Texas Transit Association

ARLINGTON - Local leaders who believe that a special tax should be collected in North Texas to pay for transportation needs shouldn’t give up on the idea, even though it faces a lot of statewide opposition.

Many of the 65 local elected leaders who gathered in Arlington said they support asking voters’ permission to raise sales taxes or gasoline taxes in Tarrant, Denton, Dallas and Collin counties to pay for trains.

But even before such a question could be put to area voters, the state Legislature would have to agree to raise its tax ceiling. The maximum sales tax in Texas is 8.25 cents, and the state gasoline tax is 20 cents per gallon.

Rail-transit tax has chance of passing, consultants say
By Gordon Dickson
Star-Telegram Staff Writer Sat, Jan. 31, 2004

That opinion was offered Thursday by consultants hired to help the area’s four largest counties develop a regionwide commuter train system.

Thursday’s meeting comes five months after elected leaders pledged to reach a consensus on a regional rail system before the 2005 legislative session. The meeting focused on three issues: how to finance a rail system, how to govern it and how to persuade the state’s leadership to accept it.

Consultants hired by the North Central Texas Council of Governments to guide elected officials through the process on Thursday encouraged more dialogue on a possible tax increase, which would then be presented to the state House of Representatives for approval.

“If North Texas is united in agreement about what you want, you’ve got a good chance to get it through the House,” consultant Lonnie Blaydes told the group.

To build a commuter rail system, at least another quarter-cent sales tax, and perhaps a half-cent, would have to be imposed in the four counties, several officials said. Or, if gasoline taxes were used, they would have to be raised by perhaps 10 cents a gallon.

One way to sell statewide leaders on the plan might be to convince them that a new transportation tax would be an innovative way to clean up North Texas’ foul air, said Mark Burroughs, a Denton councilman. The new taxes would only be allowed in areas of Texas, such as North Texas, that are under fire from the federal government for failure to meet clean-air standards.

North Texas leaders are evaluating different ways to govern a rail system. Some favor creating one giant transportation authority to oversee all the region’s needs, including bus service, while others support an umbrella group that oversees only the rail aspects of transportation, leaving bus service to DART, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and other local decision-makers.

Expanding DART to all four counties would not pass legal muster unless all member cities paid the same price, Blaydes said. As it is, residents of DART member cities pay DART a 1-cent sales tax, but the T’s members pay only a half-cent. Voters in some Denton County cities have approved a half-cent sales tax for mass transit.