Texas Transit Association

News coverage in Houston’s light rail referendum turned again, but too briefly, to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit passenger rail system.

Texas Decides: Dallas light-rail serves as cautionary model for METRO
By: Joseph, Jennifer TV 24 (Houston) 10/28/2003

Dallas Area Rapid Transit spent $1 billion in its most recent system, but Dallas’ light-rail project dates back to the 1980s when the cost of building their first 20 miles of track was $860 million.

METRO would spend $8 billion for the same amount of track, but Dallas commuters say it’s well worth it.

DART passenger Jennifer Perry says riding Dallas’ light-rail saves her from more than road rage.

“It saves me probably about 30 minutes, saves me the hassel of the traffic,” Perry says. “The High-5 interchange is a mess and this is just relaxing. You can read a book and you’re there.”

Eight years into light-rail and only 60,000 of the 2.2 million people the DART potentially serves ride light-rail.

But DART spokesmen say that’s 60,00 less people on the road, equalling less pollution.

“Ridership coninues to grow. All of the differnt modes of transportation are doing very well and Dallas is really starting to understand the regional aspects and what transit can do,” DART president Gary Thomas says.

Thomas says light-rail is about more than taking people from one point to another. Southside Dallas was once a virtual ghost town and now it is a hotbed for jobs and development.

Between 1997 and 2001, office properties near suburban rail stations increased in value 53 percent, but there are down sides to rail.

Thomas says if he had to give a report card of the light-rail, we’d see straight As across the board.

University of Texas at Dallas professor Kevin Curten says he wouldn’t give DART such a high grade.

“It’s cost! It’s not a question of — in terms of cost, it’s a good thing to spend money on light-rail. The question isn’t whether it’s good or bad. It’s whether or not there is something better that we should be spending our money on,” Curten says.

That’s the same issue seen in Houston.

Houston’s light-rail would be funded by federal dollars right out of the gate, but when DART began it was pay as you go, each track laid was another dollar spent.

Short-term debt meant slow construction. It wasn’t until the 2000 when voters approved federal fudning and soon found light-rail chugging it’s way to the suburbs.

The 2000 vote was an easy one. Light-rail had already been in place in downtown since 1995 and DART began laying it’s plans for construction in the 1989.

Still arguments heard in Dallas in the 80s are being echoed in Houston in 2003.

“In the mid to late 80s, the argument against it was that people weren’t going to get out of their cars to ride the system. This is Texas, people want to drive their SUV’s,” Thomas says.

Today, it’s hard to find anyone against rail in Dallas. Even people pouring money into their cars say while they don’t ride it, they still support it.

“It saves a lot of gas. Sitting in traffic, save gas, you’re on a rail system, so no wrecks,” Shawn Johnson says.

“I think it would help. It would save a lot of money and a lot of traffic too,” Renee Neloms says.

But anti-rail activists do exist.

“It’s just one big money pit,” Billy MacLeod says.

Still Dallas is looked up to for their tracks.

“I’m coming from the Salt Lake City area,” Joseph Moore says, “looking at the DART system, the Dallas system, primarily their transit-oriented development because we want to build a new station in our city and use some of the ideas that are going on with the DART system.”

And he says if Houston takes the first step toward rail, they won’t regret it.

“If you build it, they will come,” Moore says. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

There’s one thing DART officials want to drive home to Houstonians, funding isn’t paid off like a credit card.

“Transit is like highways. You don’t expect them to pay for themselves,” Morgan Lyons from DART says.

DART admits they had to cut routes due to a weak economy. Eighty percent of their revenue comes from sales tax dollars. But their confident light-rail won’t leave these tracks anytime soon. They depend on riders like Perry who say if there was no light-rail she probably wouldn’t work downtown.

DART is counting on riders like her to keep downtown thriving and traffic moving.

Anti-rail folks may be hard to find in Dallas, but in Houston you only have to look as far as your television to track them down.

Wednesday, we’ll take a look at who puts out the anti-rail commercials and why they’re waging an ad war against METRO’s plan.