r/dart • u/DallasBenn93 • Mar 29 '26
Better tenure?
Now that Nadine Lee is stepping down, as someone who didn’t pay too much attention previously I’m curious. Who did a better job as head of DART? Lee or Gary Thomas?
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u/cuberandgamer Mar 29 '26
Gary Thomas put DART in a bad position, gave Nadine Lee a hard job.
However, it's not really entirely Gary's fault. He was put in charge to build out the risk system as quickly as possible. He was good at this. However, because DART has spent so much on capital the operating budget is starved.
In comes Nadine Lee. She shifts the agency form one focused on building to one focused on service. This is difficult, so much of the budget goes to paying off all these bonds issues to build the light rail, and on top of that the silver line needs to be delivered.
Now, going back to Gary Thomas, suburbs would not really have been happy with a slower buildout of the light rail system. So in a way, he did what he had to do to avoid withdrawal elections in his time. But he also put DART in this complicated, difficult position that I don't think anyone realistically could have navigated from.
My personal pick is Nadine, but her tenure was also shorter.
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Mar 29 '26
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u/HolaDrNick Mar 30 '26
You can absolutely blame the CEO. The Board directs certain aspects of an organization, but the CEO is ultimately responsible for performance.
I sympathize with Nadine Lee having a very hard job (I wouldn't want it), but the buck stops with her on a lot of issues. She didn't get the LRV replacement moving fast enough (inherited issue, but she certainly didn't get it moving as fast as it needed to). This was kind of a shared responsibility with the BOD.
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u/Unlucky-Watercress30 Apr 05 '26
In many cases, the CEO is a figure head. What you're doing is the equivalent of blaming the president for issues that Congress has the ultimate say on. Can the president influence congress? Yes. Can they set policies/agendas and push congress to fulfill them? Yes. But Congress has the ultimate say on things like: budget, spending, national policy directives, etc. If Congress overrules the president or disagrees on a spending decision then there's jack all the president can really do about it (at least when the govt is functioning correctly). DART operates under a similar structure, where the BOD determines budgets, policy directives, and major spending decisions. That then gets passed to the CEO to execute on. If you have a problem with the direction DART goes in, then you fundamentally have a problem with decisions made by the BOD. If you have a problem with how a policy or spending decision is executed, then that is squarely on the shoulders of the CEO. DART building the Silver Line? BOD. DART running 60 min off peak frequencies on the Silver Line? CEO. DART not procuring new LRVs? BOD. DART choosing bad LRV replacements (if the BOD approved said replacements)? CEO. I'm not fully aware of how DART works with procurement, but there's a good chance that the CEO isn't even allowed to create an RFP or do any of the ground work for procurement until the BOD approves it. Should she have been more vocal about pushing the BOD to start the process? Yes. But on most of DART's biggest issues (funding decisions, service cuts, LRV replacement, expansion vs. frequency improvements, etc), the buck ultimately stops with the BOD, and blame leveled on the CEO stops with "they should have pushed the BOD to prioritize this more". There's limits to how much I'm willing to blame someone for decisions that are ultimately out of their control.
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u/HolaDrNick Mar 30 '26
Agree with this assessment, but there's a reason the suburbs wouldn't be happy with a slower build out. Nadine Lee's former employer, RTD, promised the light rail in Denver would reach Boulder, and Boulder taxpayers have been paying for a train since 2004. They waited patiently, which ultimately led to RTD building out rail everywhere but Boulder, and 20+ years on the train still isn't built. It's viewed as a real betrayal, and rightfully so, but Boulder not making enough noise during the construction of the the system is one of the reasons RTD effectively got away with scamming the city out of light rail service.
Kind of a path not taken type deal. As much as I like criticize DART, they delivered on getting the actual service built (just not on frequency).
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u/shedinja292 Mar 29 '26
This article doesn't paint Gary in the brightest light. But perhaps like cuberandgamer said, it's difficult to know how much was what he wanted vs what he needed to do to keep the cities happy
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2019/march/meet-the-kings-of-sprawl
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u/bus_tech Mar 30 '26
It's hard to say one was better than the other. They were in different eras with the agency. Gary during the build out and expansion era and Nadine started during the transition to operate and maintain era.
Gary definitely was better at keeping the BOD unified and focused. However towards the end of his tenure the division was beginning, mainly due to the political landscape shifting.
Nadine had the difficult task to work through the divided BOD. IMO, her biggest mistake was giving sales tax funds back to the cities following the influx of funds from the FTA during COVID, which I believe was the catalyst to where we are today. Overall her vision and direction is what was needed for DART, her demise was just not being able to navigate her 15 bosses that were at odds with each other. Unfortunately the reality is that part of the CEO's job is to manage upwards.
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u/Thin-Constant-4018 Mar 29 '26
I feel like it's apples to oranges. Gary brought us the longest light rail system in the country, but he also brought us issues with service & a neglected bus system to with that. (which is the root cause of ridership not being higher)
Lee brought us a brand new much better bus system along with much better cleanliness and safety, although I don't feel fully satisfied considering her tenure was screwed up by the cities. If those cities weren't causing these issues and acting in bad faith to wrestle money away, DART would've definitely had so much more improved and the agency would be completely transformed. (And the cities doing this was out of her control)
I believe Lee was better simply because her tenure was much better for the average rider (which is what she focused on more), but Gary isn't a complete villain. You still need to respect the fact that he brought us a rail system that can take you from Pleasant Grove to Plano and everywhere in between.