Facing a deficit budget, officials with Dallas Area Rapid Transit are considering service cuts. As the agency tries to navigate that void, one thing is certain: DART should not look for savings at the expense of riders in southern Dallas, nor of those with disabilities.
With roughly a $78 million shortfall in its 2026 budget, DART is looking at eliminating the South Dallas on-demand service zone, severing a bus route that runs through Red Bird and reducing the frequency of most bus routes. It’s also considering reduced paratransit service and higher paratransit fares that would nearly double.
The proposed service cuts are largely the result of a fight between DART and the cities it serves over whether the transit agency provides enough value to justify the 1% sales tax it gets from each member city. Some suburban officials complain that residents of their cities don’t use DART buses, and the proposed cuts would eliminate several suburban routes. The deep cuts in Dallas and the suburbs are “a worst-case scenario,” a DART spokesperson said.
Yet the cities seeking concessions from DART are not backing down. The agency is in a tough spot and will have to make hard decisions. But those decisions shouldn’t disproportionately harm the riders in Dallas and across the system who depend on transit the most.
Opinion
Last week, more than 200 people spoke at a public hearing about the proposed service changes, not a single one of them in favor, our colleague Amber Gaudet reported. They put a face to policy decisions often reduced to dollar signs and political calculations. As DART and city leaders negotiate over the agency’s budget, they should remember the everyday people whose daily lives will be affected.
Sherri Mixon, executive director of the T.R. Hoover Community Development Corp. in South Dallas, said many of the people her nonprofit helps need DART to get around. She told us about an older woman who relies entirely on DART for her transportation, whether that means getting to and from doctor’s appointments or church services. She told Mixon “when she can’t depend on people, she knows she can always catch DART.”
Mixon said she also knows a 25-year-old woman who relies on DART to get to and from work. Mixon worries that service cuts will hamper the woman’s ability to get to her job, putting her at risk of falling into homelessness.
“We had to face the reality, you know, that she’s one paycheck away from being there,” Mixon said.
Paratransit users and their advocates are also eyeing the proposed service cuts with anxiety. Jennifer Rottkamp, a teacher at W. H. Adamson High School, told us that one of her students and her father, who is ill, rely on paratransit to get to and from doctor appointments. Rottkamp said they are on a limited income, and other than being forced to stay home, she doesn’t know what would happen to them if service were rolled back.
There are so many stories like these. In addition to the dozens of people who spoke at the recent public hearing, nearly 700 people submitted written comments during the community meetings before the hearing, Gaudet reported.
So how did we get here? Earlier this year, Plano, Irving and other cities dissatisfied with DART asked the Legislature to force the agency to send a quarter of the sales tax collected from the cities back to them. That maneuver would have set off a downward spiral for DART.
The bill didn’t pass, but we suspect that has more to do with time running short than a lack of support from lawmakers.
Agency directors in March approved a program to send 5% of the total sales tax collection back to certain member cities. They’ve also supported service changes requested by member cities, like a city-wide on-demand zone and circulator for Plano.
These attempts at placating member cities are largely the reason for the budget deficit. DART would still be facing one regardless, but nothing on this scale, according to an agency spokesperson.
These olive branches from DART haven’t even worked. Officials from some member cities have said they’re not enough. One state representative has already promised to bring back the issue of DART’s funding in the next session. Perhaps DART’s proposed service cuts are meant to give it a little more credibility and leverage with lawmakers when defunding efforts return.
DART is an imperfect transit system. It faces a lawsuit over the alleged failure to protect paratransit passengers from sexual assault, Gaudet reported. Long wait times and missed trips have been an issue, too.
The agency needs to address those issues urgently. It also has work to do figuring out how to boost ridership, improve safety and make transit a stronger driver of economic growth. As it does so, service changes — and sometimes reductions — will be necessary. The DART board of directors is expected to make decisions about reductions at its Aug. 1 meeting.
But policy decisions are no good when they’re divorced from the people they affect. The cuts demanded by the suburbs are no longer an abstraction. DART and its member cities shouldn’t settle their disagreements on the backs of people who can least afford to lose transit.