DART’s Big Problem and the Little Group That Wants to Solve It

If there is a silver lining to Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s no good, very bad year—historic budget cuts, a revolt by several of its member cities, a lingering legislative threat that could have decimated its financing, and, worst of all, two murders on trains over a single week this fall—it is found in a seventh-floor conference room at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, where about 40 people are spending their Saturday afternoon politely discussing the agency’s future.

This is the monthly meeting of the Dallas Area Transit Alliance, or DATA, a Discord chat that quickened into an advocacy group of riders who desire to be an organized response to the challenging headwinds facing the region’s public transportation agency. The group got to work in the summer of 2024, once city councils in Plano and Irving began passing resolutions in support of reducing their transit contributions by 25 percent, which led to state legislative action. 

“We’re worried about DART and recognize they’re in a tenuous spot,” says Connor Hulla, the group’s president. “Our place has primarily been in awareness and making sure the opposition to this is known about and felt by our elected representatives. To that end, I know we’ve succeeded.”

DATA’s work has attracted the attention of DART’s top executives, who have never needed a friend more. While not exactly enormous, some of DATA’s meetings have attracted 80 people and its mailing list has grown to about 1,500. 

They’re diverse in age and race and gender; there’s a teenager in the room this Saturday, and at least two people in their 70s. Some live in Dallas proper, but others come from Las Colinas, Addison, or North Richland Hills. Also in attendance are UT Arlington students and workers at CityLine in Richardson. That teenager is Shyam Ganeshram, a 14-year-old who lives in Frisco. He got to the central library by riding his bike to Legacy and Coit roads in Plano then catching the 254 bus to the Red Line. His parents made him pull on a yellow construction vest before he left the house. 

“I knew public transit was important, but now I’m realizing exactly how important it is,” Ganeshram says after the meeting. “People like me—minors—they can’t drive. There are also disabled people who can’t drive, and others who can’t afford to shell out, like, practically their life savings for a car.” 

Like the older members of the group, Ganeshram feels called to respond to the emergency. DART spent much of the last year blocking attacks from member cities that tried to take a quarter of their money back. Discussions during public meetings that were once about improving the system turned to debates over how, and whether, to save it. Sales tax contributions from its 13 member cities account for about 80 percent of DART’s revenue. 

The DATA founders realized that riders tend to get crowded out of such high-stakes political discussions. Which makes this Saturday gathering something of a salve—a grassroots rider-led group, perhaps the first of its kind in North Texas, trying its hardest to recenter the discussion on how to make the agency better.

“You know, how can we set up opportunities to have more dense clusters of housing and ways to get there?” Hulla asks. “I’d like to see more scenarios like that. I think if you can create those, more people would just start using it.” 

September marked a cruel capstone to a difficult year for DART. Lagging sales tax revenue as well as higher contracting and operational costs—inflation, but also the cost of running trains along the forthcoming Silver Line from Plano to DFW International Airport when it opens this month—resulted in the largest cuts in the agency’s 42-year history. Hundreds packed meetings to oppose the reductions. 

When DART announced it would need to cut $60 million from its operations budget, its chief executive and board president called DATA’s leaders to sell them on the plan. (The agency was able to knock that number down to about $36.8 million, mostly through delaying construction projects and freezing open jobs.)

Starting in January, seven low-performing routes will be eliminated. Frequency during peak times on weekday mornings has slowed from 15 to 20 minutes on rail and some buses, and DART also increased the cost of single-ride tickets and curb-to-curb paratransit fees. According to a federally mandated Title VI analysis, the frequency changes on five routes will disproportionately affect low-income riders. DART will prioritize those if the agency is able to fund them in the future. After officials walked DATA through the proposals, the group passed a resolution to “accept” the cuts and called off its opposition—they felt the agency had no other choice. 

These discussions happen during meetings like the one at the library on the Saturday in September. That afternoon, Patric Morgan, a soft-spoken 28-year-old with a blonde shag rug of a beard, shared a final legislative update. He urged those in attendance to use the time between now and the next session in 2027 to tell their council members that they support DART: “If they don’t hear from us, they’re still going to go down this road of trying to take money out of DART’s pocket.”

This is the most significant threat facing public transportation in the region. The Texas Legislature allows cities to allocate up to 1 percent—a penny—of its sales tax revenue for initiatives like DART or economic development incentives such as tax breaks that sweeten development deals. 

As the region claws farther north and west, suburbs such as McKinney and Frisco, near the outer ring, suddenly have more incentives to offer than their mature neighbors—all because they don’t pay into DART. They can use their penny on tax breaks that cities such as Plano and Irving cannot.

Two of the routes that will be cut are in Irving; Mayor Rick Stopfer, who is also a DART board member, announced that the city anticipates holding an election to withdraw from the system and is still meeting with lawmakers to prepare for 2027 if voters choose to stay. “We cannot continue. We cannot afford this service. And that is the result of lack of service,” Stopfer said during a committee meeting last month. “I’ll be the bad guy … we probably will call for an election.” 

Opponents found more ammunition in a study performed last year by the accounting firm EY that assigned a dollar amount to what DART delivered each city during 2023 relative to their sales tax contribution. It found that Plano paid in almost $110 million but received $44.6 million worth of services, capital improvements, and debt service; Dallas’ share was $407 million, with $690 million in return. Ironically, the study found Irving received $123.5 million worth of services but paid $102.2 million. It remains unhappy with what it receives. 

DART believes the study tells an incomplete story because it did not analyze revenue from increased property taxes near transit. It plans to bid out an updated version of the report later this year to incorporate the financial benefits from investments like transit-oriented development, such as Mockingbird Station in Dallas and CityLine in Richardson.

When state lawmakers filed bills in the House and Senate that would have required DART to pay back its member cities 25 percent of its sales tax revenue, Jeamy Molina, the agency’s chief communications officer, told reporters it would be “a full-on dismantling of the DART system.”

DATA played the foil. Nearly two dozen members organized a trip to Austin and played lobbyist, visiting offices of senators and representatives while encouraging others in DART’s constituency to call and voice their opposition. The bill cleared a house committee but died before the session ended. Of course, they cannot alone take credit. But those statehouse staffers probably bother themselves with other matters if they aren’t there. “Some of those offices got around 300 calls in one day,” says Patrick Kennedy, one of Dallas’ appointees to the DART board. “It may not have moved a vote, but it stiffened some spines among people who may not have cared enough to fight for it.”

DART’s compromise is a 5 percent General Mobility Program that would return $42.5 million to seven of its cities, which executives say won’t come from its operations budget. The agency hopes this offer will be enough to convince legislators that DART hears their concerns and is attempting to be a good partner. The cities that take the money must agree to no longer pursue legislation harmful to DART or a withdrawal election. 

Nadine Lee became DART CEO in 2021, when calls to reduce funding to the agency were not yet in view. She took control of a regional transportation provider that had invested heavily in sprawling services across its 13 cities to the detriment of efficiency and reliability. At 93 miles, DART operates the longest light rail system in the country—and, because it was built on old freight lines, one of the least efficient. Lee seemed to realize that longer-term success would require targeted investments tailored to each city’s needs. That isn’t easy, particularly when funding is so constrained. 

The agency finished a redesign of its bus route system in 2022, which more than tripled the routes where buses would arrive every 15 minutes, from six to 22. The city of Dallas, where the majority of DART’s bus riders live, received the most benefit from the new routes. Many of the suburbs got expanded GoLink services, on-demand microtransit that allowed riders to summon a car to take them to various locations within an established zone. 

Lee reoriented DART’s strategy to focus on safety and reliability, highlighted by a long-term goal she calls a “10 by 10,” meaning every rider should be within a 10-minute walk to a bus or a rail that would arrive in 10 minutes. This level of predictability is key to growing ridership and maintaining trust among the people who use DART the most.

The recent financial challenges, coupled with the looming threat from some member cities, risk imperiling or postponing such initiatives. Starting next year, there will be no 15-minute buses at all. While DART has increased ridership each year since the pandemic, the 55.7 million passenger count still trails the 70.8 million it logged in 2019. 

“We built a large system that takes significant dollars to keep running, and for someone to think we can give away 25 percent of our budget, the cities cannot do that,” says Gary Slagel, the DART board chair. “That is an irresponsible request.”

Lee described the budget shortfall as a “temporary setback” that she anticipates fading over time, but DART’s challenges are part of its very structure. The agency operates best when it works in collaboration with its partner cities. It can’t rezone land to better support a city’s economic development plan for a neighborhood. Public infrastructure is a city’s purview. And its funding depends on sales tax contributions from its partners. As far as security, Lee says, “the crime on our system reflects the areas surrounding our stations.” 

But some of those relationships are now at stake. “I understand what they’re asking for. I don’t agree with it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to work with them,” Lee says. “The relationship with some of the cities is not always comfortable, but I think we should work toward getting back to a more positive tension.” 

Is the union that created DART four decades ago sustainable today? The agency’s goals can be in opposition: be an effective transit system for the region while also moving people within individual cities. North Texas’ 8.3 million residents are now spread far beyond the service area DART envisioned in 1983, meaning not everyone is connected to transit. Meanwhile, DART must meet the sometimes-piecemeal demands of suburbs like Irving and Plano—more GoLink microtransit, circulator systems near amenities—and the requirements of moving workers in cities such as Dallas and Garland.

Morgan, the bearded DATA speaker that Saturday, reminded members that the North Central Texas Council of Governments is holding public meetings on its forthcoming Transit 2.0 plan, which seeks to examine how to better incorporate the rest of the region into a public transportation system. What will that look like? Who knows. Slagel, the board chair, says the goal is to have a plan in place before the next legislative session in 2027. 

While the officials debate, the buses rumble and the trains roll. A demographics study released in 2023 found that about 63 percent of riders surveyed made no more than $50,000 a year. About 50 percent reported using the service to get to and from work, which was about the same share as those who reported not having access to a vehicle. While DART continues to try to attract higher income users, the survey shows that a significant amount of its ridership has no other option. 

Those are the riders who have the most to lose as DART tries to figure out its future and defend its present. DATA’s goal is to make sure their voices aren’t lost in the debate. 

Matt Goodman is the co-founder and editor of The Lab Report. [email protected].

We’ll send a new story to your inbox every Wednesday. Have a friend who would appreciate it? We’d love for you to forward this email to them.

The Lab Report Dallas is a local journalism project published by the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL). Its newsroom operates with editorial independence.

© 2025 Child Poverty Action Lab. All rights reserved.