DART officials warn of severe service cuts if bill passes
DART is warning North Texans of a rough ride if a bill becomes law that would slash funding for the regional transportation authority. HB 3187 would return 25% of sales tax revenue now earmarked for DART to member cities. The measure has already been voted out of the Transportation Committee and is now awaiting a full House vote.
"If we lose 25% of our revenue... that's cuts across the board," said Jeamy Molina, DART chief communications officer.
DART is funded with a one-cent share of sales tax revenue from member cities. But DART leaders are warning that those pennies have power.
"A reduction of that size is a little over $400 million," said Molina. "For some context, that's the entire budget for our bus, our light rail—our entire system. 125,000 customers will lose access from the very beginning and that's really devastating for our region."
Impact on local businesses
Lance Mazey manages the Fillmore Pub in Plano. He says public transportation moves people and money.
"Yeah. We're right off of the tracks here. People can ride from Dallas. They can ride from one stop up at City Line," explained Mazey. "The less people that have public transportation available to them, the less they're inclined to come out to a neighborhood they've never been to, that's off the beaten path. Well, and, that would incredibly negatively affect our sales."
Ironically, Plano is one of the member cities concerned that their investment in DART is not paying off.
Legislative perspective
The North Texas lawmaker who penned HB 3187, Rep. Matt Shaheen, says suburban member cities are paying more into DART as economic growth pushes sales tax revenue higher, but they aren't seeing more services. He believes they deserve a better deal.
"It's called the DART Reform Act," explained Shaheen. "What it does is, it allows these cities that are overpaying to receive 25% back in the payments that they make into DART, and then they can take those dollars and apply them to local mobility, transportation projects."
Shaheen adds that he believes DART's warnings about the impact of the cuts are exaggerated.
"And look, if DART would just sit down and treat these cities like customers, I wouldn't be put into a situation where I would even have to file the legislation. But DART is refusing to work with their member cities."
DART's response
DART denies those claims and insists that they are being responsive to the needs of member cities but say they won't be able to provide more services with fewer dollars.
"We have the mechanisms in place to do some of the things that they're already asking for in this bill, here at home," countered Molina. "And we want to make sure we solve this issue locally, and not down in Austin."