DART reverses course, will keep building

Back in June, Dallas Area Rapid Transit presented a 20-year financial plan that said it could no longer afford to build several new light rail lines that it had intended to do. Now it’s got an updated projection that says it can build them after all.

Just six weeks after telling board members that it couldn’t be done, DART executives on Tuesday presented their bosses with a 20-year financial plan that keeps the Orange Line rail service on track to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

They also presented a $1.25 billion budget for 2011 that cuts 87 jobs next year but will delay, for a year at least, layoffs.

The 20-year plan would allow room for a second major rail project, an extension of the Blue Line to southern Oak Cliff by the end of this decade. That’s a possibility that promised to draw a fight, or at least a debate, from some board members who think the agency should save its money to build a long-promised second downtown Dallas rail line that is now on hold.

[…]

Chief Financial Officer David Leininger told board members that the budget and the proposed 20-year plan represented a much better picture than he had presented June 22, when he told DART board members that all major construction projects not already under way would have to be put on hold.

The DMN editorial board is a bit skeptical.

This newspaper hopes DART, which has an unfortunate history of badly missing financial projections, isn’t whistling past the graveyard again. On paper, the 2011 budget and 20-year financial plan back the completion of the Orange Line to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and planning for the Oak Cliff extension of the Blue Line. This newspaper supports both projects as crucial economic catalysts.

But how DART has made its numbers add up raises an eyebrow. In late June, DART said it probably couldn’t find the dollars for some projects and threatened massive layoffs and service cuts. The layoff numbers were projected to be in the hundreds.

[…]

DART’s plans, however, depend heavily on steady improvement in the overall economy and other wildcards that are difficult to predict, including some that seem to defy recent history. Sales-tax receipts have been flat for several years. Passenger revenue has been down significantly since 2008. Yet, DART anticipates both will improve over the next few years as the economy picks up and new rail lines are completed. DART also is counting on an increase in federal grants and other aid to help finance some projects, a revenue source that is getting harder to tap.

Via Houston Tomorrow, there’s another issue of concern here, which is that DART is moving resources around in a way that may make more political sense than transit sense.

But one can imagine the political pressure in which DART decision-makers find themselves: The agency must fulfill the interests of its most suburban constituents, many of whom are frustrated that they have yet to receive their personalized light rail line. Meanwhile, because the airport connection appeals most strongly to the political leaders of the region because it is the only transit line most of them will ever use, it is essential for DART to pursue its construction if it wants to remain in the funding game.

Yet operations cutbacks do have their negative consequences. The decision to cut headways on light rail operations has justified DART’s decision to permanently postpone the D2 downtown light rail link, which would have relieved the existing center-city trunk route used by all lines. That project, it seems, is not necessary if all lines are running only every fifteen minutes; in addition, the creation of a new streetcar system already partially funded through the federal TIGER program will add capacity for downtown riders. So the agency has determined that it is preferable to divert spending on an extension of the Blue Line south to the University of North Texas instead.

That project, though, will only further enforce the already very suburban orientation of DART’s expansion program rather than improve the circulation of people within the densest parts of Dallas. In addition, it seems to imply that fifteen-minute frequencies are acceptable in the long-term; they certainly are not if Dallas ever intends to encourage significantly increased public use of its light rail system, which has cost more than $2.5 billion to build so far. Why not, some will likely argue, save up and spend on the new downtown alignment as soon as possible, which would allow an eventual ramp-up in services to meet growing demand?

We’ll see how it goes. If nothing else, I figure we can learn some lessons for Metro from their experience.

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One Response to DART reverses course, will keep building

  1. Alex Rotenberry says:

    I hope they do complete the orange line. They have a ton of projects and not enough money: a second rail line downtown, the link the DFW International airport, expanding the trolley system to downtown and outlying areas to the south (Oak Cliff), the west (Deep Ellum) and North (further Uptown).

    The Green line is scheduled to be linked to Love Field (our Hobby), so that is certainly a good sign. I remember flying in to both Midway and O’Hare and taking the train in Chicago and someday Dallas may have that opportunity as well.

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