In the November 16 episode, Congresswoman Julie Johnson explains why she disagrees with the Democratic Senators who helped end the longest shutdown in history. Congressman Jake Ellzey tells us why we shouldn’t expect another shutdown when temporary funding ends January 30. And Mike Collier discusses his decision to launch a third campaign for Lieutenant Governor, but this time as an independent.
< spk_0 - 00:00:00.5890000 >
I actually drove because I was running late today, but I will say that I got stuck in traffic and I was thinking to myself, gosh, you know, if we had better transit here in Dallas, then I would have taken transit. No,
< spk_1 - 00:00:11.2790000 >
you didn't think that. Are you serious?
< spk_0 - 00:00:13.0690000 >
I'm serious. I think that every day, every time I have to drive in Dallas, I think we could do better with transit, and I'll, um, you know, the thing I'll say about that is that there's nobody in this area who wants to improve transit more than the people at DART and myself.
< spk_2 - 00:00:37.3800000 >
Hey y'all, this is where Texas politics gets interesting. Here again are two guys named Jason, some great guests, and cold Texas beer for another smart conversation on Y'alllitics, the unofficial political podcast of Texas.
< spk_1 - 00:00:57.0690000 >
Hey guys, welcome back to Y'alllitics. Going it alone this episode. This is an early episode for us to actually be taping this. We're having coffee instead of beer at one of our favorite places, Manhattan Project Brewing Company, and you know Wheeler is not a morning guy at all, so he's sleeping in for this episode. We're talking about the future of mass transit here today, and the largest mass transit system in the state, probably the Southwest. I'm gonna get the stats on this here in a few minutes. It's the, uh, DART system, Dallas Area Rapid Transit. Been in the news a lot here lately.
< spk_1 - 00:01:26.8490000 >
People rode DART 55 million times last year. That's trains, buses, paratransit, uh, GoLink, shuttles, and, and probably other forms of DART that I don't know about, uh, that we're about to find out more, uh, about here in a moment. 163,000 people a day, that's what it equates to. So joining us for this episode is Nadine Lee. She is the president and CEO of DART. Worked in Los Angeles, Denver, but you're from central Missouri, huh? That's right. Wow. Well, welcome to Texas. I know you've been here for a minute.
< spk_1 - 00:01:56.4590000 >
You know what was interesting when I was researching for this, uh, Nadine, you're a professional engineer and you're a ballet dancer.
< spk_0 - 00:02:04.3700000 >
I'm a pretend ballet dancer, just for the record, I started in my 40s. I'm not good. I'm terrible I am.
< spk_1 - 00:02:12.9700000 >
And for our, for our listeners and viewers who haven't seen the uh the profile piece in D Magazine, will you tell us why you got into ballet?
< spk_0 - 00:02:22.3800000 >
Uh, actually, the reason I got into ballet is partially because as a kid I always wanted to do ballet, but I never had the opportunity. And then, um, you know, as I got older, you know, never had time. And then I had this major health scare in about 2010. And at that point I was like, you know what, I'm not going to wait any longer. I think I just need to go and do these things that I want to do and not be afraid to do them and not be afraid of looking silly. And so I signed up for some classes through the Colorado Ballet Academy.
< spk_0 - 00:02:52.2100000 >
That was back when you could get Groupons, and I bought a Groupon that got me some cheap passes, like a 44 punch pass or something like that. And so I started taking dance then and I just haven't stopped since. Wow, you still do it now. I do. I do. I actually, I have my ballet.
< spk_0 - 00:03:06.0380000 >
The teacher who I took with in Los Angeles moved to Austin and of course during the pandemic we all started doing things online, so I take a private ballet class with her online on the weekends and then I try to get to the studio as much as I can, although I confess that I have not been in the studio probably all summer.
< spk_1 - 00:03:23.2400000 >
Well, there, there's been things going on we're going to talk about, but before we get going on on the issue at hand here, which people have probably seen in the headlines of these 5 member cities, 5 of the 13 member cities, uh, holding these withdrawal elections next May. I do want to ask you, we're at Manhattan Project on the west side of the skyline in Dallas. How did you get here? Did you drive or did you take DART
< spk_0 - 00:03:42.3690000 >
here? I actually drove because I was running late today, but I will say that I got stuck in traffic and I was thinking to myself, gosh, you know, if we had better transit here in Dallas, then I would have taken transit. No,
< spk_1 - 00:03:53.2700000 >
you didn't think that. Are you serious?
< spk_0 - 00:03:55.0590000 >
I'm serious. I think that every day, every time I have to drive in Dallas, I think we could do better with transit, and I'll, um, you know, the thing I'll say about that is that. There's nobody in this area who wants to improve transit more than the people at DART and myself because, you know, me specifically, I have lived in a lot of places. I've visited a lot of cities around the world. I know what good transit looks like. We need to do a lot more and a lot better, um, and that's not to say that we don't do well right now.
< spk_0 - 00:04:23.3200000 >
It's because there are a lot of things that we could do if we had the capacity and the resources to do it. We don't, um, and that's the nature of the beast. Um, it's true of transit everywhere in the United States.
< spk_1 - 00:04:33.3990000 >
Obviously we don't compare to Boston, DC, New York, uh, places like that or Chicago, but, but how do we compare to places you have been Denver and, and Los Angeles? How, how does DAT and, and. North Texas compared to that when it comes to mass transit, buses and trains.
< spk_0 - 00:04:47.9660000 >
Yeah, we don't have nearly enough buses and trains. Um, we have a very extensive light rail line and that's fantastic, uh, but our service levels are just not high enough. Um, I think frequencies or what? It's frequencies exactly, um, headways, frequencies, however you want to call it. But, um, but in every place that I've lived where people use mass transit a lot, it's because it comes around every 5 or 10 minutes, and that is very expensive to do. Especially with the system as big as ours, um, but we could certainly do it on the bus side.
< spk_0 - 00:05:15.4510000 >
Most places that I've lived, you know, I've lived in places where there's a bus route, you know, a block or two either direction from where I've lived. That doesn't happen as much here in Dallas, um, here in our service area, which isn't just Dallas. Um, but, you know, people have to want more transit, um, which I think I've heard people say that they do, and I think that's true for people who ride.
< spk_0 - 00:05:36.8800000 >
Um, and then I think the other piece is that, you know, we, we as a community together in this entire region have to decide how do we want people to move in the future. Uh, I think everybody knows that traffic has been getting worse and worse, and that is true, particularly since the pandemic when people got really afraid to ride transit because I think people saw mass transit as a super spreader for COVID. But, um, the
< spk_1 - 00:05:59.1600000 >
numbers have recovered since then though. The ridership numbers
< spk_0 - 00:06:01.2380000 >
have the numbers have recovered to about 80 to 83% of pre-COVID ridership, but, um, they're not back to what they
< spk_1 - 00:06:08.3590000 >
were pre-COVID.
< spk_0 - 00:06:09.3590000 >
No, no, because, and, and there are a lot of factors to that, right? I mean, everybody asks us, well, why isn't ridership better? Well, you know, one of the biggest factors is that people still work from home, you know, and even though in this DFW. area, there are a lot of businesses that are bringing writers or I'm sorry, bringing people back to the office. It's not happening all over. People are still working, you know, 3 days a week in the office, 2 days at home, so that impacts the demand for our services.
< spk_1 - 00:06:33.6090000 >
And Wheeler, we're talking about you here as far as working from home, especially. All right, Nadine, let's get into the, the, the crux of this here. The, the, the thing that's probably been keeping you up. Night you have 4 of the 13 member cities that that make up DART um that are putting the issue to voters saying listen, do we want to leave the transit agency, walk away, go it alone, take our money back from the transit agency and and and figure things out on our on our own as far as how do we get our people around for people who may not realize this, this has happened.
< spk_1 - 00:07:04.2600000 >
Way before you and I came around back in I think '89 is the last time this happened. Uh, Capel and Flower Mound both left DART, but, but how do you think DART got itself into this situation?
< spk_0 - 00:07:16.9800000 >
So there, there are a lot of different factors, right? I mean, for every, every situation like this, there's not one thing that causes, uh, causes the discontent. Um, I think a lot of things have happened that our northern suburbs have grown quite a bit. Uh, the sales taxes collected in.
< spk_0 - 00:07:33.9150000 >
The suburbs, uh, collectively is more than 50% of the sales taxes that we collect and previously, uh, the city of Dallas alone, um, contributed, or at least we collected the sales taxes that were, uh, collected more than 50% of the sales taxes in terms of the total pot. Um, I think as a result of that, uh, cities, the suburban cities are saying, hey, wait a second, you know, we get less service than the city of Dallas.
< spk_0 - 00:08:00.5000000 >
Why are we paying so much money into the dark coffers? What do you say to that? Well, I think it's a reasonable question if You're thinking only of your city, right? Um, I think, you know, when we chose to build the system that we have today, everyone agreed.
< spk_0 - 00:08:16.6250000 >
Everyone said, hey, we're gonna contribute to this because it's good for the region and because we recognize that, you know, at that time, especially, and even now, a number of people in our suburban communities travel to Dallas for work or they travel to Dallas to do, you know, to go to Fair Park or whatever for the state fair. So there was a recognition that regional connectivity was really important. Um, but now has changed since the reason is the region has changed a lot.
< spk_1 - 00:08:41.7390000 >
You just said the region's changed and absolutely people are staying in Plano or people are going to, to Frisco to work or, or, you know, Legacy, different places.
< spk_0 - 00:08:50.3090000 >
Absolutely. People are changing and then what, what's also happening is that I think a lot of our suburban, suburban cities are starting to develop, um, differently and that they're providing more services and destinations for their. Residents to go to. But what that also means is that the places that are attractions, just, you know, for their cities is also an attraction for, for people in Dallas, for example.
< spk_0 - 00:09:12.8950000 >
So now there are people who are in Dallas who are trying to go up to Legacy West or trying to go to, um, City Line in Richardson or, you know, any number of places, any number of destinations within our region. So even though historically, I think DART was designed. around the sort of office commute pattern travel patterns, um, with people going mostly to Dallas. Now, there are lots of different places people can go throughout the region. And so I think that that demand for that regional connectivity continues to grow.
< spk_0 - 00:09:42.0410000 >
Um, hardly anybody in this region, uh, I, I, I don't think hardly anybody stays within one city unless it's Dallas because Dallas is so much bigger than everybody else.
< spk_1 - 00:09:52.6310000 >
You said that. Northern cities make up more than 50% of the money that comes into the pot. And, and this may be zooming out a little bit maybe outside your lane, but it seems like the DART hasn't grown with that, especially with governance, because what I hear from these northern cities is, listen, we only have 1 vote on the board. DART has 8 votes on the board, and, and we don't feel like we have a real say in this even though we're contributing a heck of a lot of money to it.
< spk_0 - 00:10:15.5200000 >
Yeah, and that's, that's a very political question, um, that I'm not sure that I can answer very well because when DART was set up, the way it was set up was that the representation on the board was decided. Based on population, so the largest city, Dallas, uh, because they have more than 50% of the population, absolutely, absolutely.
< spk_0 - 00:10:35.8460000 >
So the question then becomes, you know, as, as a resident, um, say, say you're a resident of Dallas, uh, do you think you should have this equal representation on the dartboard as a person from Plano or from Highland Park or from Cockrell Hill or, you know, any of the smaller cities, or, um, should somebody from Highland Park have one single representative representing almost. 9000 people versus one single representative for 1.3 million people. I, I don't know the answer to that.
< spk_0 - 00:11:04.3610000 >
Um, as, as somebody who lives in Dallas, I'm like, mm, I don't know if I want less representation, but I understand the issue, right? I understand that there's a concern that cities in our service area don't have representation because, you know, the way it's set up right now, um, because it's by population, some of our cities are sharing a representative with other people, with other cities.
< spk_1 - 00:11:25.9710000 >
Has DART done enough to address that?
< spk_0 - 00:11:28.0900000 >
So DART actually the DART board has considered some opportunities or ways that we can uh address that uh we have proposed that we have representation, um, 11 city, uh, each city has one representative minimum and then based on ranges of population, um, certain cities would have additional representatives.
< spk_1 - 00:11:49.9290000 >
Now would that be growing the board or would that just be.
< spk_0 - 00:11:52.3850000 >
It would ultimately grow the board. I think right now I'd have to check again, but I think that the proposal as it stands today, the way our, our, uh, construct is would be about 18 or 19 members on the board. Um, I'd have to check that. So I'll get that for you. But, um, but then as cities get added, you know, each city getting a minimum of 1 representative, then you would ultimately continue to grow the board now.
< spk_0 - 00:12:17.1500000 >
Years ago, uh, the board was about 25 members, and it, it at that time, the board had a lot of difficulty making decisions and coming, coming to agreement on things and so, uh, the state actually, uh, reduced the size of the board to 15 at that time. So it's kind of an interesting phenomenon to be proposing to grow the board back to the size that it was ultimately, um.
< spk_0 - 00:12:40.4890000 >
You know, as a CEO, uh, you know, I can tell you most CEOs don't want boards to be too big, um, but I understand, and, and that's just, yeah, I think that's the nature of the beast, and, and we'll have to grapple with that. But, but the proposal that the board put on the table, they, they passed a resolution in March of this year. and um and it would require a legislative change and so uh the board's ready to do it um we're just waiting for the next legislative session to to bring that forward.
< spk_1 - 00:13:06.0650000 >
Let's talk about these 4 cities that that are holding these elections early next year. Voters have shown multiple times, most recently in 2024 when they re-elected President Trump, New York City voters when they elected Mamdani as mayor, voters don't mind blowing up the establishment and, and starting fresh. With that in mind, does it concern you that these four cities are now holding these elections about the future of, of DART and whether they want DART in their cities?
< spk_0 - 00:13:36.5000000 >
Absolutely. I mean, it's always concerning when somebody wants to leave the union. I think it's really important for us to understand, like from our perspective, from DART's perspective. The concern that we have is what happens to the riders, right? And as I mentioned earlier, uh, a number of people are traveling outside of each of these cities. So Plano, for example, 90% of trips that touch Plano are going to or coming from some other city besides Plano. So what happens to those riders?
< spk_0 - 00:14:04.6690000 >
Um, and I know Plano says that they have a plan, um, and so I think the reasonable question to ask is, well, what is that plan and how does that fully. Compensate for, uh, the ridership or or excuse me, for the mobility that we have today. Um, so what does that do to riders who live outside of Plano who are trying to get to Plano to go to hospitals, to go to schools, to go to, um, to work, uh, what does that what does that do to them in terms of their access and is it less convenient than it is today?
< spk_0 - 00:14:33.3090000 >
Do they have to make a transfer that they don't have to do today? Um, you know, what happens to paratransit riders because paratransit riders. Actually can go anywhere in our service area today if they're coming from Plano or if they're from any other place in the service area, they can go to Plano on paratransit, um, you know, if you're looking narrowly at just the city limits of a Plano or an Irving, um, they're not gonna have that same access that they have today, and it certainly won't be as convenient.
< spk_0 - 00:15:00.7500000 >
So I, you know, I think it's reasonable to ask those questions, and I don't know what those look like if
< spk_1 - 00:15:05.8690000 >
I live in Plano. Or Irving, I mean, why couldn't, and I need to get to Dallas. Why couldn't I drive down to a park and ride and hop on a bus or a train to to get into those, those places? So
< spk_0 - 00:15:15.7890000 >
you could if you can drive, um, and a lot of para transit riders cannot drive. Um, they either can't physically do it or they have another disability that, uh, you know, I mean, if somebody's visually impaired, they won't be able to drive. So, you know, who, who are we leaving behind? I think is the question that that I keep asking.
< spk_1 - 00:15:33.8590000 >
Uh, Plano, uh, Mayor John Munz was on our, uh, political TV program Inside Texas Politics the other day, and, and his, I said, listen, Mayor, what would it take? What, what would DART have to do to appease the concerns you have in Plano, to get everyone on the right track, pun intended here. He said, well, it's simple. Take the buses, leave the train, reduce our, uh, contributions down to 0.5 cents. What do you say to that? Is that, is that doable?
< spk_0 - 00:16:03.3490000 >
Well, I think, uh, so I don't think so. I, I can't answer that exactly, um, only because I haven't, we're, we're actually looking at the costs for doing regional, uh, regional mobility, uh, so the question then becomes what constitutes regional. Most of the buses that, uh, go in Plano are regional. Uh, they touch a number of cities, not just Plano. So if we eliminate those buses again, who are we leaving behind? Um, rail is expensive.
< spk_0 - 00:16:31.1690000 >
Um, I'm not sure, uh, I, I, I believe the sort of, uh, 0.5 cent is an arbitrary number. So I'm, I don't know what basis they have for a half cent. Um, and so to me, if we're going to provide a regional service, let's figure out what the cost of that service really is, and then we can talk about whether there's an option to only do regional service, but I don't think we would eliminate buses because again, rail doesn't go everywhere. Buses go a lot more places than rail does and or than rail than trains do.
< spk_0 - 00:17:00.3490000 >
And so, you know, our, our objective from DART's perspective is how do we maintain a high level of mobility for all the people who are riding DART today.
< spk_1 - 00:17:09.9300000 >
If, if Plano wants your trains but doesn't want your buses, why not take those buses and deploy them elsewhere to increase the frequency of where you can have buses pick up people in other cities?
< spk_0 - 00:17:21.4590000 >
Yeah, certainly we could do that, but again, um, you know, those buses that are going in Plano and, and, you know, we seem to be focusing on Plano, but also Irving. Um, Irving has a lot of buses that are some of our highest ridership buses carrying over 1000 people a day, sometimes over 1500 people a day, so.
< spk_0 - 00:17:37.4490000 >
You know, if we're getting rid of buses, again, who are we leaving behind and how are they going to get to their destinations and, and the, the corollaryary to this that I think people kind of forget is that if people lose their ability to take a bus and they can drive, um, and they choose to drive then instead of try to take the alternative that the city's offering, then that is only going to increase congestion within the city. So, you know, there are consequences that come with this that I think need to be thought through.
< spk_1 - 00:18:06.5500000 >
But if Plano voters say or Irving voters or Highland Park or or Farmers Branch say listen, that's, you know, we're not worried about the consequences. We, we want our money back and we want to spend it here locally. I mean, DART would have to figure out what to do.
< spk_0 - 00:18:20.1700000 >
Yes, DART would have to figure out what to do. I mean, if, if they choose to withdraw, um, you know, DART would discontinue services in those cities, uh immediately, immediately, yep, pretty much upon, you know, certification of the election. Um, which is probably the next day or maybe within a couple of weeks. So, um, but we would continue to collect that penny until their debt service is paid off because every city when we signed up to build the system, every city took on a portion of the debt.
< spk_0 - 00:18:48.0690000 >
Um, so bus stops to pay for the buses and mostly for the rail, but yeah, yeah, mostly for the rail, um, because that's the heavy infrastructure build, and so, um, everybody signed up for that and they're, they're obligated to it, um, and so, you know, for some of the cities it may take them 8 to 10 years to pay that debt. Um, so that's a time, a period of time when that sales tax will continue to be collected. Um, and they're also setting up a new service, so
< spk_1 - 00:19:15.5790000 >
let's zoom out though to make sure I understand the impact on DART if Plano voters specifically, I know there's 4 cities that they're talking about this, if Plano voters decided we're, we're done and after they pay off their debt 6 or 8 years, however long that takes, that would be $109 million less going into DART's. Balance. What would that mean to the rest of the cities?
< spk_0 - 00:19:37.7800000 >
So it definitely would mean that we'd have to look at the financial impact of that and what that means for the services that we provide today.
< spk_1 - 00:19:45.0990000 >
What does that look like though? Fewer bus drivers, fewer buses on the road, trains, etc.
< spk_0 - 00:19:51.0690000 >
Certainly we have to look at the levels of service that we can continue to provide. Remember, we will be serving fewer cities, right? So there's less demand there, but I think the access, uh, you know, the access and, and we still have to maintain a very extensive system. So I, I think that in order to continue to do at least what we're doing today and or if we want to grow the system. Um, we're gonna have to find some additional revenue somewhere.
< spk_0 - 00:20:15.8800000 >
Maybe that takes, maybe that takes the form of getting new cities to join DART, um, because we know that there's some level of demand for more transit beyond our service area, um, so getting more cities to join DART, um, if there are ways for us to work with the state, I know that sounds very, you know, impossible today, but maybe someday the state will be willing to give us some money, um, to help us advance transit and mobility within our region.
< spk_0 - 00:20:41.9590000 >
Um, I mean, I always tell people I'd like a fraction of what, you know, the state gives to the highway system, um, and we could actually add a lot more capacity with that fraction that, that they use to actually build highways and more capacity there.
< spk_1 - 00:20:55.5600000 >
Just for an actual logistical issue, if let's say Plano or Irving decides to get rid of, of DART, it's easy to take buses off the road. What do you do with these trains with the tracks already laid?
< spk_0 - 00:21:07.6700000 >
So the tracks, I mean, the infrastructure remains there, um, the trains just not stop in these cities it just doesn't stop in the cities. That's right. I mean, and, and, you know, for, for Plano because they're at the end of the line today, we would just stop at the Plano boundary, right? We would stop at City Line in Richardson, for example. Um, Irving, because we go all the way to the airport, we probably just wouldn't stop in Irving.
< spk_0 - 00:21:32.4390000 >
Um, we would just, you know, bypass Irving and go through to the airport, um, and so we'd have to evaluate all of our services. If, if some of the cities left, we would have to evaluate all of our services to determine the highest and best use for the funds that we have and maybe that means some. Services would discontinue. Some would change, uh, somewhat, um, but I think, you know, we would really have to just adapt
< spk_1 - 00:21:57.1400000 >
with these elections just months away. Are there contingency plans being worked on right now at?
< spk_0 - 00:22:02.0100000 >
Yes, yes, because here's, here's the thing. We have uh uh an obligation through state statute to notify people when something is, is changing in a big way on their for their service. So for let's just take Plano for example. So if service, I mean we don't know the outcome of the election, but we have to anticipate that the election will, um, will result in them withdrawing from DART.
< spk_0 - 00:22:26.8690000 >
Because of that, you know, 2 months in advance of that, we have to notify everyone, not just the writers in Plano, but the writers across the region that the Plano service is likely to stop if this withdrawal election goes forward. So
< spk_1 - 00:22:39.7500000 >
that will happen in January either way.
< spk_0 - 00:22:41.6990000 >
So in January, we'd have to call for a public hearing. We'd have to hold the hearing in about March, and we'd have to tell people what those changes would be. So anytime you discontinue. A service you have to notify the customers
< spk_1 - 00:22:52.8850000 >
um despite the outcome of the election, this is going to happen either way, right?
< spk_0 - 00:22:55.7240000 >
It will, yes, it has to because, because if we have to discontinue service within days of the election, there's a certain time period that we have to notice the the customers and the riders before we do it. So, um, so we have to notice them in March, um, actually before that because we have to have the public hearing in March.
< spk_1 - 00:23:13.9200000 >
Plano's director of policy and government relations, uh, Andrew Fortune said that the city up there specifically spends $120 million close to it on DART every year. That's more than the police department budget and the economic development budget. That's not sustainable for that city is what they say. What's your reaction to that? That that DART gets that much money from from this city?
< spk_0 - 00:23:38.5400000 >
Yeah, so, so a couple of things, um, the city doesn't actually write us a check. Um, the, the voters in 1983 allowed, they voted in, in the affirmative to allow the sales taxes to be collected in Plano and then given to DART, right? So the city doesn't write us a check, that's the first thing. The second thing is. I understand, um, that it seems like a lot of money that's going to DART that doesn't seem to result in a lot for the rider, but again, it takes a lot of money to maintain our system.
< spk_0 - 00:24:06.3190000 >
I can guarantee you that because our, our sales tax collections are around the $900 million dollar range in, in FY 25, um. But our budget is 1.8 billion, so that alone should help people understand that there are a lot of costs and, and a lot of revenues that come into our coffers that we end up deploying into our system and so that 900 million that we collect in sales taxes is only, it's, it's about, um, in terms of our operating budget is about 75% of our operating budget.
< spk_0 - 00:24:36.4390000 >
We have a lot of other, uh, money. There's a lot of other money that comes into DART that we spend. And so when people talk about return on investment, it's not just the sales taxes collected. I mean, we really should look at all of our spending, including the debt service, including the capital spend, including all the operations, because all of that collectively then, um, adds up to the services that everybody gets.
< spk_1 - 00:24:59.3000000 >
With this on the ballot, uh, you know, a few in a few months, which way do you expect these elections to go? Each city is different, but Plano, Irving, Farmers Branch, Highland Park, voters are gonna decide whether to walk away from DART. What's going to happen?
< spk_0 - 00:25:12.0400000 >
So I have to assume the worst, right? Um, just like we were talking about for the service, the public hearings related to service, I have to assume the worst and plan for that. Um, if it doesn't happen, that, that is good, I think, um, but what does your gut
< spk_1 - 00:25:25.8290000 >
say? I mean, I know you have to plan for it, have contingency.
< spk_0 - 00:25:27.8900000 >
Oh, you're asking me a question. I don't know if I had that crystal ball, I would, I would, uh, I would be. Working accordingly, right? So, so, but I have to assume the worst because I have to be prepared, um, for the worst case scenario and, and that's, that's all I can do. I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that. Um, I'm hoping that, uh, we will be able to come to some sort of agreement to get the cities to rescind their plans to go to an election.
< spk_0 - 00:25:51.2700000 >
Not, not optimistic that that will happen, um, but you know, I've, what I've said publicly is, you know, I'm happy to come to the table in good faith just like I ask everyone else to come to the table in good faith. And, and if we're all working together, uh, for the good of the region, then I think we can get somewhere.
< spk_1 - 00:26:08.1190000 >
Plano's mayor said that talks are still going on with DART, even with this election coming up here, and, and, and the mayor told us, listen, I hope that we can figure things out too, kind of echoing what you're saying here, and if we can figure things out, we will rescind. The election and we have to do that I think within 60 days or so so they don't have much time to do that. Talks are continuing with Plano. How about the other three cities too?
< spk_0 - 00:26:29.7290000 >
Yeah, all of the cities, um, and I've had, you know, I had breakfast with the town administrator for Highland Park last week. Um, I had a meeting with, um, the city manager of Plano that ended up getting canceled. Um, so I, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make sure we keep our appointments with everybody so that we can, um, continue those conversations. I know our board members, um, our chair Randall Bryant is having conversations with as many people as he can, um.
< spk_0 - 00:26:55.9490000 >
And tomorrow we have a, a meeting with the North Texas commission who is convening all the city managers and mayors together for this very conversation. So we, we are reaching out, um, trying to have these conversations in good faith and, um, and yeah, we, I think the people deserve for us to come to an agreement.
< spk_1 - 00:27:15.3100000 >
One thing that struck me is. Why these concerns haven't been settled. 1996 was the last time that these cities put this before the voters, and the voters said no, we wanna stay with DART, but 1996, the world was a very different place in North Texas, especially the Internet was brand new. I was getting my first email account. Bill Clinton was running for, uh, for reelection back then too, but why hasn't DART been able to, to squelch these concerns and give these cities what it wants.
< spk_1 - 00:27:45.9590000 >
To make sure they're getting $1 for dollar what they're putting in.
< spk_0 - 00:27:49.8190000 >
So, so that's a good question. I mean, should it be a dollar for dollar quid pro quo? I, I'm not sure that it should. It's a regional system, right? And I think you try to alleviate congestion everywhere, uh, depending on where it's happening, um, now. But if I
< spk_1 - 00:28:03.5890000 >
live live, if I live and work in Irving, why do I care what congestion is in Plano?
< spk_0 - 00:28:09.2700000 >
Well, you may not care about congestion in Plano, but you might care about the congestion on I-35 and the 114, and I, I'm just, I just said something like LA people, the 114, sorry about that. Yeah, I know the 183, um, so I, I mean, I, I think, so here's what I like to tell people about congestion because it's not just people movement that causes congestion, right? It's also goods movement.
< spk_0 - 00:28:32.9590000 >
And the more people, um, people are competing with goods movement on our freeway system, the more congestion there is. What can we do about that? Well, we can actually move more people by transit, and, and that takes people and cars off the road so that goods can move more freely. To me this is a question of economic productivity and how we're making sure that the region continues to be as, um, powerful and productive and, and, you know, economically strong as it is today.
< spk_0 - 00:29:00.8900000 >
Um, you know, in 20 years, um, congestion's only going to grow because right now the projections are that we're gonna grow population by 50% in the next 20 years. I'm not sure where all those people are gonna go, but it's certainly not going to help our congestion problems. So I think, you know, why do people care about congestion in other parts of the region? Well, you know what, you might want some of your goods to be delivered on time, you know, and, and so it's not just about, can I get, you know, to work on time. It's also, well, I ordered this thing on Amazon and I want it to come to my door.
< spk_0 - 00:29:29.6650000 >
And, um, so that, that competition is always there. And, and to me, you know, we can, we can decide that we don't want mass transit, but what I tell people is you pay with your time or your money. You know, if you, if you decide you don't want to pay the money to be part of a mass transit system that can get you from point A to point B in 20 years faster than you can drive, um. You know, then you're going to pay with your time and you're going to sit in congestion and, and maybe you'll have the option to work from home, but you know, in 20 years, who knows what's gonna happen.
< spk_0 - 00:29:58.7390000 >
Um, I think, you know, in order to set ourselves up for the future, I think mass transit has to be part of that solution and it, it, you know, I think our membership structure here in the DFW region that that cities have to be members of DART. You know, maybe that's the piece that's antiquated in my mind, you know, um, because right now, so DART has 13 member cities who, whose sales taxes go to pay for DART. Um, Trinity Metro has a number of cities.
< spk_0 - 00:30:25.9790000 >
Uh, Denton County Transportation Authority has a number of cities. So, um, this idea that membership is the way we should be paying for mass transit doesn't make sense to me, especially. The way the region's growing and the way the projections are for population distribution across the next 20 years
< spk_1 - 00:30:41.2560000 >
survive if it didn't have this guaranteed income from these member cities.
< spk_0 - 00:30:44.6360000 >
So, so the question I think is, it's, I mean, I think what I'm getting at is that perhaps, you know, all cities, because this is what I hear from our cities, and I, I agree with it, which is why is the region's. Quality attainment on the backs of it. Why is it the burden of 13 cities or 13 plus the other cities for the other transit agencies, and that's a reasonable question to ask.
< spk_0 - 00:31:08.0140000 >
So the, so then you start to think, OK, well what, what is the obligation of everyone in the region to help us attain air quality standards, um, and I, to me that's the bigger picture question that I think we're trying to grapple with.
< spk_0 - 00:31:20.7500000 >
And that is one area where, um, where DART and the cities do agree, you know, how should we, you know, sort of like spread the responsibilities and the burden beyond 13 member cities so that everyone in the region who contributes to the ozone and the NOx and things like that, how, how, how do we spread that responsibility to everyone in the region? What would that look like though? Oh, it could look like a lot of things, um, and now you're going to get me in trouble if I start talking about potential fees and things like that.
< spk_0 - 00:31:49.7190000 >
It's not, it's not popular. I, I will just say that. You gotta
< spk_1 - 00:31:52.9890000 >
understand that if, if, if there aren't member cities, how, how would, I mean, would DART go to Wiley, let's say if Dart, if Wiley's not a member city,
< spk_0 - 00:32:02.9000000 >
so, so yeah, I mean, so because Wiley's not a member city, DART can't go to Wiley, right? Um, and so. As population grows and as some of the cities around us densify, not everybody's going to densify, but as some of them do, they're going to have more demand for something like public transportation if they don't have it today. And that's because their street network just can't handle that kind of capacity. And so, you know, what are you going to do about that?
< spk_0 - 00:32:26.9490000 >
Well, I always tell people, like instead of building a new lane on your streets, why don't you give us a bus lane and we can take 40 or 50 people per bus and send a bus. Down that lane every, you know, 10 or 15 minutes or even 5 minutes, um, and that would give you a lot of people throughput, um, that, that you wouldn't be able to do if you built another lane because that lane would just fill up with more traffic and nobody has space for it.
< spk_1 - 00:32:49.8590000 >
Why hasn't DART grown since 1983?
< spk_0 - 00:32:53.1400000 >
Lots and lots of reasons. I mean, like, like everything. I mean, you know,
< spk_1 - 00:32:56.5300000 >
DART's gotten smaller since 1983.
< spk_0 - 00:32:58.6190000 >
It has, it has, um, so, so DART. Depends on what you mean by grown. Um, our system has grown. Um, I understand like in in terms of member cities we haven't aded member cities, but there, there are a lot of reasons for that too, right? So the DART board has a policy that we refer to as 3.07 and it, and it allows us to sort of experiment or pilot service in, in cities outside of our service area for a period of time.
< spk_0 - 00:33:25.5990000 >
Um, uh, I'm gonna just qualify that by saying we recently modified that policy, but previously, um, cities had to join us within 3 years of, of piloting the service or we would just discontinue the service. Recently, the board changed that so they no longer have to do something within 3 years. So our attitude has changed. Changed about trying to work with members or with non-member cities. Now we're open to providing services in non-member cities.
< spk_0 - 00:33:52.0100000 >
Obviously there's a fee they have to cover all costs and then they have to pay us the administrative fee for us to contract out that service, um, but we will provide that service to them. And so they can have access to transit and then um and then they can decide over time if that if that works for them, but we can at least provide some form of transit microtransit is usually that form, but we can provide that transit for them, um, while they're still trying to figure out the future of their mobility network.
< spk_0 - 00:34:21.4690000 >
That's one of the reasons that I think we. Get into or we get sideways with some of our member cities because they're like, wait a second, you're giving a la carte services to those cities. Why can't we have that? Well, it's a little bit different. I mean we have rail, we'll never have rail in those other cities until we actually build the infrastructure and that's not likely to happen before they actually join again, we're assuming the membership model stays, right?
< spk_0 - 00:34:44.0500000 >
Um, but I think, you know, as we think about the future, you know, we need to kind of baby step our way into getting new members. We need to provide a service that people want to use. Um, we need to improve the quality of our services for DART and our existing cities, we need to provide a service that generates, you know, more usage and more riders, um, so that we can show that it's a service people can rely on.
< spk_1 - 00:35:09.5000000 >
And is that always the bus model because I, I look at the final mile and I see the, you know. You know, the rideshare is doing just great with the final mile. What, what, what does that, that service look like?
< spk_0 - 00:35:18.8790000 >
So you mean in the non-member cities like or even in the member cities. So it's, you step it up, right? You start with microtransit and as that, and as that, um, demand grows, then you can start thinking about buses because it's, you know, you kind of have a progression. You, you go from microtransit to buses and then ultimately to rail. Rail is the big one. And, and what happens a lot is that a lot of people go from microtransit to rail. They just want to bypass buses altogether.
< spk_0 - 00:35:42.8890000 >
But I think people underestimate what buses can actually accomplish, um, because buses have capacity, but they also have flexibility because they're not fixed to a rail, um, we still call it fixed route because we set, you know, we set the route and they follow that route all the time, um, but the truth is, is that a bus is a very, very powerful tool when it comes to adding capacity to the street network.
< spk_1 - 00:36:04.0800000 >
Now listen, I told you at the beginning of this, I don't have a dog in this fight either way. It doesn't matter to me. I don't live in Plano, Irving, Highland Park, um, but, but here's, I'm thinking if, if I'm on the city council, if I'm the mayor of any of these 4 cities holding these elections, I look at places like Arlington and even Frisco, which is still growing and may be able to take advantage of DART indirectly, but I see Arlington is getting along just fine without mass transit. Why do I need it in my city?
< spk_0 - 00:36:31.0500000 >
Um, you know, it's, it is puzzling because there was this big question when we got the World Cup games about, well, how did you guys decide to pick Texas when, you know, when Arlington has no mass transit, and it's, it's, I'll tell you that it's very challenging to try to provide some transit service to those 9 games that we're gonna host, um.
< spk_0 - 00:36:50.4290000 >
You know, I, I, I think that, um, you know, Arlington does have, um, a microtransit service and what Arlington is finding is that that microtransit service is becoming increasingly more expensive, um, for the number of riders that they can carry. And so if you were to look at their budget this year, um, their costs for microtransit, uh, for that contract are increasing, um, but they're capping their ridership, um, to a lower level than what they've carried previously.
< spk_0 - 00:37:17.8000000 >
And so it's not, uh, even though I think people can, you know, take DART away or remove DART from their city, that doesn't solve all the problems. And I think, you know, DART has spent a lot of time working with each of our member cities to figure out how to provide.
< spk_0 - 00:37:33.5000000 >
Um, you know, transit service within the city, um, we certainly have our regional network, um, but we've worked with each of the cities on what we call our area plans to talk about, OK, what's the, what's the transportation need in your city in the future, and I'm not talking about tomorrow, I'm talking about like 5, 1020 years down the road, and how can we start to put things in place so that we can. Um, can we can adapt to your city as it's changing.
< spk_0 - 00:37:58.8400000 >
So as your new developments are coming online, what's the travel demand that's coming to those developments, and how can we make sure that we're working through that demand and providing a service that adds capacity without you having to provide a lot of extra infrastructure? That's the, that's like the beauty of the bus is because you don't have to add a lot of infrastructure for that.
< spk_1 - 00:38:18.6290000 >
Put a bus stop up. I know it's not that easy, but put a few bus stops up and run the route. One of the last questions here though, I, I, I, I asked you this earlier, do you think DART's done enough to appease the concern of these member cities who feel like that they're not getting what they're putting into it?
< spk_0 - 00:38:34.3700000 >
So you're asking me another question that'll get me in trouble, but, um, no, I mean, look, DART can always do more, right? I said at the outset, there isn't anybody who wants to improve DART more than me. Um, and, and the truth is, is that, you know, there are lots and lots of things that DART could be doing better, um, and, you know, I. I tell people a lot that, you know, DART has actually improved dramatically in the 4 years that I've been here.
< spk_0 - 00:38:59.4890000 >
Um, our services, when I first got here, we were missing 15% of our trips, um, because we didn't have the resources, we didn't have the people, so we had to hire a whole bunch of bus operators. Um, now we're missing less than 1% of our trips, which from a reliability perspective is. It is huge for our riders and I hear it, you know, we see it in our customer satisfaction survey. Um, when I first got here, our customer satisfaction was quite low. We're now over 70% in overall customer satisfaction. Our net promoter score when I first got here was -16.
< spk_0 - 00:39:29.3600000 >
Now it's like 23 or 25 or something like that. So we've gone up 40 points since I got here, which is pretty remarkable.
< spk_0 - 00:39:36.8000000 >
Um, and, and so we continue to improve and so we've done all of this under duress, you know, and so what I tell people is, what would we be able to do if everyone in the region got together and said we want to make DART the best it can be, um, and so to me it's, it's less of a question of, you know, um, you know, what, what might happen with these elections as it is, what could we do if we all put our minds to it and started rowing in the same direction, and that's what I'm interested in.
< spk_1 - 00:40:06.4690000 >
Considering success you've had, congratulations on that, by the way, Nadine, considering that, are you surprised that you still have 4 cities who are considering leaving?
< spk_0 - 00:40:15.3400000 >
Yeah, well, if you listen to the writers, you know, it sounds like a lot of writers don't want that to happen.
< spk_1 - 00:40:20.6790000 >
Yeah, and we'll see what happens when these elections, uh, come. Did you ever expect to be walking into this when, when you moved here from Los Angeles?
< spk_0 - 00:40:28.3000000 >
You know, when I came here, I knew there was, yeah, I mean, I knew there was a little, a little, uh, discontent brewing under the, under the radar, but, um, but I don't, I did not necessarily expect it to escalate at the speed at which it did.
< spk_1 - 00:40:45.5100000 >
We didn't go through any of your, any of your cards. You haven't moved a single card there, but I, I think it's been an informative conversation. Nadine, thanks so much for the, for the time, and I know a coffee has gone cold during our conversation.
< spk_0 - 00:40:55.6490000 >
It's OK. It's good coffee though. It, it is
< spk_1 - 00:40:57.2700000 >
good coffee. Uh, another shout out to Manhattan Project for having us again. Nadine Lee is the president and CEO of DART. We appreciate the time and, and best of luck, uh, to you as you guys continue these conversations ahead of the May elections. We appreciate it.
< spk_0 - 00:41:09.5900000 >
Yeah, thank you, Jason.
< spk_1 - 00:41:10.5900000 >
Thanks so much it. Hopefully Wheeler's here for the next episode. We'll see you then.