DART Reps Appeal to HP Town Council for Support

During a Feb. 18 meeting, Dallas Area Rapid Transit representatives presented plans to improve Highland Park’s needs and asked the Town Council to adopt a resolution to maintain the agency’s funding.

DART board chair Gary Slagel presented a plan to encourage Highland Park, along with five other cities, including Carrolton, Farmers Branch, Irving, Plano, and Rowlett, to reverse their sales tax reduction resolutions, appealing for all DART cities to pass resolutions in support of fully funding DART at the current $.01 sales tax level.

DART president and chief executive officer Nadine Lee followed in briefing the Council on DART’s proposed efforts for Highland Park, including construction parking support for large residential projects, nearby Knox-Henderson projects, and service/employee access and parking to serve Dallas Country Club and Highland Park Village, which Lee indicated continues to be one of DART’s busiest stops.

Lee added that the plan proposal for DART would include adding a “blue dot” for a GoLink stop at Love Field airport, as well as plans to help address SMU game day congestion with additional train capacity and marketing in collaboration with SMU’s athletic department.

Council member Lydia Novakov asked whether GoLink was priced competitively or better than Uber, to which Lee responded that DART has added Uber as part of its service line-up and that, while wait times for GoLink rides may be slightly longer than calling an Uber directly, they are also cheaper.

“Our goal is to try to keep the wait times under 15 minutes, and we’re hovering around eight minutes right now,” Lee said.

DART representatives indicated plans to provide the Council with additional information and responses to queries not fully addressed during the meeting.