Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s 20-year financial plan is the document that will set the agenda for the transit agency’s future. It weighs implementation of a number of major capital improvements and could affect mobility in and around Dallas for a generation. But as the agency faces more and more questions about how to fund each individual project, DART staff says it will now push back the planned September 27 vote on the plan.
The financial plan will impact how DART pursues:
- D2, or the second downtown light rail alignment, which Dallas stakeholders increasingly want to see built as a subway.
- The downtown streetcar expansion, which may or may not include an extension of the McKinney Ave. trolley to Knox Ave.
- The controversial Cotton Belt line, which has split support from suburban and Dallas-based board members
- A revamp of the bus system to improve reliability.
The sticking point is how all of these projects fit together, and there are questions over why staff has provided conflicting information about project details, including funding plans. Here’s the bottleneck in a nutshell from the DMN report:
DART staffers last week revealed that getting rail service on the Cotton Belt from DFW International to Plano could delay construction and risk federal funding for D2 if the downtown line is built as a subway instead of mostly at street level. But they didn’t present information on how service on Cotton Belt could be phased in over time so more debt could be earmarked for if D2 is built mostly as a subway.
Two new scenarios DART staffers presented last week also didn’t include what options or risks are associated with extending the streetcar expansion to Knox Avenue or completing a planned bus service overhaul faster than the decade or more officials currently say it will take.
While many Dallas officials last month indicated they may want D2 to be a subway instead of mostly at street-level, DART member city Addison has ratcheted up the pressure on the agency to put rail on the Cotton Belt line. Yet residents in Greyson’s Far North Dallas district fiercely oppose rail on the Cotton Belt. And Carrollton Mayor Matthew Marchant thinks that corridor should have bus rapid transit instead of trains.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the delay is the delay itself, suggesting a slipping in DART staff’s usual ability to get all of its board members and member cities on board with staff’s priorities.
