Two North Texas cities are set to hold elections next year to possibly withdraw from Dallas Area Rapid Transit, as more cities consider doing the same.
Highland Park’s town council and the Farmers Branch City Council each voted Tuesday to set elections where residents will vote on whether or not to leave DART.
Their potential withdrawals could pose an existential threat to the 42-year-old transit agency, which in the past year has faced calls from several cities to cut its funding.
Farmers Branch City Council members heard an hour of pushback from residents before voting 3-2 to call an election May 2.
Aniya Robertson, a Carrollton resident who uses DART to go to school at Brookhaven College in Farmers Branch, said there would be serious consequences for her if the agency left the city.
“My mom's a single mom. She's not able to drop me off all the time,” Robertson said. “I can't afford a car, and honestly, if it was just dropped, I wouldn't finish college. And I think it would really brutally mess up my college experience.”
Farmers Branch Mayor Terry Lynne said the city has been paying 1% of its sales tax to DART since the agency’s inception in 1983 and would like to see that rate lowered. A 2024 study commissioned by DART found the city paid $24 million into the system but received roughly $20 million in services. The city was one of several that passed symbolic resolutions last year in favor of cutting their contribution to DART.
“There has to be financial equity,” Lynne said. “The 1983 model just doesn't work today.”
But, Lynne said he’s confident the issues with DART’s leadership and safety raised by some other council members could be resolved.
“The financial aspect – that's the tough part,” he said. “That is really the sticking point.”
Lynne also said he hopes calling the election “speeds up the clock” on negotiations between the city and DART.
“Without it, how many more meetings am I going to sit in month after month, year after year?” he said.
Highland Park officials had similar financial concerns with DART, saying they have paid more into the system than they get out, creating an inequitable model.
“DART is structured as a regional system, but its funding model relies almost entirely on a handful of member cities,” Mayor Will Beecherl said in a press release after the council’s vote Tuesday morning. “A truly regional transportation approach must be funded regionally, not disproportionately by a small number of municipalities.”
The town will hold a special election on May 2.
Despite paying more than $8 million annually to DART in recent years, the town only receives $1.9 million in service, which is primarily a single bus route along Preston Road, according to the press release.
DART has said the departure of any of its 13 member cities would have a negative impact on its entire system. Plano City Council is set to discuss setting a withdrawal election at its meeting Wednesday night; Irving City Council meets to do the same on Thursday.
DART held a press conference last week where officials criticized the withdrawal talks and defended the agency’s efforts to address member city concerns.
“I understand that a lot of people want sort of a dollar in and dollar out," said DART CEO Nadine Lee. "But that's just not the way things work."
DART was founded in 1983 and is made up of member cities who fund the agency with a 1% sales tax.
The flurry of potential pullouts is reminiscent of DART’s earlier days. Carrollton and Farmers Branch held elections to pull out of DART in 1985, but both failed. In 1989, Flower Mound and Coppell successfully voted to pull out, but six other cities, including Farmers Branch again, voted to stay in. Similar votes would happen again in 1996 with residents of four cities voting to “stay” by a healthy margin.
Dallas Area Transit Alliance, an advocacy organization for DART, sent a letter to the cities considering pullout elections, saying while they agree with many of their complaints, leaving DART isn’t the solution.
“Removing DART from your city does not remove the need for transit, and to leave a regional system would mean the problems and complexities of providing that transit would be shouldered,” the letter said. “Not by a consortium of cities working together, but by your city alone.”
Highland Park has 45 days to rescind the election.
Farmers Branch City Council member Elizabeth Villafranca said just because the council approved the ordinance calling the election, it doesn’t mean the election will take place.
“I believe that we have until March the 17th to pull out of the election,” Villafranca said. “And I am looking forward to the mayor and city manager working with DART to ensure that our residents are taken care of, and that we do the right thing.”
Dylan Duke is KERA's Fall news intern. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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