Gordon Shattles/DART
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The Addison City Council voted to send a “letter of demands” to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board at a meeting on Tuesday.
Less than two months after the body balked at the idea of an exit vote from DART, City Council members voted 5-2 to call a May withdrawal election on Jan. 27. Addison is the sixth member city to call such an election, joining neighboring Farmers Branch, along with Irving, Plano, Highland Park and University Park.
Several cities have submitted letters to the DART board outlining city-specific goals and calling for changes to the agency’s funding structure and governance. The proposals serve as the basis for negotiations to call off elections by March 24, the last day to legally do so. Farmers Branch and Irving’s publicly available letters were included in a presentation made available to Council members ahead of the meeting.
After close to two hours of at times tense discussion on what the city would like to see in the document, termed a “letter of demands” by Council member Dan Liscio in the meeting, an uneasy consensus was reached on Addison’s goals for funding reform, levels of service and DART governance.
The Council decided to request the return of some of the city’s 1-cent sales tax contribution in the form of a general mobility program. Similar to proposals from Plano and Farmers Branch, the GMP would initially return 25% of Addison’s sales tax dollars to the city, increasing to 50% by 2031.
As in other discontented member cities, Addison’s return on investment under DART has come under scrutiny from officials in recent months, with agency data from an Ernst and Young study showing that the city contributed $16.7 million in sales tax to DART in 2023. That year, $9 million worth of services were provided to Addison.
However, under a general mobility program, cities would be required to direct freed-up revenue toward transportation-related projects and likely have to provide DART with annual expenditure reports. Council members like Howard Freed and Randy Smith said they wouldn’t support that model as a long-term solution.
“They couldn’t come back with any percentage to me that I would be happy with on financing, because they would have to dictate that,” Smith said in the meeting. “And at this point, I don’t know why we are concentrating on us writing a letter.”
Only the state legislature can permanently reduce DART’s sales tax contributions without stipulations on how the funds are spent. Council member Darren Gardner called the GMP a “stopgap” until cities can effect more fundamental changes in Austin.
The group decided to call for bus, rail and federally required paratransit services to continue being provided by DART, with GMP funds used to fund circulator routes and point-to-point service. Alternate service models, including microtransit, will be discussed at a future meeting.
City Manager David Gaines said it was unrealistic for bus, rail and paratransit service levels to remain unchanged with an up to 50% reduction in sales tax contribution.
“We’re not going to do 50% with the same service level,” Gaines said in the meeting.
Mayor Bruce Artsfen, who cast one of the two votes against calling the May election, said some demands were contradictory.
“I think we kind of have conflicting goals here. We want to save a little and get all this money back. We want them to do everything,” Artsfen said. “Want everything to be cleaner and safer. Which… 100% I’m on board for that, but we can’t reduce service and reduce the scope of what they’re offering and provide better service.”
Changes to DART’s governance structure were also called for. Council members echoed demands from cities like Irving for a “one city, one vote” board structure, in which each member city would have its interests represented by at least one board member. Votes would be weighted by population. Addison, Richardson, Highland Park and University Park are currently represented on the DART board by one board member.
The Dallas City Council’s transportation and infrastructure committee recently gave the city manager leeway to negotiate the city’s number of seats on a potentially expanded 20-member board. Committee members, however, remained adamant that the city retain decision-making power on the board. Dallas representatives currently hold or share eight of the DART board’s 15 seats.
At the meeting, Addison Council members said they were opposed to that.
“I think it’s unreasonable for Dallas to have a 50% weighted vote,” Mayor Pro Tem Marlin Wilson said at the meeting. “I think that’s crazy. I think 40%, with the size of Dallas and the money and so forth, is reasonable.”
Transparency, safety and cleanliness were also highlighted as topics for the letter in the meeting.
The council will next meet on Feb. 10 to discuss further steps and contingency plans if voters choose to withdraw from DART. City managers like Gaines will continue negotiations in the meantime.
With six cities proposing six solutions to six sets of localized issues, he told Council members the response likely won’t be as nuanced.
“If they [DART] have a solution at all, it will be a one-size-fits-all solution,” Gaines said. “They’re not going to have different ILAs [inter-local agreements] with different cities, understandably.”
