The North Dallas Triangle Isn't a Loop Yet, and Here's Exactly Where It Stands

David Kleckner has the same problem every time he rides. He gets on the Preston Ridge Trail, heads south, and makes it as far as Belt Line Road. Then the pavement just stops. No connector, no crosswalk built for cyclists, nothing but traffic he'd rather not cross. So he turns around and rides four miles back the way he came.

That dead end is the whole story of the North Dallas Triangle, the trail loop Far North Dallas residents have been hearing about for years. The name suggests one finished thing. It's actually three separate trails, on three separate timelines, stitched together by a single funding decision that only came through in the summer of 2025. If you've been waiting for a ribbon cutting to tell you the loop is open, you're waiting for the wrong signal. Two of the three legs already exist. The third is under construction right now. None of it closes into a full circuit until 2027.

Here's what that actually means if you're the kind of person who runs, bikes, or walks a dog in this part of Dallas on a Saturday morning.

Three Trails, One Name

The confusion starts because "North Dallas Triangle" gets used as shorthand for a project that's really a merger of three distinct pieces of infrastructure, each built by a different agency at a different time.

Preston Ridge Trail is the oldest of the three and runs north to south. It's the trail Kleckner already rides, and it's the one most Far North Dallas residents think of when someone says "the trail."

Marni Kaner Trail is shorter, about 1.1 miles, and runs east to west along an Oncor transmission corridor. It already connects to Campbell Green Park and ties into Preston Ridge on one end. Robyn Chapman runs it regularly, turning around at Arapaho Road.

Cotton Belt Trail is the newest piece, and it's the one doing the heavy lifting. It runs alongside the DART Silver Line, the commuter rail line that began revenue service in late 2025 and early 2026 and is now actually carrying passengers between Plano, Addison, Carrollton, and DFW Airport. The trail was designed to run in the same right of way as the train, which is why its timeline has always been tied to the rail construction schedule rather than its own.

Here's where each one actually stands as of this fall.

Why 2025 Was the Year the Money Showed Up

Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn represents District 12, which covers most of this stretch of Far North Dallas. Back in the summer of 2025, she recalled being told when she first took office that funding for the Cotton Belt Trail's final Dallas segment was two decades away. The Silver Line changed that math. Because the rail project required its own right of way work, the trail could piggyback on construction that was already happening, and that same summer the Regional Transportation Council approved $7.5 million in federal funding to finish it.

That single grant did two things at once. It covered the last unfunded piece of Cotton Belt Trail in District 12, and it funded the missing extension of Marni Kaner Trail needed to actually close the loop. Mendelsohn put it simply: the trail is the silver lining of the Silver Line.

The number that matters for anyone timing a weekend ride isn't the grant total. It's the completion year attached to it. DART's project team has said the Cotton Belt segment from Addison to Plano, the stretch that includes the Far North Dallas portion, is targeted for early 2027. Mendelsohn has given the same year for the Marni Kaner extension. Two different agencies, two different construction crews, landing on the same target.

What You Can Actually Ride This Week

None of that changes what's usable right now. Preston Ridge Trail and the existing 1.1 miles of Marni Kaner Trail are open today, and that's most of the loop's western and southern legs. What's missing is the connective tissue: the Cotton Belt segment that would let you ride east from Preston Ridge without hitting Belt Line and turning back, and the Marni Kaner extension that would let that eastward stretch close into an actual circuit instead of an out-and-back.

Jesus Guerrero, who runs a lot of miles on these trails, put it about as plainly as you can.

"I ride the Preston Ridge Trail down to Belt Line but then it stops and you have to cross streets. And I really don't want to do that, so I have to ride it back north to where I started from."

That's the current experience, not a hypothetical one. If your weekend routine already includes these trails, the practical read is this: expect the same out-and-back pattern through 2026, and expect the loop itself, the version where you can ride the full four miles without backtracking, to become real sometime in 2027, once both the Cotton Belt segment and the Marni Kaner extension are finished.

The upside in the meantime is smaller but real. Design work on both remaining pieces has been able to move forward with actual funding behind it instead of waiting on a hypothetical future budget cycle, which means the parks tied to the loop, Preston Green and Campbell Green, are also slated for upgrades alongside the trail work, along with a new Davenport Trailhead that will give the loop a proper starting point once it's finished.

The Reward at the End of the Trail

If you're going to be riding or walking this stretch of Campbell Road for another year or so before the loop closes, there's a new reason to end the trip there instead of just turning around.

Meat Point has held down its spot on Campbell Road since 2014, a kosher steakhouse known for its in-house butcher and its Israeli-American menu. In June, the same family that runs it opened something new next door, and you'd walk right past it if you didn't know to look. Shi-Ya Modern Asian Cuisine has no exterior sign. You walk into Meat Point, take an immediate right, and you're in a small room with sage green club chairs and a marble bar pouring Japanese whisky and sake.

It's run by Yehuda and Lital Alali. Yehuda grew up in Tzfat and started washing dishes at fourteen before working his way up to chef and owner. The kitchen keeps strict kosher rules, which means no dairy touches the menu, so the rolls skip cream cheese entirely. What's left reads like a serious sushi list anywhere else in town: salmon and yellowtail nigiri run $14 to $16, spicy tuna maki is $15, and specialty rolls start at $16. The kitchen also stretches into full entrees, including a whole steamed white fish with lemongrass, ginger, and tamarind for $48 and a 72-hour short rib finished with honey teriyaki and cherries for $68. Shi-Ya shares Meat Point's wine cellar, an all-kosher collection that's grown past 4,000 bottles, believed to be the deepest kosher wine list in Texas. Dinner runs Sunday through Thursday starting at 5pm.

It's a small addition to one block of Campbell Road, but it's exactly the kind of thing that changes a weekend routine. A trail that dead-ends at Belt Line is still frustrating. A trail that dead-ends near a restaurant worth the trip is a different kind of dead end.

The Short Version

The North Dallas Triangle isn't a broken promise and it isn't finished either. It's a loop that's two-thirds built, with the last third funded and under construction, aiming for 2027 completion on both remaining pieces. Until then, the trails you already use are exactly as good as they've always been, and the gap that frustrates riders like Kleckner has a funded fix with a real date attached to it, not just a name on a planning map.

If you're weighing what's next for your own home in this part of Far North Dallas, whether that's a renovation to make better use of a backyard near the trail or a move that puts you closer to Campbell Road, The Bracchi Group knows this stretch of Dallas block by block. Contact us when you're ready to talk about it.