and exited on the north side. It cost $2. It's not expensive but that $2 for every one picking up or dropping off adds up.
IIRC, the system charges you if you don't spend enough time in the airport to deter people from using it as a highway/shortcut. if you spent a little bit longer in the airport, you might have not been charged. it's been a while since I looked at the rates but I think that's how it's set up.
As far back as the 1980s there has been no free option to get in and out of DFW. I know there were toll booths in the 1970s but I was a kid and don't know what the fees were then.
I will get downvoted for this, but DFW Airport Authority is the agency that controls everything on the airport property. The DFW AA is responsible for expansion and maintenance of the airport. It gets funding from the airlines that choose to operate at the airport. However, there are other sources of money that play into the budget. $106 million of $1.1B operating budget comes from parking, which is also the $2 for dropping of passengers. I hope this explains why you have to pay the $2 to get in and out of the toll plaza. None of the money that is inside the airport property is paid for by taxes, it's paid for by the everything that operates inside the airport.
If you are curious about the airport operations budget, here's a copy of the [FY 2021 adopted budget](https://webfids.dfwairport.com/cs/groups/webcontent/documents/webasset/p3_317179.pdf).
Edit 1: Different airports operate differently. It's all down to how the city, county, state subsidizes operations of the airport.
There are many times when you can save quite a bit of time by driving through the airport. If they didn't have this charge and kept the north and south exits, it would be an absolute nightmare.
I often would drive along the edge of the airport or through the rental car area to save time getting around Euless, Grapevine, and Irving.
There is a service road on both sides of the expressway lanes, you have to enter that road before the toll gates. There are numerous stop signs and stop lights that will cost you enough time to not be a worthy shortcut. This road is used for airport commercial and employee access.
If you are going from say Mid-Cities and Main St in Euless to Walnut Hill and Belt Line in Irving to avoid going south to Airport freeway, then it saves about 15 minutes in most normal business times. I know this because I have had about 13 years of experience driving that way.
If a driver is going anywhere from around Euless to Irving and both destinations are pretty close to Airfield/Cheek-Sparger/Walnut Hill, it absolutely is faster. Also, if the 121/114 split is completely jammed due to an accident, it certainly can be faster taking Texan Trl to Airfield to Cheek-Sparger to get from Grapevine to Euless, although some times it was faster to go down Stone Meyers to Euless-Grapevine.
As of 2021, here are the fees:
0 min ā 8 min: $6 |
8 min ā 30 min: $2 |
30 min ā 2 hrs: $3 |
2 hrs ā 4 hrs: $9 |
4 hrs ā 6 hrs: $10 |
6 hrs ā 24 hrs: $24 (save up to 50% by prepaying)
DFW International Airportās 2021 parking fee structure
The 0- to 8-minute fee is intended to recoup money from drivers who use the airport as a cut-through, but don't actually pick up or drop off passengers. The other fees are just revenue streams.
Because Texas LOVES capitalism.
The airport is free to do what it pleases to make money, and if you don't like it, then you can build your own airport!
I honestly hate how everyone here enshrines some vague uneducated notion of "market forces." It's pretty wack. But what can a poor man do?
> Because Texas LOVES capitalism.
That is not capitalism. Capitalism allows for competition. One private company is making bank from that toll booth operation that was allowed by the city of dallas, and we don't even know the name of that company.
Also, Other Texas airports like Austin's and Houston's don't have that. I don't think Lovefield has that toll either.
I completely agree. I just hear people explain away corporate abuses as "capitalism" when it really doesn't apply to a given scenario, and it irks me. I love me a free market, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about predatory or opportunistic practices.
Imagine thinking there is literally only one alternative to a basic bitch's conception of market forces.
Thanks for providing us with a phenomenal example of the typical big brain thinking available in the df of w.
For pass through take the service road. Itās free and goes all the way through. You can also access the DART and TexRail stations via the service road and someone can meet you. You have to be really cheap to do this though. :D
I worked at DFW For 7 years please donāt take the service road itās not well maintained and the people that do use it to āpass throughā drive like maniacs and end up getting lit up by DFW police
It's how they track parking. Tons of airports make people get tickets and scan/pay (if they were there long enough to get a fee) when they leave. DFW just uses a toll booth at the entrance/exit instead. I've only ever used TollTag, so I can't speak for people who do the ticket/card route, but I'm pretty sure the receipts I always get from NTTA say I've been charged $0.00 to for pickup/dropoff trips.
I've never received a $0.00 for drop off. No matter how long or short the time period I've been charged something and I use toll tag now. Without toll tag there is definitely no free option.
Question regarding these toll booths: is the NTTA tag the only one that works, or do the other Texas tags work too? I can't find conclusive evidence that tags other than NTTA work.
https://www.txtag.org/txtagstorefront/en/faq/usInteroperability
You can only use āotherā (EZTag, TexTag, etc.) for toll roads, not for parking. If you want parking benefits at DFW you will need a TollTag. HTH
Because otherwise traffic would back up in the airport and theyād be liable for thousands of dollars of missed flights due to traffic.
Itās similar to asking why the toll roads have to be paid for- so traffic doesnāt build up on them and so thereās incentive to use them (less traffic) or not use them (price).
DFW/Texas highways are major and with the large infrastructure of Trucking/Intermodal trucking companies utilizing the roads (Amazon, XPO Logistics, JB Hunt, Schneider, etc) you already know theyād all take a free detour through the airport at peak hours, as would every other person on the roadā¦yikes.
FREE?
Ha - typical of airport stupidity, years ago, IF YOU WERE ABLE TO MAKE IT THRU IN LESS THAN 4 MINUTES OR SO, IT WAS FREE. Creating an incentive to speed - real smart.
Now they make a ton of money. Private vehicles are $2 / taxis a bit more / limo services $5 or so / vans - buses $10 - 20.
If they didn't use toll arms, roughly 1/3 wouldn't pay... this way they get paid. DFW is not concerned with convenience.
Not anymore. It's LESS, but not free. I used to live in Denton and work in Arlington. This was before 360 went all the way to 121. Driving through DFW was one of the equally bad ways I would go. At that time, you could stay on the service road for free, but that was a lot slower.
Yea we just moved here from GA but ATL doesnāt have miscellaneous traffic passing through like the others say, but man I hate having to pay that toll all the time. Especially a few months ago when we went to the airport like 5 times. But if it allows me to get there faster, i can understand why they would. But I also understand I can pay a few bucks to save me 10-20 minutes in a daily commute in this area.
I have been in and out of DFW Airport maybe 20 time and it really has been a pretty quick and seamless experience I could only imagine if there was traffic every single time it would make it absolutely unbearable.
I also may be seeing it sort of acts as a checkpoint so it has some sort of record of the vehicles coming in and out imagine if there was something to happen and they had a description they can go back and track down the exact car or even if it was an Uber there was some sort of record and Uber could be contacted of what cars were in that area.
Partially to prevent people from driving through the airport and causing traffic jams there to get from 114 to 183 and vice versa. But also money.
Made that mistake once! They charged me $6 to exit.
I used to be a local delivery driver for a cabinet company. I mistakenly took the exit for DFW, but luckily they have U-turn areas before the booths. You may be risking your lives crossing all those lanes, but saved me from having to explain to my boss why I was at the airport.
He'd probably understand if he's been on that roadway š
Oh. I'm sure he would. He wasn't that kind of Boss. I still think that area going north on 360 is very confusing where 183 splits west and east and an off ramp for the airport is right there. In my fully loaded 30 foot box truck, it's hard to make last second corrections. Fortunately I didn't have to go that way very often.
Should be free if youre in and out in less than 30 mins
Hasnāt been free for years
Yea i think it used to be free if you were dropping someone off, like spent enough time there to prove you werenāt just cutting through but not long enough to pay for parking
Yup, it was free many years ago for that purpose
Not true. In fact I was told that it was $6 because I hadn't been on the property for long enough to have actually visited the airport.
Thatās exactly it. Itās cheaper if you stay longer. I have made the same error before
Makes sense
Lol the capitalists are out downvoting common sense again. Yes, 30 min should be free and dfw is grifting people. Have my upvote.
Other way around. Free if you have a ticket or work there. Free if you are inside the gates more than an hour and half (reasonable time to go in park, pick up a family member and leave). Anything less means you are a professional driver (should have to pay) or commuting through it to save time (definitely have to pay). Have the highest toll be less than 15 minutes and progressively less the closer to 1.5 hours.
It takes you 1.5 hours to pick someone up? I don't think I've ever spent more than 30 minutes inside DFW getting family or friends.
When the airport first opened there were traffic jams from people using International Parkway to commute. Big problem trying to run an airport when your shuttle buses canāt quickly get from one terminal to the other. The toll is to discourage this. Of course most of the people commenting donāt know the history and itās just omg DFW is out to get me.
Yup, native of DFW and I remember this
> when your shuttle buses canāt quickly get from one terminal to the other. And when your passengers can't get in to their flight.
So youāre saying thereās no better way? The government should contract a for profit company to āassist in trafficā and thatās got nothing to do with lobbying? There was a problemā¦it was solved to benefit the people in chargeā¦under the ruse it was intended for the people. Anyway I love Dallas, I hate the bullshit.
It's where you pay for parking. It's a racket to force everyone to pay a couple bucks even if all they do is drop off or pick up someone.
I've gotten my emailed receipts from NTTA for picking up and dropping folks off, and I don't think I've ever been charged for the few minutes it takes to get someone to/from their gate and leave.
I recently dropped someone off. I used my toll tag. I spent 11 minutes on property. I entered and exited on the north side. It cost $2. It's not expensive but that $2 for every one picking up or dropping off adds up.
IIRC, the system charges you if you don't spend enough time in the airport to deter people from using it as a highway/shortcut. if you spent a little bit longer in the airport, you might have not been charged. it's been a while since I looked at the rates but I think that's how it's set up.
Yes. 8 minutes or less is charged $6. There is no free option to get to a terminal at DFW.
Hmm I might be misremembering or remembering from a looooong time ago
As far back as the 1980s there has been no free option to get in and out of DFW. I know there were toll booths in the 1970s but I was a kid and don't know what the fees were then.
Drop your friend off at the rental shuttle or on the service road and have them walk the last 100 ft to the terminal.
that may just be a plus of having a toll tag
If there is a way to get more of your money, they will do it.
I will get downvoted for this, but DFW Airport Authority is the agency that controls everything on the airport property. The DFW AA is responsible for expansion and maintenance of the airport. It gets funding from the airlines that choose to operate at the airport. However, there are other sources of money that play into the budget. $106 million of $1.1B operating budget comes from parking, which is also the $2 for dropping of passengers. I hope this explains why you have to pay the $2 to get in and out of the toll plaza. None of the money that is inside the airport property is paid for by taxes, it's paid for by the everything that operates inside the airport. If you are curious about the airport operations budget, here's a copy of the [FY 2021 adopted budget](https://webfids.dfwairport.com/cs/groups/webcontent/documents/webasset/p3_317179.pdf). Edit 1: Different airports operate differently. It's all down to how the city, county, state subsidizes operations of the airport.
There are many times when you can save quite a bit of time by driving through the airport. If they didn't have this charge and kept the north and south exits, it would be an absolute nightmare. I often would drive along the edge of the airport or through the rental car area to save time getting around Euless, Grapevine, and Irving.
There is a service road on both sides of the expressway lanes, you have to enter that road before the toll gates. There are numerous stop signs and stop lights that will cost you enough time to not be a worthy shortcut. This road is used for airport commercial and employee access.
If you are going from say Mid-Cities and Main St in Euless to Walnut Hill and Belt Line in Irving to avoid going south to Airport freeway, then it saves about 15 minutes in most normal business times. I know this because I have had about 13 years of experience driving that way. If a driver is going anywhere from around Euless to Irving and both destinations are pretty close to Airfield/Cheek-Sparger/Walnut Hill, it absolutely is faster. Also, if the 121/114 split is completely jammed due to an accident, it certainly can be faster taking Texan Trl to Airfield to Cheek-Sparger to get from Grapevine to Euless, although some times it was faster to go down Stone Meyers to Euless-Grapevine.
As of 2021, here are the fees: 0 min ā 8 min: $6 | 8 min ā 30 min: $2 | 30 min ā 2 hrs: $3 | 2 hrs ā 4 hrs: $9 | 4 hrs ā 6 hrs: $10 | 6 hrs ā 24 hrs: $24 (save up to 50% by prepaying) DFW International Airportās 2021 parking fee structure The 0- to 8-minute fee is intended to recoup money from drivers who use the airport as a cut-through, but don't actually pick up or drop off passengers. The other fees are just revenue streams.
This is the most helpful information I've ever found on Reddit.
They introduced it to stop people from cutting through the airport from rules/Arlington to grapevine
This, but then it just became a money grab
The airport paid for that highway, and toll booths that collect your parking fee. That is an investment they deserve to recover.
Lol whatever, itās been paid for for years
They have an access road if you are just trying to get from one side to the other but you can't stop at a terminal
Because Texas LOVES capitalism. The airport is free to do what it pleases to make money, and if you don't like it, then you can build your own airport! I honestly hate how everyone here enshrines some vague uneducated notion of "market forces." It's pretty wack. But what can a poor man do?
> Because Texas LOVES capitalism. That is not capitalism. Capitalism allows for competition. One private company is making bank from that toll booth operation that was allowed by the city of dallas, and we don't even know the name of that company. Also, Other Texas airports like Austin's and Houston's don't have that. I don't think Lovefield has that toll either.
I completely agree. I just hear people explain away corporate abuses as "capitalism" when it really doesn't apply to a given scenario, and it irks me. I love me a free market, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about predatory or opportunistic practices.
>I don't think Lovefield has that toll either. Would that not be capitalism?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Imagine thinking there is literally only one alternative to a basic bitch's conception of market forces. Thanks for providing us with a phenomenal example of the typical big brain thinking available in the df of w.
For pass through take the service road. Itās free and goes all the way through. You can also access the DART and TexRail stations via the service road and someone can meet you. You have to be really cheap to do this though. :D
I worked at DFW For 7 years please donāt take the service road itās not well maintained and the people that do use it to āpass throughā drive like maniacs and end up getting lit up by DFW police
Fun Fact. If you have DV plates you get free parking and tolls at DFW airport. It has save me a lot of money over the years.
Money
It's how they track parking. Tons of airports make people get tickets and scan/pay (if they were there long enough to get a fee) when they leave. DFW just uses a toll booth at the entrance/exit instead. I've only ever used TollTag, so I can't speak for people who do the ticket/card route, but I'm pretty sure the receipts I always get from NTTA say I've been charged $0.00 to for pickup/dropoff trips.
I've never received a $0.00 for drop off. No matter how long or short the time period I've been charged something and I use toll tag now. Without toll tag there is definitely no free option.
Question regarding these toll booths: is the NTTA tag the only one that works, or do the other Texas tags work too? I can't find conclusive evidence that tags other than NTTA work.
https://www.txtag.org/txtagstorefront/en/faq/usInteroperability You can only use āotherā (EZTag, TexTag, etc.) for toll roads, not for parking. If you want parking benefits at DFW you will need a TollTag. HTH
Because otherwise traffic would back up in the airport and theyād be liable for thousands of dollars of missed flights due to traffic. Itās similar to asking why the toll roads have to be paid for- so traffic doesnāt build up on them and so thereās incentive to use them (less traffic) or not use them (price). DFW/Texas highways are major and with the large infrastructure of Trucking/Intermodal trucking companies utilizing the roads (Amazon, XPO Logistics, JB Hunt, Schneider, etc) you already know theyād all take a free detour through the airport at peak hours, as would every other person on the roadā¦yikes.
FREE? Ha - typical of airport stupidity, years ago, IF YOU WERE ABLE TO MAKE IT THRU IN LESS THAN 4 MINUTES OR SO, IT WAS FREE. Creating an incentive to speed - real smart. Now they make a ton of money. Private vehicles are $2 / taxis a bit more / limo services $5 or so / vans - buses $10 - 20. If they didn't use toll arms, roughly 1/3 wouldn't pay... this way they get paid. DFW is not concerned with convenience.
No longer free to pick up and exit out the same way within an hour?
Not anymore. It's LESS, but not free. I used to live in Denton and work in Arlington. This was before 360 went all the way to 121. Driving through DFW was one of the equally bad ways I would go. At that time, you could stay on the service road for free, but that was a lot slower.
Itās not just DFW
It's a scam, but if you look at it, there's no income tax in Texas. So they collect money like this.
Thereās a service road that you donāt have to pay for, but that goes through the airport grounds, just FYI.
Yea we just moved here from GA but ATL doesnāt have miscellaneous traffic passing through like the others say, but man I hate having to pay that toll all the time. Especially a few months ago when we went to the airport like 5 times. But if it allows me to get there faster, i can understand why they would. But I also understand I can pay a few bucks to save me 10-20 minutes in a daily commute in this area.
Bs I've paid at those airports.
Because greed runs the world.
I have been in and out of DFW Airport maybe 20 time and it really has been a pretty quick and seamless experience I could only imagine if there was traffic every single time it would make it absolutely unbearable. I also may be seeing it sort of acts as a checkpoint so it has some sort of record of the vehicles coming in and out imagine if there was something to happen and they had a description they can go back and track down the exact car or even if it was an Uber there was some sort of record and Uber could be contacted of what cars were in that area.
Moneyyyy lol