TX: What do DART riders think about exit elections? Here’s what North Texans have to say

The bustle on a Monday morning at a downtown Dallas Area Rapid Transit station is full of screeching trains, long stares from windows and corporate suits in headphones, scrolling their phones as they wait for their line.

The train seats both young and old, retired and working, students and homeless. The Red Line roars as it zips from Dallas to Plano, deafening above quiet commuters that sway with the train car.

The dynamic flow, to and from, boarding and disembarking, waiting and moving, is full of energy, but reveals little of the turmoil that’s threatened to derail the public transportation system.

Nearly half of the cities belonging to DART, the transit system serving North Texas for more than four decades, have threatened to leave the agency.

Progress in negotiations has signaled some suburbs could cancel May elections to cut ties with DART, but there’s still a way to go to change the agency’s funding, governance structure and service, believed by some cities to be too expensive for its quality.

In cities that do put membership in DART to a vote, service will end immediately in broad and sweeping cuts to the system. Exiting cities would continue to pay the one-cent sales tax they contribute to DART to pay off debt, and some cities are considering on-demand microtransit services similar to Uber or Lyft in lieu of mass transit, as Arlington has done for years.

Some DART riders have never heard of the threat to the system they use weekly, but many have thoughts on the bus and train services that help them get around. Here’s what some North Texans have to say about DART and threats to shrink it.

Patricia Wedemeier — ‘amazingly wonderful’

Wedemeier, 77, moved to Denver from North Texas over a decade ago but still takes public transportation around the region when visiting her adult sons, who live in Fort Worth. She has vision problems and can’t drive, but the train gives her the ability to visit friends and family across several cities.

“It’s fantastic to be able to just take the train and go see them,” she said on DART’s Red Line on a Monday morning. “It makes travel amazingly wonderful.”

She lands at DFW International Airport and takes the Trinity Railway Express to and from Fort Worth or DART to Plano and Richardson, where she has friends from her time as a teacher in the suburbs. She appreciates that unlike on-demand services, which often have wait times, she can plan around a predictable train schedule to get where she needs to go in D-FW.

“I think leaving this wonderful train system would be a huge mistake,” she said. “We need to expand it, not abandon it.”

Precious Love Johnson — ‘It should expand’

Johnson, 24, lives in the Oak Cliff area and takes DART almost every day to get to work at NorthPark Center.

“I was in a crash two years ago, and I’ve been having scary thoughts about driving again,” Johnson said. “I just can’t afford a vehicle right now.”

Johnson uses GoLink, DART’s on-demand service, now and then.

“Sometimes the drivers are not able to pick up their riders in time,” Johnson said. “Whereas with trains and buses, they have a more reliable schedule.”

Johnson hopes to see train lines expand.

“Bus routes have been getting erased in my area, so I had to also plan around different routes just to get to work,” Johnson said. “It should expand and it should be more rider-friendly.”

LaCora Clayton-Allen — en route to day care

Clayton-Allen, 25, settled into a seat on the Red Line with 2-year-old daughter Lahna, both dressed in pink and toting a colorful suitcase. The young mother was on the way to day care, dropping Lahna off in Garland after working a night shift. DART is their main form of transportation.

She can’t afford a car and hopes cities who choose to leave will keep commuters without cars in mind.

“Especially in places like Addison and Plano, they’re already hard to get around in, even with DART,” Clayton-Allen said. “If you just take away DART, and then it takes forever for there to be any alternatives, or they don’t come up with any good alternatives, then that would really be a step backward.”

The Dallas resident also sees why some cities are reconsidering membership in the system.

“I also understand why they may not want to be a part of DART anymore,” she said. “I know there’s budgeting stuff, maybe they think that it’s run inefficiently.”

Vignesh Ramesh — student commuter

Ramesh, 19, lives in Forney and takes DART five days a week to get to the University of Texas at Dallas. He catches a ride with his dad, who commutes to work in downtown Dallas by car. Then he takes the train to Plano and the bus to get to campus.

Trains avoid traffic and are faster, he said.

“A lot of students do take the train, most of them are international students, because they don’t have a car,” he said. “I don’t have a car either. That’s why I’m taking the train.”

He said if the agency can enforce bans on smoking at DART stations, it would improve the system.

Steve Murphy — Plano resident concerned

Murphy is an engineer who has lived in Plano for about 15 years. At a coffee shop in downtown Plano, he said he’s “middle of the road” when it comes to DART. As a homeowner, he pays a lot in property taxes and understands residents have high expectations on how their taxes are used.

“I see benefits, but then I also know that there’s issues of homelessness and things like that that need to be addressed,” Murphy said. “I have daughters, and I’d like them to be safe when they go from point A to B.”

He hopes the microtransit alternative Plano is considering is safer than DART.

“We’re trying to figure out how to pay for things,” he said. “I guess maybe Plano feels like they need to cut back.”

Michael Holmes — ‘This is affordable’

Holmes, 52, lives in Garland and takes the bus to work at Goodwill. He uses the bus system four times a week to save gas and because he prefers it to driving.

“I think they should leave it like it is, if not make it bigger, because people don’t have money,” Holmes said. “This is affordable and it helps. You can go further and throughout the city.”

On-demand services cost more if you need to make multiple stops, he said, since riders pay by trip. He thinks DART should offer some rides for free for those who can’t afford a fare.

“A lot of people depend on this DART bus system,” he said. “[I’m] happy for reliable transportation.”

Dave Brady — ‘vitality of the region’

Brady, 84, lives in Garland and has used DART for its entire history. He remembers the bus system that existed before DART was established in 1983.

Brady uses a motorized wheelchair and relies on DART for almost all his transportation needs.

“Some of these cities simply are not able to balance their own budgets,” he said at a train station in Garland. “They’re trying to get into DART’s pocketbook, and that’s not good for the region. … It’s very important that we keep the regional concept for the economic vitality of the region.”

He sees some benefits to microtransit alternatives but said it’s a more expensive model than other modes.

Shontia Brown — ‘That’s really gonna hurt’

Brown, 49, lives in Garland and takes DART to work.

“I’m in the process of getting a car now,” she said. “If DART leaves, man, that’s really gonna hurt.”

She also wants to see the DART system expand and wishes it was more affordable.

“Mesquite — they really need it, because there’s a lot of jobs that are out there that people can’t get to because there’s no DART,” she said. “Or they’ll have to get to the closest city and then walk, and that’s hard on a lot of people.”

Dr. Micah Nishigaki — ‘a lifeline’

Nishigaki is a family medicine doctor in Dallas and worries what a shrunken DART system could do for patients. Not only do North Texans rely on the system to get to medical appointments, she said, more difficult transportation hurdles could hurt access to healthy groceries, lifestyles and preventative care.

“It is a lifeline,” Nishigaki said. “It is part of preventative health.”

She worries that microtransit could make it harder to get from city to city if suburbs pick different vendors and the system is no longer seamless — especially for patients who don’t have access to phones or who are not technically savvy enough to switch between multiple apps.

“I still do worry that with this lack of mobility … from suburb to suburb," she said. “This will still interrupt their lives, especially if they’re heavily public transit-dependent.”

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