POLITICS DART SMARTS

POLITICIANS WORKING on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) campaign face a daunting task. Voters will be asked to pay a new tax to provide for an undetermined transportation system that, as of yet, doesn’t have a defined administration to run it.

Although there is the widespread public recognition that the Dallas area must do something about transportation before everyone chokes on exhaust fumes and ends up buried under infinite miles of roadway, turning this sentiment into votes is easier said than done.

Getting those votes is the responsibility of Philip Montgomery, the chairman of a complex campaign organization focusing on this issue. Montgomery ran the successful 1982 Dallas Concert Hall bond campaign and has proved himself to be skilled in the basic techniques of campaigning: precinct targeting, volunteer recruitment, telephone canvassing and other nuts-and-bolts essentials.

This is not an easy race. DART campaigners face the obvious problem of getting voters to the polls on a Saturday in August. This difficulty is heightened by the technical nature of the referendum: Mass transit lacks the political sex appeal needed to win zealous loyalty from campaign volunteers and voters.

The DART campaign poses special problems because 21 Dallas-area cities will vote on the measure. Each community will conduct a mini-referendum on whether to join the DART system. As long as voters in the City of Dallas approve the measure, DART will be created; but the voting in cities will determine how extensive the transit system will be.

A successful communitywide campaign of this kind requires sophistication both in techniques and in voter attitudes. Although voters will be asked to decide only whether or not their city will participate in DART, these same voters will also be asked to help shape the future of the entire Dallas area.

Politicians have railed for years against the alleged evils of monolithic “metro government.” Some issues, however, demand the recognition of common interests that are best served by an areawide governmental operation. Although the DART campaign promises communitywide benefits, campaign planners are still aware that different cities have different transportation interests.

A large part of this campaign involves the organizing of a volunteer base in each community to address local concerns. DART backers must conduct a campaign that will address sweeping issues while responding to the particular concerns’ of each neighboring city.

DART campaigners also face the question of what the transit system will look like. In addition to a vastly expanded bus service, some kind of rail system will operate. The “mode” decision-about the use of light rail, heavy rail, monorail or a combination of these -will not be made until well after the 1983 election. Voters are being asked to pay (via sales tax) for an unknown product.

DART supporters remember that Dallas voters rejected the Lone Star Transit Authority in 1981 and the “arts package” in the 1978 Dallas city bond election largely because they didn’t want to buy something that had not been adequately described to them.

Montgomery and his consultants recognize this. They pledge that Dallas will acquire state-of-the-art transportation technology if DART waits until it is ready to begin construction before making the final mode decisions. It would be unwise to ask voters to commit today to a technology that could be obsolete by the time DART is ready to roll.

Although voters may be willing to speculate on what DART will look like, they are less likely to approve the spending of their tax revenues by a permanent DART Board that they know little about.

The permanent DART Board will seat 25 persons appointed by the city councils of the participating cities. This board will be similar to other appointive bodies that are accountable to the voters but will work through the respective city councils.

Wariness of government easily can lead to a “No” vote on DART. How democratic will the DART Board be? What pressure can be brought to bear to ensure full accountability to the communities the board will serve? One of the tasks of the DART campaign is to reassure voters that DART will not become a giant, insensitive bureaucracy.

Part of a safeguard mechanism was put into place by the Texas Legislature when it passed a bill requiring notification of homeowners, public hearings and municipal approval of any changes in the location of DART’s rail service by a two-thirds majority. This important political step was taken to alleviate the homeowner’s fear that he might wake up one morning to discover that DART had rerouted a rail line through his front yard.

These matters make trust a vital issue. Since this is intangible and since voters are generally suspicious, campaign planners remain uneasy about how well their arguments have been received by the local electorate.

Beyond these questions about day-to-day mechanics of transit system operations are major policy issues that voters may ponder now but that can be resolved only over the span of years in which DART proves its effectiveness.

Principal among these questions is the degree of impact that a mass transit system will have on growth patterns within the community. Most transportation planners say that transit lines will attract density, thus removing some of the mystery about where growth will take place. Urban government administrators welcome this; it allows them to project the location and extent of city services that will be needed.

The Dallas area has been marked by growth that seems to have no predictable pattern, with new clusters of residential and commercial developments springing up at random locations. The larger a community becomes, the greater the strain this kind of growth places on services that a municipal government provides (such as water utilities and police and fire protection).

Planners assume, for example, that major growth will take place during the next few years in southwest Dallas County. The development would likely occur close to a DART rail line, which gives these planners an opportunity to target the locations in which services will be needed.

The magnet effect that transit lines probably will have on density also could have some disadvantages, primarily for those living close to the planned transit routes. Many people are afraid of being caught up in a rush to build taller buildings and multifamily residences in neighborhoods that never would have seen such development.

With or without DART, no set formula exists that will guarantee precise predictions of growth. Enactment of the DART plan, however, will make a more sophisticated approach to planning imperative. It is dangerously naive to assume that mass transit will merely move people and have no other effect on a community. The shape of a city’s life can be altered substantially by changes in the ways people get from place to place.

The emotions evoked during DART’s public hearings prove how seriously home-owners view what they perceive as threats to their property values and to the quality of life they enjoy in their neighborhoods.

Mere campaign promises will not be enough to win these votes. As a corollary to the DART technical plans, a clearly stated philosophy of the importance of neighborhoods (vis-a-vis mass transit and theories of density) should be enunciated by the elected leadership in each city participating in the DART campaign. This would reassure residents that they will not be voting themselves into the hands of a governmental monster.

Given the complexities of these issues, it’s risky to predict the outcome of the DART election. Several factors are likely to be determinative. First, there’s the widespread voter predisposition in favor of mass transit as an idea whose time not only has come, but is overdue. And few people are pleased with every element of the DART plan; with so many details, something always can be found with which to quibble.

Voters have two principal questions that, if answered correctly, could pave the way for DART: Will personal interests be hurt by the DART plan? And, can the DART administrators be trusted to use tax money competently?

Answering the first question requires reassurance that a vote for the good of the community is not a vote against self-interest. Assuming that recognition for a mass transit system exists, voters still want detailed explanations of the safeguards that will keep a tight rein on transit planners. Only this reassurance can pave the way to an affirmative vote in the referendum.

The second question arises from voter skepticism about new taxes for any purpose. Most Dallas-area voters probably don’t object to this tax; they know a transit system will be expensive. These voters, however, don’t want their money to be wasted. They have to be convinced that the DART Board will be able to administer this huge transportation system competently and know that board members will be accessible when citizens have suggestions or complaints.

If DART campaigners can garner the appropriate answers to these questions, another major political test will be faced: organization. Can funds be raised, volunteers recruited, telephone calls completed, mailings prepared, advertising designed and the other myriad tasks accomplished that will carry voters to the polls?

These are mechanical functions for experienced politicians. Many of the politicians working on the DART effort have performed these same tasks for years for a variety of candidates and causes. The DART election poses its own special problems with its large electorate and complex subject matter, but these are not insurmountable difficulties. From the standpoint of pure politics, this election can be won.

What will happen if DART loses? This is a question that even DART’s opponents seem to have scarcely considered. The double-decking of Central Expressway as well as other major highways would be likely. Roads in East Dallas and other inner-city areas would be widened to ease the flow of traffic from suburbs to down-town Dallas.

Some neighborhoods would be overwhelmed by this increased automobile traffic, and revitalization of many areas would dwindle, replaced by the flight to the suburbs. Development patterns throughout the area would have to be controlled by stringent zoning restrictions. This is a frightening picture, especially in contrast to the remarkable growth of Dallas’ in-town residential life in recent years.

Heightened competition between Dallas and suburban cities for commercial and residential tax bases would pull this area into the disastrous pattern that so many urban area’s have faced: Suburbs may prosper (at least for a while), but the principal city’s tax base will shrink, services will diminish and the life of the city will wither.

All this gloom is not meant particularly to be an endorsement of DART; it’s merely a reminder that the life of the modern urban community is inextricably tied to transit. If DART is defeated on August 13, the Dallas area better come up with an alternative on August 14.