DART Agreement With Dallas Went Off The Rails But Leaders Are Working to Get Back on Board

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Cindy lives in a sober-living home in Dallas. She has a part-time job that covers her reduced rent and she does volunteer work regularly. She has a valid Texas driver’s license, but she can’t afford a car.

So she spends $48 a month — the rate for disabled and senior citizens — and takes the Dallas Area Rapid Transit System every day. 

Rain or shine, she’s swiping her pass to get from home to work and back. She’s one of 220,000 residents in 13 cities who daily use the DART bus and train system. There’s a stop near her home, and she uses the “on-call” number to take her from the Arapaho Station in Richardson to the retail store where she works.

Without DART, Cindy says, she doesn’t have a chance of getting to doctor appointments, maintaining her job, and keeping her housing.

“It’s a blessing,” Cindy told CandysDirt.com. “And the train ride is relaxing,” 

But it’s not all fun and games. 

“When it’s cold or super hot, the homeless people sleep on the train, but DART police keep watch over the trains,” she said. “There’s a lot of crime at the DART stations. Sometimes there’s people shooting dope or urinating in the elevators. They have security, but there’s a lot of crime.” 

DART officials have said that 996 arrests occurred at DART facilities in 2022, a 15.7 percent increase over the year prior. 

Nadine Lee, DART president and CEO, said during a Feb. 28 meeting of the Dallas Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that she is focused on improving security, cleanliness, and reliability for riders. DART even employs the “formerly unhoused” to work as porters and keep the trains clean seven days a week, she said.

It’s a pathway of employment that has led to some of the porters becoming full-time employees with DART’s contracted cleaning service, Lee added. 

Dallas Area Rapid Transit

As DART continues to grow and improve, a storm has been brewing between the transit system’s leadership and the City of Dallas. 

The DART board agreed in November to distribute leftover sales tax revenue to its 13 member cities, with Dallas’ piece of the pie estimated at about $111 million. 

But DART officials backpedaled late last month, saying the figure has been significantly reduced.

Lee claimed the city hadn’t provided comment on design reviews for the Silver Line nor issued construction permits during an agreed-upon time frame. On at least one occasion, city officials responded in 290 days rather than the 10-day time frame outlined in an interlocal agreement, Lee said.

The DART CEO further insinuated that the city has purposely delayed permits as a negotiation tactic — an accusation refuted by Dallas administrators. It costs about $150,000 a day, Lee speculated, while DART is waiting on the city to approve design work and construction permits.

DART already spent $36 million on project enhancements for the Silver Line commuter rail, which will extend from Plano to DFW Airport and includes about three miles of far North Dallas, according to this report in the Dallas Observer. Now they’re holding the reduced sales tax allocation hostage until the city settles up on the $36 million bill.

Dallas City Councilman Tennell Atkins questions why the city’s planned allocation from DART was significantly lowered.

City administrators already have a list of what they wanted to spend the $111 million on, including ADA-compliant ramps and sidewalks, new traffic signals along transit corridors, a pilot program that would cover fares for students, and a study on repurposing empty DART lots into mixed-use developments. 

Partnership Goes Off The Rails

There’s a whole lot of history here, and it’s playing out in real time. Both entities are accusing the other of being a bad partner, and Dallas officials say “marriage counseling” is needed to move forward.

The facts are that DART links downtown Dallas to the surrounding neighborhoods and provides a service that many residents rely upon. It appears that DART needs Dallas, and Dallas needs DART. 

As the rail line expands, roads are being rebuilt, which requires the cooperation of the city.

District 1 Councilman Chad West told CandysDirt.com that a small working group has convened including West and council members Tennell Atkins, Jaynie Schultz, and Jesse Moreno to “continue working with DART and neighboring cities on steps to resolve the [interlocal agreement] and withheld tax revenues.”

District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn, who represents the Silver Line area “where most of these issues are taking place,” asked to be part of the working group and was rejected by District 6 Councilman Omar Narvaez, who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and made the working group assignments.

Dallas officials didn’t respond positively to DART’s $36 million invoice for “betterments” at the Feb. 28 Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting. 

“It’s not fair to this council and, I think, a little disturbing,” said City Manager T.C. Broadnax. “It is something that I would never do as a person in a partnership … I would not be comfortable agreeing to an exaction for retroactivity for an unknown, unannounced, and unshared burden.”

DART held several public workshops in March seeking feedback on the expansion of the Silver Line. Results from public feedback and negotiations from the council’s working group remain to be seen. 

“I need a timeline, a deadline, because we’re losing $150,000 a day,” Atkins said. “Get in a room and get this resolved. We’re not getting $111 million. We might get $50 million. We might get zero. One thing I know is that the Silver Line is still going to get built, but the City of Dallas is going to lose money. Get in a room, clean it up, and give me a timeline.”

Assistant City Manager Robert Perez issued a March 24 memo to the Dallas City Council with a brief update on the negotiations under the heading, “Discussions of Betterments and Permit Review Delays.”

Transit-Oriented Development 

The city’s partnership with DART also comes into play when planning transit-oriented development.

Blogger, podcaster, software developer, and “amateur urbanist” Hexel Colorado gave up his Prius about a year ago and spends $96 a month on a DART monthly pass. He rides his electric commuter bike to the station on daily trips from his Old East Dallas apartment.

For Dallas residents like Hexel and Cindy, life is a lot easier when transit stops are near their homes. A rider told CandysDirt.com that a DART on-call number, which operates similarly to Uber, will take a traveler from home to the transit stop or vice versa for an extra $2.50. Gordon Shattles of DART External Relations clarified for us, however, that DART’s GoLink is actually available to customers at no additional cost with a valid DART fare.

The Dallas City Council created a Transit-Oriented Development tax-increment financing district in 2008,

Elected leaders recognize the value of transit-oriented development, where housing is intentionally built near a public transit stop. Transit-oriented development was discussed extensively when the Dallas City Council approved the Hensley Field Master Plan in December. 

A study conducted by the Economics Research Group at the University of North Texas showed the impact of transit-oriented development on the North Texas economy in job growth and economic value.

Researchers reviewed 81 development projects completed within a quarter mile of DART stations with a total property value of $5.1 billion between 2016 and 2018. 

April Towery covers Dallas City Hall and is an assistant editor for CandysDirt.com. She studied journalism at Texas A&M University and has been an award-winning reporter and editor for more than 25 years.

3 Comments

  1. Janice on March 30, 2023 at 12:28 pm

    Hmmmm . . . What does the debacle at Valley View and Dart have in common? The City of Dallas government refusing to come together and get the problems resolved!!’

  2. Bob McCranie on March 30, 2023 at 1:01 pm

    DART Rail has really grown over the years. I have friends who ride it frequently. It really changed the Downtown Carrollton area.

  3. R. S. on August 18, 2023 at 7:48 am

    I have used Dallas transit 60+ years. Now has worst of all features.
    Rolling homeless shelter.
    Sleeping, mumbling schizophrenics shouting
    Radiates being unsafe.
    Lack of security, or staff who would be overwhelmed trying to be the guard at a grocery store.
    Broken ticket kiosks. Trash and garbage all over stations.
    Otherwise, when they work, they run on time.

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