That effort faltered and some cities are now considering pulling out altogether, potentially siphoning away nearly a third of the roughly $850 million DART receives annually in sales taxes from 13 member cities.
Four of those North Texas city councils chose this week to let voters decide next spring if they would exit DART, a move that could jeopardize the state’s largest public transportation system with a potentially fatal funding cut. The cuts could imperil an agency that is already fraught with budget and service concerns after its attempts to appease dissatisfied suburban member cities failed.
Citing concerns with service and costs, and after advocating for legislation to change DART’s funding and governance, residents of Plano, Irving, Farmers Branch and Highland Park will now vote next year on whether it’s worth contributing to the system.
If the measures pass and cities withdraw, service would stop in those cities the next day, DART communications chief Jeamy Molina said. DART’s bus routes, light rail and paratransit would cease operations.
“If any city withdraws from DART, obviously there is a financial impact to DART as a whole,” DART CEO Nadine Lee told reporters last week. “We would be very concerned about the impacts it would have across our entire network of services. … The riders will be impacted by any action that a city takes.”
Can DART Survive
Stephen Mattingly , a professor of civil engineering who studies transportation at the University of Texas at Arlington, said he’s fearful about the future of public transit in North Texas .
“If enough cities pull out, it could potentially mean the end of transit in the DART zone; the entire system could collapse,” he said. “I think it’s highly probable that that’s what the final outcome will be if every single one of the suburbs, or a large percentage of the suburbs, withdraw.”
DART could survive the blow, said former Dallas City Manager Ted Benavides , who teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas’ school of policy sciences.
“But it would be a challenge,” he said.
He’d expect to see major changes throughout the system, such as lower ridership and longer waits.
“Mobility is super important, and it’s getting more important as more people come,” Benavides said, referencing the upcoming World Cup matches in particular. “You want as many options as you can have to try to move people around.”
DART does not serve Arlington, where the World Cup matches will be held.
How is DART Funded and Governed?
DART is a regional transit agency authorized under Texas law and created in 1983. Member cities fund the agency through sales tax. Cities can collect two cents of every dollar spent locally, and member cities give one penny to DART. Leaving the agency could free cities to use that sales tax to fund economic development programs, as other North Texas cities have.
The transit agency serves 13 member cities: Addison, Carrollton, Cockrell Hill, Dallas, Farmers Branch, Garland, Glenn Heights, Highland Park, Irving, Plano, Richardson, Rowlett and University Park.
People took more than 29 million trips on DART’s buses in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the agency’s data, and more than 22 million on its light rail system.
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a huge blow to ridership. Bus ridership in 2024 was 20% less than in 2015, when people took more than 36 million trips on DART buses, and light rail ridership was down nearly 26% in 2024 compared to 2015. While ridership has been recovering since 2020, a March report showed DART’s ridership growth was slowing.
DART is governed by a 15-member board appointed by city councils in the service area based on population. Eight members are appointed by the city of Dallas and seven are appointed by the remaining cities.
Plano City Council member Julie Holmerthinks the model needs to be rethought.
“Right now, one city essentially holds the majority of control over how services are allocated to everyone else,” Holmer said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “That just doesn’t make sense for a regional system that’s supposed to serve all of us.”
Every six years, member cities can hold elections to withdraw from DART under state law. The next opportunity comes in 2026.
Who Is Footing the Bill?
In the 2024 fiscal year, DART had $851.8 million in sales tax revenue.
Dallas contributes the most sales tax to DART, more than $423 million in the 2023 fiscal year, according to agency documents. The next is Plano at $116 million and Irving at $103 million. If Plano, Irving, Farmers Branch and Highland Park withdrew from DART, the agency could lose more than $250 million a year.
Lee said after Plano’s vote Wednesday she’s less concerned about the financial blow to the agency as to the future of regional transit in North Texas.
“It’s more about how much access people would lose around the region, and in a growing region like ours, I don’t know that that’s really a good solution,” Lee said. “I just don’t think that’s very future-thinking.”
A 2024 report by the firm EY showed Plano contributed more than $109 million in fiscal year 2023, though DART spent about $44 million on services in the city.
“Certain cities, Plano being chief amongst them, are heavily subsidizing the DART system,” said former Plano council member Shelby Williams.
DART leaders have scrutinized the EY study’s methodology. The report also did not factor in the investment of the newly opened $2 billion Silver Line, which carries passengers from DFW International Airport to Plano’s Shiloh Road Station.
What's Behind the Price Tag?
Chants of “We want DART” echoed in Plano’s City Council chambers late Wednesday after more than an hour of passionate public comment by about 100 public transit supporters.
Some DART riders criticized Plano and other cities for putting dollars over people, prioritizing their own sales tax revenue over a regional transit system.
“The crux of this entire debate has been the disparity between the tax contributions and direct spending,” James Urech told the Plano City Council. “I believe that’s a flawed metric. Plano doesn’t exist in an infrastructure bubble.”
Irving officials cited cuts in bus routes and low ridership in their decision to consider pulling out, and Irving’s mayor cited a survey in which a mere 1% of residents reported using DART or the Trinity Railway Express every day. More than half of the survey’s 5,000 respondents reported members of their household had not used DART or TRE in the last year.
Mattingly said suburbs receive benefits from a regional transit system other than direct services, like development near DART infrastructure and a boost to the tax base. Public transit is also intended to reduce road congestion — especially on light rails — and serve low-income households and people with disabilities who can’t drive.
“A transit agency is going to struggle because they can’t serve both of those objectives at the same time very effectively,” Mattingly said. “It becomes even more challenging when we move into the suburban environments … where we’ve got less dense development.”
It’s also more difficult to serve riders who move in multiple corridors of traffic — not just to downtown Dallas , but throughout Collin and Denton counties.
How Are Other Transit Agencies Funded?
Public transportation is in crisis in other cities, where funding often comes mainly from sales tax revenue.
In Northern California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system expects to run out of the state and federal emergency funds provided by lawmakers next year. BART, which operates the region’s commuter train system, is funded by a mix of sources, including local and state funds, passenger and parking revenue and sales tax, but a shift to remote work has hit the agency’s finances hard.
Three counties contribute most of a half-cent sales tax to BART, which also receives part of a 1% general property tax levy and several smaller contributions of local funds.
Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is mainly funded through a portion of a statewide sales tax and funds from the state and federal government, and Atlanta’s Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority receives revenue from a 1% sales tax collected in three counties and a 1.5% sales tax from the city of Atlanta.
In Denver , transit is funded mainly by a 1% sales tax on purchases made within a regional transportation district, whose boundaries were established by the state in the 1960s and have since expanded through annexation.
A wider regional buy-in could have made more sense for DART, Mattingly said.
“County-level taxes … would have been a far more effective way for us to be thinking about this,” he said. “The fact that the entire region is not bought in and contributing, likely led to this opportunity for politicians to say … ‘We’re not getting what we want out of this system.’”
Sales tax revenue represents about 70% of DART’s overall budget. Other revenue sources include fares, federal funds, interest and borrowing.
What Is the General Mobility Program?
DART’s financial future remains murky and is further complicated by lackluster financial forecasts. Upcoming service cuts are intended to help DART balance its 2026 budget, which is expected to fall more than $78 million short of available revenue.
A chunk of that shortfall comes as a result of DART refunding some cities’ sales taxes.
The DART board voted in March to refund seven cities a collective $42 million in 2026 — 5% of its annual sales tax revenue — to use on local transportation projects because they received less service than their contributions in 2023.
The effort, called the general mobility program, was an attempt to negotiate with cities that had supported state legislation that would have permanently slashed DART’s available revenue by a fourth.
In addition to the general mobility program’s budget blow, inflationary pressures, more city service requests and the Silver Line’s operations add to the agency’s plate.
Facing these costs, DART leaders voted to reduce frequency on some bus and light rail lines and discontinue seven low-performing routes. The service cuts go into effect early next year and are aimed at saving $24 million a year. They were an alternative to $60 million in cuts that caused a public outcry at a hearing earlier this year.
The Case for Regional Transit
The attempt to appease member cities may fail when DART membership is put up for a vote. The agency may lose more than a quarter of its sales tax revenue if member cities choose to withdraw.
Keun Lee, policy research chair for the advocacy group Dallas Area Transit Alliance, thinks the costs will still fall to cities tasked with providing public transportation.
“Cities will have to fund that gap out of their own pocket,” Keun Lee said. “I don’t think that’s a service you can provide locally that provides the breadth and depth of service, of coverage that DART provides.”
In a statement, the North Central Texas Council of Governments offered help to local municipalities mend relationships with DART, and is working to develop transit solutions for the region.
“It is important for the future of the region that some ability exists to resolve specific local government concerns without injuring the delivery of transit to a region that will accommodate 12.4 million residents by 2050,” the statement said.
Mattingly believes a vibrant regional transit system contributes to a vibrant regional economy.
“Cities absolutely may be capable of providing more effective transit-related solutions within their borders,” Mattingly said, adding that “the regional system means an awful lot and requires investment from as many members within the region as possible.”
The future of DART and regional transportation now rests with voters in four North Texas cities who could head to the polls in May of next year.
A decision at the ballot box could still be avoided: Cities have until 45 days before the scheduled votes to call off the elections.
Until then, DART and its member cities have an opportunity to reach a deal and avoid withdrawals that could doom the agency as riders know it.
Email tips on all things Collin County to lilly.kersh@dallasnews.com.
©2025 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
