{"id":39858,"date":"2025-11-07T17:46:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39858\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:46:37","slug":"irving-joins-other-suburbs-to-hold-elections-for-a-potential-exit-from-dart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/39858\/","title":{"rendered":"Irving joins other suburbs to hold elections for a potential exit from DART"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irving became the fourth city this week to put its relationship<\/a> with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit up for a vote. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, the City Council voted 9-0 to authorize an election next year where voters will decide whether the city should stay or leave the transit system. It\u2019s the third time the city has held a referendum of this kind, with voters siding with DART in 1989 and 1996.<\/p>\n

Highland Park, Farmers Branch <\/a>and Plano<\/a> approved similar elections earlier this week. Each argued that their one cent sales tax contributions far exceed the services they receive in return and cited a 2024 report by the firm EY to make their case. The suburban cities have also questioned the transit agency\u2019s governance model, which gives the city of Dallas more representation on its board as it\u2019s determined by population. <\/p>\n

In Irving, dozens of speakers who depended upon public transit to travel to different parts of the Metroplex \u2014 from the airport to Irving to downtown Dallas \u2014 urged the City Council to stick with the agency. They shared personal stories of relying on the system to attend classes, go to work or enjoy the amenities near the Irving Convention Center and in the city\u2019s entertainment district. <\/p>\n

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Some expressed support for an election as they felt DART buses and rail lines did not have the type of ridership that justified the kind of investment Irving makes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been treated wrongly. We have not been treated the same,\u201d said Mayor Rick Stopfer, adding that Irving gets no credit for making adjustments and purchasing infrastructure at its expense while other cities such as Dallas appeared to have gotten their way. Stopfer, a member of the DART board, said he often found himself in the minority when it came to steering the agency\u2019s decisions. <\/p>\n

DART Board Chair Randall Bryant and CEO Nadine Lee arrived once again to implore the council to continue negotiations with the transit agency instead of going to the ballot box. Lee said Irving enjoyed higher ridership routes and billions of dollars in economic impacts from transit-oriented investments. <\/p>\n

Bryant cited an email he had sent member cities urging them to delay their votes by 30 days to reach a compromise. However, after seeing back-to-back actions by cities, Bryant said he knew where things were headed in Irving.<\/p>\n

\u201cContrary, though, to the other three cities, I\u2019m intrigued to hear the city of Irving\u2019s rationale for withdrawal election, given the two complaints I\u2019ve heard are governance and funding,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

Unlike the other three cities, Irving gets more than it invests. The city puts in $102 million and gets $123 million in return. But city officials say giving up the one cent sales tax has impacted the city\u2019s ability to use money for attracting corporations and sports teams to spur economic development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious to me that the whole concept was ill-conceived,\u201d said deputy mayor pro tem Mark Cronenwett about the arrangement where 13 cities pay into the system and others don\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously created this disparity where cities like Arlington or Frisco use that 1% for economic development, creating sports venues in particular, where you would think there\u2019ll be a great interest in having mass transit to them, but there isn\u2019t, because they\u2019re not in DART,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Several council members said they were not opposed to mass transit and expressed support for a micro-transit network like \u201cVia,\u201d deployed by the city of Arlington to cover the costs of the city\u2019s needs. Some speakers, such as Alex Flores, questioned the efficacy of that system, citing their experiences of finding that option less reliable than DART. <\/p>\n

If they prevail in the elections, cities would still be obligated to pay off debt associated with cities\u2019 contributions for a period of time. <\/p>\n

Gary Slagel, the former DART board chair from Richardson, also asked the City Council to reconsider their decision. <\/p>\n

He highlighted work underway at the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Regional Transportation Council, a multi-city transit collaborative, were putting together a plan that would introduce mass transit in various municipalities in the Metroplex and may result in cities that are part of DART to recoup some of the money they\u2019ve spent. North Texas leaders are working to prepare for the arrival of millions of new residents in one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irving became the fourth city this week to put its relationship with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,2261,1266,287,840],"class_list":{"0":"post-39858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-dart","12":"tag-irving","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39858","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=39858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}