In our initial end-to-end beam dynamics simulations of the ESS DTL we see a significant emittance increase just following the transition from the Drift Tube Linac (DTL) to the Spoked Resonator Cavity section (Spokes) of the linac. We believe that this is the result of a discontinuity in relative longitudinal restoring forces in the two structures characterized by the real-estate phase advance, k_0l. In the baseline design the transition energy occurs at 50 MeV following the third tank of the DTL. In this study we have investigated two options for reducing the discontinuity in k_0l and we have evaluated the potential cost and benefits of increasing the transition energy.