Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has added a new bus service in Carrollton that will provide a "last mile" option for hundreds of workers at a Carrollton business.

DART is partnering with Western Extrusions of Carrollton, to encourage commuting via public transportation. They've added a GoLink bus that will fill the last mile gap between the transit station and Western Extrusions' office in the Valwood Industrial Park.

The new service is an on-demand, personalized, curb-to-curb GoLink service, and came in response to a project called the Last Mile, initiated by Carrollton and Western Extrusions, whose facility on Sandy Lake Road is a mile from the DART light rail station in downtown Carrollton.

According to a release, service will begin in May.

Western Extrusions, which has been in business in Carrollton since 1979, does extrusion, fabrication, and finishing of aluminum, manufacturing products for clients nationally and internationally. They employ approximately 850 people.

The effort will be funded through a two-year agreement between DART and the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), with NCTCOG funding $325,000 for two years and DART monitoring performance, holding a public hearing, and evaluating a long-term service approach for the entire Valwood Industrial Park area.

Located in the northwest quadrant of I-635 and I-35E, Valwood is the third largest industrial park in the Metroplex, ranked by completed square footage. It encompasses more than 2,200 acres, and has over 26 million completed square footage with 500 buildings and 1,500 tenants.

The GoLink service will run Monday-Friday from 5:30 am-7 pm, with a dedicated on-demand vehicle and a connection directly to Downtown Carrollton Station served by DART’s Green Line light rail.

Western Extrusions will also build a transit shelter to provide covered space for employees and allow data to be collected from scanned badges for the ride share program supported by NCTCOG. The company will purchase DART transit passes for every employee using public transportation for work transportation.