Regional leaders have agreed to help fund Dallas Area Rapid Transit in an effort to save the agency from withdrawal elections that could fracture public transit in North Texas.
During a Thursday meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, leaders from various cities, counties and transit agencies approved $180 million in funding to transportation projects.
“I think it was a really great day for the region,” regional transportation director Michael Morris told KERA after the meeting. “I'm very pleased with the leadership everyone exercised today.”
The vote means that DART now has backing from the regional body on a new funding model that will give money back to cities in the hopes that they will call off elections to withdraw from the public transit system.
Plano Mayor John Muns, who sits on the council, said the vote is a pathway to keep public transit running in his city. The return of sales tax contributions was the same request the city made last year through failed legislative efforts. Plano is one of six cities set to hold withdrawal elections in May.
“We're very happy that we've come and been able to negotiate with DART on a deal that hopefully helps us through the next five or six years be able to make sure we're operating the transit authority in Plano in a way that really provides a benefit to our citizens,” Muns said.
DART CEO Nadine Lee said funding will still be an issue because much of the agency's revenue will now be going back to cities. The agency has already had to make service cuts in recent months.
“Obviously it's money that's coming out of DART's funds, and so DART is going to have to scramble to figure out how we make that revenue available,” Lee said.
In coordination with DART, the regional plan will provide $75 million to the agency to help pay for transit projects. It will also begin the process of creating a new rail authority that could create a seamless connection between commuter lines including DART’s Silver Line, Denton County Transit Authority’s A-Train and Trinity Metro’s Trinity Railway Express and TEXRail.
That could mean creating a regional “rail freeway system” similar to TXDoT’s Transportation Commission for highways, Morris said. The RTC would collaborate with planning and funding the North Texas rail authority.
“I think there's lots of levers, the regional transportation subcommittee that's working on a vision could go,” Morris said. “If in fact Plano and Irving do withdraw their request for an election, then I think you'll see the RTC speed up that conversation in the spring.”
Prior to the RTC vote, leaders from non-DART member areas wanted to make sure the plan was equitable to residents outside of Dallas to include transit in Tarrant and Denton counties.
“Let’s say next year, North Richland Hills or Grapevine or the City of Fort Worth no longer are satisfied with the level of service that we receive from Trinity Metro,” Fort Worth City Council member Elizabeth Beck asked. “Are we going to get a guarantee that we also are going to get a subsidy to our taxpayers that they are going to get bailed out by the RTC so that we can continue regionalism?”
An amended motion added another $105 million to also help fund transit projects for Trinity Metro and DCTA. The measure passed 31 to 2.
Plano Mayor John Muns said his city still needs to review an interlocal agreement from DART before he calls off the May withdrawal election, but he’s optimistic.
“I'm very happy that we can kind of close the book on this and go on down the road. We still wanna talk about ridership and service needs and things like that,” he said. “In regards to the funding and the governance issue, those are big issues that hopefully we have behind us.”
Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’sgrowth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at parauzpena@kera.org.
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