Having read several articles appearing recently in The Republic both opposing and in support of mass transit I feel prompted to respond, having served on the Board of Directors of Dallas Area Rapid Transit and having had an opportunity to experience the workings of public transporation from both the inside and outside.
The feature that stands out most prominently among the arguments presented by the detracctors is the fact that they choose to ignore the outstanding success the new DART light rail has experienced. We heard the same arguments and lamentations while the rail line was in the planning stages -- no one will ride, the trains will run empty, costs will be exorbitant, a full spectrum of society will not be served, et cetera.
Dallas people paid no attention to this litany and, although they at first rejected an extravagant heavy rail system, they subsequently approved an efficient light rail system with strong support even of two major oil companies, the local newspaper and the electronics industries in the Telecom corridor who are looking to DART to deliver workers looking for jobs to their doors more efficiently.
A wide variety of citizenry will be found on the trains. At all hours of the day the park-and-ride lots at Mockingbird Land and Park Lane in north Dallas are full and the trains are at capacity at rush hour and near capacity at others carrying white collar workers to jobs in downtown Dallas, which is experiencing a dramatic revitalization due mainly to the new rail system.
Although much of south Dallas does not enjoy the prestige of north Dallas, the rush hour trains from the south to and from downtown are well filled and dabout the time this subsides in the late afternoon another wave of rides from low income areas fill the trains going to clean and service the large buildings of the central business district.
Critics of rail transit lack the ability to think long term. A rail system is an investment projected over a hundred years or more; even the rolling stock lasts for 50 years, much different from a car or bus. In spite of the costs that have been encountered in building rail systems, it would be a challenge to find a community that would vote to give it up once it has been completed.
Dan Monaghan, Mobility Dallas; Garland, TX
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