What do you think of the DART? (Houston, Dallas: property taxes, budget)

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by orion1778

Like I already suggested, even the parts of Dallas that should have decent pedestrian traffic (ie. the places you mention) are still freakishly deserted, even when you'd think they would be hopping. There are plenty of people in the bars and restaurants in the trendy parts of Dallas, but the valet seems to be the preferred method of spending the night out.

Of course no city will have every one of its streets packed with people at every hour of the day. But if you compare the lively areas of San Francisco with the places in Dallas you mention, the amount of pedestrian traffic is indisputable. Aside from maybe Houston, I haven't been to many other cities with such deserted streets in the liveliest parts of town.

The parts of Dallas that I mentioned are not "freakishly deserted". The West End is not deserted on a weekend night, nor is the West Village or Mockingbird Station. Legacy Town Center is pretty crowded, as are lifestyle centers such as Southlake Town Center or Firewheel Town Center in Garland.

The Preston Center area in near North Dallas is pretty popular with pedestrians... I know, I have a condo there.

When Park Lane Place is completed (it's currently under construction), the DFW area will have another heavily pedestrianized area adjacent to a DART rail station.

I lived in San Francisco for many years, and I did my share of pub crawling in The parts of SF with pedestrian activity. Much of the pedestrian traffic is caused by the inability of people to park reasonably close to their final destination. Indeed, they have to walk from a remote parking garage to get to where they're going.

Another factor is that SF does not have malls comparable to The Dallas Galleria or Northpark, let alone second tier malls such as Irving Mall, Valley View, etc. About the best it can do is a small mall in the Stonestown area of southwest SF, practically a white-bread suburban area in its own right. If I wanted to do some people-watching, I'd go to Northpark to see more people in one place than anywhere in San Francisco outside of the Fisherman's Wharf area.

As far as Boston, its major areas of street life are also relatively few... the few blocks of Newbury Street, the Prudential mall and the extension across the road. Harvard Square in Cambridge... also popular... but certainly not every block in the urban core. True, there are some neighborhoods that have many tourists milling about during the day, but not necessarily at night.

You used the phrase "deserted streets in the lively parts of town". That is what is called an "oxymoron". If the streets are deserted, the parts of town are not lively, by definition.

[tallscot]

DART cost Plano $65 million last year, $59 million this year.

A DART light rail train carries 225 people, max. That's its capacity. That means a bit over 3,000 people can take the train, max, between 7 am and 9 pm from Plano. Because a significant percentage of the riders are from Allen and McKinney, that means less than 1% of Plano takes a DART train during the commute.

$65 million for less than 1%.

That's less than 1% of the Plano cars off of the freeway. Less than 1% of the cars means less than 1% of the pollution.

Because Plano is giving 50% of its sales tax revenue to DART, it's $17 million in the hole in 2008, $100 million in the hole over the next 3 years (projected budget).

Frisco, Allen, McKinney, on the other hand, are all doing fine.

Frisco uses 25% of their sales tax revenue for an economic incentive fund. This is why Frisco has been able to attract a lot of business and retail away from Plano.

Plano has responded to this by increasing the property tax to create their own economic incentive fund. So DART is directly responsible for the budget deficit AND an increase in property taxes.

This Plano economic incentive fund is a fraction of Frisco's, though.

Plano will have to cut back services and hiring, because of DART.

Plano's leaders thought that DART would revitalize the old "downtown" area in Plano. It hasn't. Half of the condominiums that were built next to the stations are still vacant, years later.

The city is still subsidizing that old downtown area to the tune of $20 million since DART stations opened there. They have a new development going up that the city is partnering with.

Light rail carries a tiny number of people compared with the huge cost. It costs so much money, transit authorities cut back bus routes. Look at Plano's DART bus route map. The entire northern half of Plano , west of Custer, has no bus service. I would have to walk 2.5 miles to Preston Rd. to catch a bus, get off at 15th and take a bus east, several miles, to the light rail station. This trip, before I even get on a train, would take me about an hour.

A large number of light rail riders are people who were taking the bus before the light rail line was built.

You never see the costs reported. You never see accurate ridership numbers. You get anecdotal stories about how the parking lots are full. Yeah, the parking lot is full, yet that number is 1% of the number of commuting cars in the morning.

The sales tax cap in Texas is 8.25%. The state gets 6.25% and the city can tax 2%. Because light rail costs so much and DART and other transit authorities can't raise enough money to expand the regional rail, they are trying to get the sales tax cap raised in Texas above 8.25%.

The costs are huge, for no measurable benefit.

It's nice if you happen to live next to a station and work near a station, but that is a tiny, tiny number of people that the rest of the population has to pay a high price for.

If Allen, McKinney and Frisco are smart, they will never vote for DART. If they do, they will see a huge drop in the amount of money they will have for libraries, parks, police, fire...

[aceplace]

The costs versus benefits of transit have been argued ad infinitum. Your side has been concisively defeated in every forum its beeen debated, and in the behavior of every major metropolitan area in the world.

We're paying $4 per gallon now... what about $5 or $6 or $8 per gallon?.

[tallscot]

You didn't refute a single fact in my post.

The solution for the high price of gas is not a light rail line that can't carry 5% of the population, let alone 100% of it, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The solution for high gas prices is to increase our supply of oil. We are the ONLY country in the world that chooses NOT to use our own supply. We get most of our oil from Canada. Number 3 is Mexico.

The long-term best solution is to have cars that run on electricity. The equivalent price per gallon for electricity is a fraction of gas.

[tallscot]

My numbers were actually too generous.

According to this article in the DMN, there are 197,000 riders at the Plano station per year.

That comes to 540 riders per day, or .2% of the population of Plano. And that's only if all those riders are from Plano. They are not. They are also from Allen and McKinney.

Plano spends 30% of its entire city budget on less than .2% of the population.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by tallscot

You didn't refute a single fact in my post.

The solution for the high price of gas is not a light rail line that can't carry 5% of the population, let alone 100% of it, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The solution for high gas prices is to increase our supply of oil. We are the ONLY country in the world that chooses NOT to use our own supply. We get most of our oil from Canada. Number 3 is Mexico.

The long-term best solution is to have cars that run on electricity. The equivalent price per gallon for electricity is a fraction of gas.

That's an entirely seperate issue. I'd agree withyou that the price of gaoline is being distorted by government controls on where drilling can occur and the number of refineries that the government can permit.

[FarNorthDallas]

Originally Posted by tallscot

My numbers were actually too generous.

According to this article in the DMN, there are 197,000 riders at the Plano station per year.

That comes to 540 riders per day, or .2% of the population of Plano. And that's only if all those riders are from Plano. They are not. They are also from Allen and McKinney.

Plano spends 30% of its entire city budget on less than .2% of the population.

197,000 at the downtown station, it read to me. I wonder how many get on at Parker with the big Park and Ride lots. Also, you can add Sherman and Denison to the list of towns where people are from who get on at Parker. I've heard some folks are using a Plano Transit City to get on express buses downtown.

[aceplace]

Any discussion of the value of Dart is a dead isue. The public has decided that transit from Plano to DT Dallas is desirable. Any argument to the contrary is irrelevant.

[tallscot]

197,000 at the downtown station, it read to me

So if we double it, it's .4%.

If at the Parker station, 225 people got on every single train (the max), the numbers are still very, very small. But they aren't close to getting maxed out.

Also, you can add Sherman and Denison to the list of towns where people are from who get on at Parker. I've heard some folks are using a Plano Transit City to get on express buses downtown.

Some metro areas use "Bus Rapid Transit" where the expressway has dedicated lanes with platforms much like a train platform. The advantage of bus over rail is the bus route is flexible, it can take you from the surface streets onto the expressway without requiring a transfer, and it costs a fraction of what rail costs.

For a lot less money, we could have more places a bus will pick you up and take you downtown using the new HOV lane on Central Expressway.

Originally Posted by aceplace

Any discussion of the value of Dart is a dead isue. The public has decided that transit from Plano to DT Dallas is desirable. Any argument to the contrary is irrelevant.

No it isn't. Plano can get out of DART if they want to stop spending 30% of their city budget on it. The problem is we have a Brown Shirt mentality on this issue where people try to shut down discourse and don't want the facts to be reported to the public.

And my issue isn't about "transit", it's specifically about light rail. As I stated in my post, bus service is hindered because of rail, and that hurts the poor since they rely on bus service. We should have bus service, but light rail is way too expensive for the number of people it carries.

It's also not a dead issue since pro-rail advocates want to increase my sales tax. On top of that, other cities are being pressured to join DART.

The facts need to be reported about what is happening in Plano. This issue isn't reported objectively at all. I have yet to see a single article that includes the actual costs in dollars. You read "a penny", which makes it sound like it doesn't cost much at all. I also read about how full the parking lots, as if that actually means anything.

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by tallscot

Plano can get out of DART if they want to stop spending 30% of their city budget on it.

The people of Plano do not want to get out of DART. And no, the City of Plano is not spending any of its money out of its municipal budget on DART.

If a citizen of Plano doesn't want to pay the DART tax, he or she can just shop in Frisco. What a wonderful thing. Most taxes are mandatory, but the DART tax is optional. The only optional one I ever heard of.

By the way, I don't have to attempt to refute your claims. They have already been refuted in just about every city in America. Rail transit is being planned for and being built everywhere. The arguments against your position, which of course you don't mention, overwhelmingly outweigh your points. Do you believe that everyone else is wrong and you are the only one who sees the light?

In an era where we pay $3 per gallon one year and $4 per gallon the next, and only God knows how much 5 years from now, the demand for rail transit from places that do not currently have it will be enormous. Currently, Frisco, Irving, and Carrollton are exploring the ways of establishing a commuter rail line to Dallas on the Burlington rail corridor. Their people want a way to commute to Las Colinas and downtown Dallas without spending $20 dollars per day on gasoline, or driving cars the size of motor scooters.