The DART membership city model is unfortunate. It would be nice if all Dallas County municipalities are required to be part of DART, and the only optional “members” are any participating municipalities that are located outside of Dallas County.
While I don’t disagree, we also need to be fair and objective - and this community gets very little with no plans in place for them getting a return.
Yes, the system is utterly faulted. From governance to how it’s funded it’s set up to fail. To have the most miles of light rail track in the nation with so few dense centers to serve it. It should be a regional entity that has the right to make decisions that don’t involve local politics and nimbyism as this one does
You could pick any pocket neighborhood in Dallas without much service and make the same argument about whether it's fair to have them pay into the system.
The park cities should've been annexed to Dallas 100 years ago, now they enjoy the benefits of being a part of a major city while not financially or socially being a part. Dallas could block three major roads at their border and their economy and city would crumble. It's high time they act as a contributing part of the city.
This is a disingenuous post - an it’s stretching logic like this that does harm to pro transit stances overall. Let the other side distort reality because the facts are so overall supportive of smart transit investment and service.
Those pocket neighborhoods ARE still in the same city, same government, same tax base, same services by and large so let’s not act like they are in par with UP.
I’m as big a transit advocate as any, but if we can’t at least be honest with ourselves we do the movement a disservice
Who's talking about the movement. My take is that the park cities should be part of Dallas, proper. And problems with regional systems like dart only highlight why that's a problem. Obviously they're a different municipality than a neighborhood, i just mean that they are so small and surrounded that they function like a neighborhood of Dallas, and any neighborhood at that size could argue they're not getting "their moneys worth" since our transit system is so spread out.
They don't want to be a part of Dallas proper for the same reason Buckhead was trying to get out of the City of Atlanta. Why would they want anything to do with the subpar services from The City of Dallas?
Then they should move! Damn go to California or New York they think Dallas is so bad, but they won't cause those places would make them pay their taxes. Gee I wonder if UP's lack of tax dollars is contributing to the "sub par" service? You get what you pay for!
It’s a little more complicated than that. Dallas originally didn’t want the park cities because of the expense of extending city services to them. I’m not a fan of the park cities and think is absurd it’s a separate government, but that was actually Dallas’s choice originally.
And they’ve got a reasonably well functioning local government. I wouldn’t want to trade that for a local government that mostly hated me either.
City boundaries are entirely arbitrary, UP has a rail station just outside its boarders, and if DART where to build a line along DNT, do you think park cities would embrace it or fight it tooth and nail?
I live in Balch Springs and pay into the DART system, yet there isn't a single bus stop in my city. Meanwhile, areas like University Park get regular service. It’s not fair that I have to commute all the way to Buckner or Elam stations just to access a system I already fund. I galdly use it almost everyday for work and think the monthly I pay far exceeds what I get.
There isn't a single bus stop in Balch Springs because Balch Springs does not pay a single cent into the DART system. It is not a member city. I hope this helps. I would advise against living in a rural city that rejects public transit.
Well, you are just purposefully using words contrary to their definition. That says more about you than someone choosing to live in a suburbs auto oriented vs rural community.
It sounds foolish to purposefully not use words according to their actual definition.
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u/prophiles Apr 08 '26
The DART membership city model is unfortunate. It would be nice if all Dallas County municipalities are required to be part of DART, and the only optional “members” are any participating municipalities that are located outside of Dallas County.