The vote is off for Plano and I think Farmers Branch as well. No surprise to me this happened. Plano has done nothing on it’s own to remediate the main issue it is complaining about so it had a weak argument to begin with. Just added AT&T to the Legacy Business Park with no real plan for transit there, their best opportunity for a bus transit depot in Legacy was to work out a deal with AT&T for a smidgen of the former EDS campus (they are tearing down the EDS buildings now, got a few last glimpses…still had Ross Perot’s giant bronze Eagle…too heavy to pilfer)…but…nope, nothing doing still no plans for a transit park for Legacy. Of course Dallas compromised as well. So hard to tell who blinked first. Nobody wanted to see DART rail end service to Plano.
How much is the proposed move of the Dallas Stars to Plano affecting this decision? When we go to Stars games, we park north of AA Arena and ride DART to the game. Free parking and no traffic.
I don’t think that had much to do with it myself but I am also not on the city council. Seems to me there was fairly significant public pressure on the city council to keep DART rail service going. At one point they took great pains to say this was not about DART rail service but only about DART bus service. DART responded it was a package deal and they would not get one without the other.
Then about 6-8 weeks later I get in my FB feed about how Dallas will give up DART council seats which was a key demand of the suburbs and that DART will listen to the suburban voice more. To me that appeared to be frosting on the cake so to speak and then Plano announced it would withdraw the ballot. Also, I think the state might be about to flip Blue in one significant race (within Collin County)…which also erodes Plano’s arguing position in my view…that is an early call on my part I have no clue but local county and region politics impacts these positions as well.
It seems like the short sightedness typical of those regions where the political donor class would never dream of using public transport.
According to DART figures, less than 2 to 3 percent of the residents in the communities served by it ride public transit on a regular basis. In Plano, which is one of the more affluent communities served by DART, the percentage is probably lower.
I commuted from my North Dallas home to downtown for more than 30 years. I was the only person in my neighborhood that rode transit on a regular basis. Most of the people that rode the #36 bus, which was the route that served my neighborhood, were low income workers that worked in the neighborhood or in nearby retail businesses.
For the 10 years ended 2024, DART ridership declined 21.8%. It fell to an even lower point during the pandemic, but it has rebounded somewhat since then
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If those who use public transit in a community are lower paid workers, does that mean transit shouldn’t be available to them?
[quote=“charlie_hebdo2, post:6, topic:420704, full:true”]
If those who use public transit in a community are lower paid workers, does that mean transit shouldn’t be available to them? [/quote]
No! Public transport is essential for people who cannot drive, i.e. cannot afford a car, are disabled, etc. Or like me, just did not want to drive to work.
Residents of University Park and Highland Park, two super affluent communities surrounded by Dallas, voted for the DART Referendum. Most of them did not back public transit for themselves. They supported it so their maids and gardeners could get to their communities and back home.
I worked on the DART Referendum. My corporate employer supported it, and I was assigned to help get it across the line. My role was to attend Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, etc. meetings and discuss the advantages of public transit. I met many of the makers and shakers in Dallas as well as several surrounding communities. They saw the benefit of transit for their lower level employees, but I never met anyone from the upper middle class or wealthy that commuted on public transit. Sometimes a few of them would use it to get to special events, i.e. State Fair of Texas, events at the American Airlines Center, etc.
Having lived in communities with good public transit, i.e. New York City, Hartford, Dallas, Melbourne, Australia, I have supported it by my vote, whenever was on the ballot, and by using it regularly, which speaks louder than words. But I am somewhat atypical, at least in Texas. I was the only director level employee in the Dallas based Fortune 200 corporation where I was employed that used pubic transit. My colleagues thought I was nuts!
Glad to hear and thank you.. It confirms some of my impressions of upper level Texans. I wonder what the deal is in Plano?