Audio By Carbonatix
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.
