\u00a0Plano and Farmers Branch are also set to consider similar special elections<\/a> on DART membership.<\/p>\n\u201cHighland Park taxpayers have invested in the regional system for more than 40 years,\u201d Highland Park Mayor Will Beecherl said in a statement on the vote. \u201cThis election ensures that our residents \u2014 who fund this contribution \u2014 have a say in whether the return on that investment meets the needs of our community today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each of DART’s 13 member cities \u2014 Addison, Carrollton, Cockrell Hill, Dallas, Farmers Branch, Garland, Glenn Heights, Highland Park, Irving, Plano, Richardson, Rowlett and University Park \u2014 contributes a penny of sales tax to the transit agency. However, some member cities, like Plano and Highland Park, have argued that the amount they contribute to DART has dwarfed the value of the services they receive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some riders, though, say cities could be shortsighted if they pull out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very sad about the things that I would lose, because it would be disconnected from my lifestyle,\u201d said Hexel Colorado, with the Dallas Area Transit Alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the suburbs are being shortsighted because they\u2019re really focused on the money,\u201d Colorado said.<\/p>\n
Colorado says growth in North Texas will only increase the need for regional transit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho does this serve? Who does it benefit by not having a regional transportation system?\u201d Colorado said.<\/p>\n
But he fears, with more key decisions ahead this week, DART\u2019s unraveling could be gaining speed.<\/p>\n
Highland Park officials said in a statement that the town has contributed more than $107 million to DART since becoming a member of the transit agency in 1983.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Despite these substantial contributions, the Town receives minimal direct transit service, with no light rail operations within its boundaries and only a single bus route along Preston Road,” town officials said in a press release. “An independent analysis found that in 2023, Highland Park contributed approximately $6.3 million to DART, while DART spent only $1.9 million within the Town, primarily to operate the Preston Road bus route, which averages about 60 riders per day.”<\/p>\n
In a press conference after Plano, Highland Park and Farmers Branch announced their intent to consider special elections on DART membership, DART CEO Nadine Lee called the announcements “heartbreaking” and said losing member cities would “severely impact” DART’s ability to serve riders during the World Cup next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s really devastating and frustrating to understand that they would do this not only on the heels of a wonderful and successful opening of the Silver Line last week,<\/a> but on the eve of the World Cup,” Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\nSome member cities considering withdrawing from DART comes after DART proposed a “general mobility program” to reimburse cities up to 5% of the sales tax money, but later attached strings to any deal that would have, among other restrictions, limited cities from lobbying against DART in Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The decisions on whether to put withdrawals on the ballot in May will affect DART riders beyond the member cities, DART officials said. Losing the roughly $110 million Plano alone contributes to the system will likely cause service impacts across the remaining cities, too, Lee previously said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highland Park will vote in 2026 on whether to leave DART, a move that could spark a wave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-36389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}