DMN: Keep DART strong

Rail improves quality of life

Steve Hawley, Apr 08, 10.

Despite a deteriorating financial situation, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) communities must stand fast to support the rail network, according to the Dallas Morning News editorial board.

The editorial states:

Today’s rail service and planned expansions represent the promise for coaxing large numbers of North Texans out of their cars for their daily commutes. Rush-hour traffic congestion, if not beaten back, will erode the region’s quality of life and business climate. Our metro area can’t afford to look and feel like Southern California, and a robust, dependable rail network is a hedge against that outcome. Consider it a priority.

The board says that while bus service is important, it lacks the permanence of rail. Unlike bus service, rail helps attract new development and limit sprawl. DART should continue planning for more rail lines, it states, even if it does not yet have the money for new construction.

DART has been suffering from disappointing sales tax revenues - which fund almost the entire agency - over the last decade. It will have to cut its costs, the editorial says, preferably by trimming jobs and salaries and by shifting management of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to another agency:

DART should get out of the business of moving cars on HOV lanes and concentrate on moving people aboard trains and buses, especially as the HOV system expands beyond DART’s 13 member cities.

DART is planning to build a new rail line out to Denton, and Denton is preparing for transit-oriented development around the station. Rail service is scheduled to begin in May 2011.

Most transit agencies nationwide, which rely heavily on sales tax revenues, are struggling financially as a result of the recent recession. Houston’s METRO is one of the few exceptions.