Dallas officials are divided over whether to maintain taxpayer spending on Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
On Monday, the City’s Transportation & Infrastructure Committee voted to recommend to the full Dallas City Council that DART be fully funded.
However, the Government Performance & Financial Management Committee is working to restructure Dallas’ end of DART’s funding.
“We can testify on transportation,” said Council Member Tennell Atkins (District 8), a member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. “The other committee wants to testify about funding or a revenue source, then they should be something different. I don’t think we should have one or the other. I think it should be both.”
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12), who serves on the Government Performance & Financial Management Committee, thinks Dallas taxpayers are spending too much on DART. She is among a group of metro area officials who want to reduce their jurisdictions’ one-cent sales-tax contribution to DART by 25%, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Leaders from 13 North Texas cities, including Plano, Farmers Branch, Carrollton, and Irving have all expressed support for reducing their contributions to DART by 25%.
Council Member Omar Narvaez (District 6), who serves as the chair of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, said that while it is not common for two opposing recommendations to be sent to the full council, it is not impossible.
“We had dual recommendations, one from one body, one from the other. But as a whole, that’s the only vote that matters,” Narvaez said at Monday’s meeting.
Many have called for the City to protect DART, including the Regional Transportation Council (RTC).
During an RTC meeting on September 12, regional transportation director Michael Morris advised cities not to restructure DART’s funding until the North Central Texas Council of Governments completes the Transit 2.0 study which forecasts DART’s revenue and costs over the next three decades.
“Being in the middle of Transit 2.0 and dealing with the controversies within the DART board, some percentage of that anger — anger is the right English word — is DART cities losing employers to non-transit authority cities,” Morris said at the meeting, per KERA News.
Both Plano Mayor John Muns and Mendelson spoke out against Morris.
“I don’t really think that if you are in Fort Worth, God bless you, you don’t get to decide what we as a member city are going to do about DART,” Mendelson said, per KERA. “It’s just not your role.”
Some community members have sided with Morris. In July, a group called the Dallas Area Transit Alliance created a petition to protect public transit and oppose DART funding cuts. As of September 17, the petition had 1,751 signatures.
“There is significant room for improvement on public transit in Dallas. Yet, rather than do their part to fix and enhance the system, city leaders propose a 25% cut to DART’s funding,” reads the petition. “Hate waiting for your train? Imagine the wait doubling. Frustrated by late buses? Imagine more delays. Wish for cleaner rides? Imagine them dirtier. Concerned about safety? Imagine fewer officers.”