Symbolic votes signal safety, cleanliness concerns of cities

Effort by many member cities

The City of Farmers Branch is not dropping out of DART.”

Mayor Terry Lynne

Fares to be simplified

Residents who attended the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) community meeting last week the Farmers Branch Community Recreations Center got a sneak peek at the new fare system DART intends to implement next year.

In addition, DART employees discussed how the transit system is attempting to address the reduced ridership, which peaked prior to the pandemic, and riders who don’t pay.

“We have been observing the farebox revenue and ridership… since the pandemic,” Jing Xu, assistant vice president of service planning and scheduling for DART said. “It’s picking up, but it’s an important source of funding for DART.”

DART considers the current fare system as complex and confusing for riders. More riders than ever are riding without paying.

The new system focuses on simplicity, equity, effectiveness and efficiency; and is built on the foundation of the research DART has conducted over the last 1.5 year, which includes peer reviews and public outreach, development of alternative fare scenarios, assessment of impacts and attempts to build consensus, Xu said.

For instance, Xu confirmed that the annual pass, which costs $960, had only about 50 buyers across the member cities.

One of those 50 annual pass holders is Gerardo Lopez, who will see a $600 annual increase in his DART budget.

“I use [DART] every day,” Lopez said. “I am an annual pass holder, and I was here to debate the $600 increase on me.”

Lopez is disappointed that DART is removing the annual pass. “Since I am one of the fifty… that has bought into the program… I hope that DART considers us, the annual pass holders, that this is coming out of our pockets,” Lopez said.

“Everyone’s travel patterns and usage can be different,” Xu said, “we have tried to simplify the base fare structure” and make it more convenient for the riders.

-Spencer Benway

Despite cities not being the superintendent of the railroad, Farmers Branch hitched its car onto the train and voted to reduce funding of DART.

Coming when the 13 member cities are in the process of drafting their 2025 budgets and concerned about decreasing revenue and inflation, all five Farmers Branch City Council members voted unanimously to reduce the 1-cent sales and use tax contribution to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) by one-quarter of a cent in a symbolic resolution at the July 16 meeting.

This is part of a bigger picture. Just like many residents, cities including Farmers Branch, are tightening their pocketbooks as sales taxes are forecast to decline and property owners are calling for reductions of property taxes as home valuations have skyrocketed over the last few years.

In the meantime, while public transportation is considered by many to be an important, even vital service, DART is challenged with public safety and cleanliness concerns, causing member cities to question their financial contribution to the rapid transit authority.

“We are not alone in taking action,” Mayor Terry Lynne said.

Farmers Branch joined Carrollton, Irving, Plano and Rowlett with this vote. However, none of the cities, even collectively, have the authority to change how DART is funded. This vote is symbolic in nature, allowing member cities to communicate their expectations with the DART Board of Directors.

“The City of Farmers Branch is not dropping out of DART,” Lynne said. “There’s been an effort by many of the member cities to reduce… sales tax contribution.”

This is the first potential change in contribution that DART has seen since its inception in 1983. Farmers Branch is an original member city of DART and has been contributing half of all the city’s sales and use tax to DART since then.

With the additional member cities of Addison, Cockrell Hill, Dallas, Garland, Glenn Heights, Highland Park, Richardson, and University Park, the cities are estimated to have provided $871 million in total sales tax revenue to the public transit system for the 2024 fiscal year.

Farmers Branch annually contributes $22 million to $23 million to the DART system in sales tax revenue.

“We need to evaluate this contribution that we’ve been making over the past 40 years,” Lynne said. This decision is a “realignment of participation.”

If DART followed through with the member-cities’ request, the decrease of the current contribution by a quarter of a cent would result in a 25 percent decrease in revenue for DART, which has been worked out to a potential annual savings of $5 million to $6 million for Farmers Branch.

The potential savings is “pretty significant,” said Roger Neal, council member for district 5. 

The change would result in significantly larger savings for the cities of Dallas, Irving and Plano who allocated $585.9 million together in sales tax to DART during the 2022 fiscal year.

“The big swing there is Plano,” said Robert Dye, former Farmers Branch mayor and former DART board member representing Farmers Branch. 

Plano has one fully dedicated member of the board of directors and shares M. Nathan Barbera with Farmers Branch.

Changing the sales tax rate won’t be easy, even if the DART board members vote to change the tax rate because sales tax goes through Texas comptroller, Dye said.

The issue has not yet formally come before DART’s board of directors.

“The sales tax discussion is not currently on the agenda for our board,” Anna Kurian, Vice President of Public Relations for DART said in an email to the Branch Herald.

The Branch Herald reached out to Farmers Branch representative to the DART Board of Directors, M. Nathan Barbera and received no response before deadline.

DART voted in October 2022, to refund $234.9 million to their member cities from excess sales tax revenue.

In February 2023, Farmers Branch signed an interlocal agreement with DART to have the amount of $5.935 million. The money’s intent was “to advance mobility,” Elizabeth Reich, DART chief financial officer, told the city council at the Feb. 7, 2023, meeting.

The city used a portion of this money to fund the remodel of City Hall, which was completed earlier this year with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, which DART CEO Nadine Lee attended.

“They (DART) are now trying, especially the new CEO [Nadine Lee], to focus on quality,” Justin Langhorst, a Farmers Branch resident and vice chair of DART’s citizen advisory committee said.

Langhorst had plenty of questions for the Farmers Branch City Council and said he wondered if Mustang Station and the apartments and townhomes in that area would even exist without DART. He said he wished the city would get more involved in making the DART station more of a destination.

The city should “build a round station,” Langhorst said, which is a public transit station that serves as its own place to exist and is not just a stop for people to get on and off public transportation.

In 2026, Farmers Branch will have the option to vote to leave the DART system, which means that while DART trains and buses would continue to move through the city to serve communities surrounding Farmers Branch, there would be no stops within the city.