Last month we broke the news that Dallas Area Rapid Transit would begin charging for parking at the Parker Road and North Carrollton/Frankford stations, an experiment (or "demonstration," in DART parlance) intended to boost flagging revenues. DART's been eying this for a long while; public hearings on the subject were held a long, hot summer ago. But at its board meeting this evening, it becomes official -- at least, just as soon a "parking management firm" can be found to "implement the
demonstration," per the item on the board's agenda.
The few pages' of docs related to the parking fee follow; there's where the parking-fee chart you see above comes from. DART also explain why it's doin' what it's about to do ...
The primary objective of the paid parking program is to obtain higher financial support from customers residing in non-member cities. The demonstration partially addresses the equity concern expressed by service area residents who pay the full DART sales tax and the fare while non-residents pay only the transit fare.... and acknowledges, yes, there could be a drop in ridership accordingly but it's so worth it:
Increasing the cost of transit will result in some loss of patronage by customers residing outside the service area. The average loss in patronage is 3% for every 10% increase in the cost of using transit. However, since non-residents will have the option to shift to free lots, paid parking will cause some non-resident customers to shift to free parking lots.Now, jump. Don't worry. It's still free.
