{"id":39725,"date":"2025-11-07T15:33:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39725\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:33:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:33:41","slug":"plano-others-may-exit-dart-over-cost-service-concerns-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39725\/","title":{"rendered":"Plano, others may exit DART over cost, service concerns \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several North Texas suburbs will debate withdrawing from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency this week.<\/p>\n<p>DART says it moves more than 220,000 riders every day across more than a dozen cities, but at least four member cities\u2014Plano, Farmers Branch, Irving and Highland Park\u2014say they aren\u2019t getting their money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n<p>Each of those city councils is scheduled to discuss cutting ties with DART this week. If any councils vote to move forward, the issue would go to voters in May.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery, very sad because it is such a gateway,\u201d said Suzy Saverline, who rode the DART light rail from Richardson to Plano with her grandson on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe love that we can ride up here and go to the park or go to the farmers market or come up and get ice cream,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The meetings come just days after DART launched the Silver Line, the region\u2019s most anticipated rail expansion in decades. The new route connects Plano to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>Still, cities have raised concerns about funding equity.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.plano.gov\/2315\/Plano-Transit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"> In 2023, Plano<\/a> reported that its taxpayers contributed $109 million to DART, while only $44 million was spent on services in Plano.<\/p>\n<p>In downtown Plano, some business owners have other concerns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat don\u2019t I like about it? Well, a lot of homeless people, a lot of theft in stores and stuff like that,\u201d said Sam Shah, an employee at Liquid Courage, a shop near the light rail.<\/p>\n<p>But Shah said he still wants DART to stay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConvenience, they started the Silver Line going to DFW and a lot of people they ride the train every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ross Hunt with Hunt Research said the firm surveyed over the weekend among voters in Plano and Farmers Branch. He said the results show voters overwhelmingly oppose leaving DART.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere really aren\u2019t any groups that are in favor of pulling out of DART,\u201d Hunt said.<\/p>\n<p>Hunt did not disclose who commissioned the survey but said it was \u201cprivately funded and conducted on behalf of interested civic leaders in the region.\u201d He added that DART was not involved in the funding.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, a DART spokesperson said:<br \/>\u201cDART has taken a regional approach since it was created by North Texas voters in 1983. The region grows and prospers because of that unity. DART leadership will continue to be transparent and collaborative and operate in good faith because the residents of North Texas deserve that from us. The future of North Texas mobility depends on partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Plano\u2019s special session is scheduled for Wednesday night at Plano City Hall. It starts at 5 p.m., and as of Monday afternoon, nearly 50 people had signed up to speak.<\/p>\n<p>Meetings in Highland Park and Farmers Branch are scheduled for Tuesday. Irving\u2019s meeting is on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several North Texas suburbs will debate withdrawing from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency this week. DART says&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2261,160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-39725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-dart","9":"tag-plano","10":"tag-plano-headlines","11":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39725","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=39725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}