Random thoughts on the NBA, DPD, DMN. DART and other acronyms

I really don’t like the Miami Heat. I don’t like the way the team collected it’s Big Three, and don’t try to tell me the Boston Celtics did the same thing, because they didn’t. They acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen through some shrewd trades. And don’t get me started on that whole LeBron James "decision" thing. On the other hand, I really do like the Oklahoma Thunder, partly because its No. 1 star played his college ball at my alma mater, but mainly because I admire the team’s approach to the game. Guess who I’m going to be rooting for in the NBA finals that begin tonight.

I admire Dallas Police Chief David Brown. I have worked with him in the past and always found himself to be a professional, a standup guy. (I wanted to call him a "straight-shooter," but realized that didn’t fit in this context.) Still, this idea of shooting a man in the back in self defense smells, no matter how much Chief Brown tries to spin it.

I rarely find myself in agreement with Dallas Morning News editorials, but I must admit I find the paper’s suggestion for an open primary in Texas to something worth pursuing. California has adopted this system in attempt to reduce partisanship and free the primaries from being captured by extremists, as they have been in Texas. The way an open primary works is this: All candidates would keep their party affiliations but there would no longer be separate primaries for each political party. Instead, all the candidates for each office would appear one ballot and everyone — Republicans, Democrats and, most importantly, independents — would have the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice. Then two candidates who received the most votes for each office would face off in the November general election, even if it meant two Republicans running against each other or Veasey vs. Garcia. The theory is that candidates — in order to appeal to the widest number of voters — would gravitate toward the center of the political ideological spectrum. For those who say such a system couldn’t work, that’s exactly the way Dallas elects its mayor.

DART is looking for a way to get more riders. To achieve this goal it must overcome a tremendous obstacle and convince potential customers it’s absolutely safe the use the transit system. I know of one woman who’s son refuses to let her ride DART rail because he fears it’s too dangerous for a woman traveling alone. Until such fears are eradicated, DART will never achieve the ridership levels it should.

This headline in today’s Dallas Morning News caught my attention: "Drownings concern safety experts". Ya think?

DART may tie rates to where riders live’

DART has a plan to get break even.

David Leininger, CFO of Dallas Area Rapid Transit, recently told a panel discussing the future of Dallas, that staff is talking to the DART board about instituting a higher rate for those residents living in cities that are not DART members. My question, obviously, is how are they going to know who is who. Anyway, here’s what the man had to say on the subject:

Our demand has grown beyond our boundaries. One of our biggest challenges is dealing with Frisco and McKinney and all of the areas north of our service area. Ten percent of all trips are generated at our end-of the-line stations; 55 percent of those end-of-line riders are “non-residents,” or people who live outside of DART, and that rate is growing. At the time that the plan was put together, 25 years ago, out-of-area ridership was probably 1 or 2 percent. We are spending, on light rail alone, in terms of subsidies to people who live outside our service area, roughly $20 million on the operating side. If you fold in the capital costs associated with it, it’s about $50 million a year in expense for riders who do not live in the service area and whose cities do not contribute to DART. That’s the big economic challenge that we’ve got to address. There is literally a discussion going on with our board now, to have non-resident and resident price differentiation. And it would be a big differentiation. It wouldn’t be 25 cents, I can tell you that.

A way for DART to get the money it needs

DART is cutting back on his ambitious rail projects due to lack of funding, causing costernation in a number of places, especially Irving, which wants a DART line to the airport, and the Dallas City Council, which wants another line running through downtown, serving both the new convention center hotel and City Hall.

Today I drove west on LBJ from Greenville Avenue to I-35E. During that approximately 10-minute drive, I saw six cars in the HOV lane with only a single occupant and four others darting in and out of the HOV lane at randrom across the double white lines. If DART would be willing to put as much effort into collecting fines from HOV offenders as the North Texas Tollway Authority has in tracking tollbooth violators, the area's public transit group could fund rail lines rivaling the New York City subway system or the Paris Metro.

DART's money woes

I'm not shedding any tears over the news that less-than-anticipated sales tax revenues likely will force DART to scrap plans for a second downtown rail line. It was a waste of money to begin with, a possible convenience but not a necessity. I never thought it would increase rail traffic enough to justify its construction. I worked at City Hall, where today city leaders have been lobbying for a rail station to be located on this second downtown line, and took DART rail to work almost daily. I never found it inconvenient to walk to the nearest station and, in fact, found a way to get from City Hall to the Convention Center station without ever leaving the shelter of a building. That came in handy during inclement weather.

DART sacrificed its opportunity to be a realistic viable transportation alternative when it opted more than a quarter of a century ago for light instead of heavy rail. For that reason DART will never have the appeal of the New York subway system, the Paris Metro or the London Underground, to name just three municipal rail services I have used frequently. Besides, Dallas is not really a city in the way New York, London, Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Moscoe etc are. Dallas is a comparatively small downtown business center surrounded by predominatly individualistic residential neighborhoods. Rail really doesn't work that well in a Dallas-type environment.

About the only troubling news in DART's financial revelations is the scrapping of the Blue Line extension that would have taken it to the Dallas campus of the University of North Texas. That line, to me, should have the highest priority of all the ones except the Orange line to DFW airport. I also find concern in that plans for additional HOV lanes will be scaled back almost 80 percent, even though most people in Dallas think HOV lanes are more of a transportation issue than an environmental one.

Who says DART lacks direction?

Michael Lindenberger over on the Dallas Morning News' Transportation Bog was talking about the options for another DART light rail line through downtown Dallas and about how the route favored by the Dallas City Council, which would run past the new Convention Center Hotel as well as City Hall, costs more than DART can afford. In the entry, Lindenberger made this observation:

"But who is going to pay for the more expensive option? Probably not DART, given that spending more on a Dallas preference would inevitably take money out of the plan for suburban improvements in the suburbs."

Yessirree, Bob, got hand it to DART or Lindenberger or someone because if you're going to make "suburban improvements," the place to make them is definitely "in the suburbs."

Promises, promises: This was no spur-of-the-moment stunt

This DART drawer-dropping routine was a carefully planned publicity stunt. How else would a reporter from the Dallas Morning News -- as well as a staff photographer -- known about it and been able to ride along? I just can't believe the paper gave it this much coverage. C'mon guys, there's got to be some real news out there somewhere. I hope this story is not example of the "improvements to our content" the News promised.

Speaking of this promise, you gotta love this line in which the unnamed writer speaks directly to the paper's readers: "Later this year, we will celebrate our 125th year in business, and we could not survive without you."

You think?

I'm sure this will do a lot of good

DART has scheduled a series of community meetings to "educate" the public about proposed fare changes and hear comments on the plan. And I'm sure if an overwhelming majority of those attending object to the new fares, DART will bow to the pressure and not implement them. Yeah. That's what the "educate the public" part of this is all about. By "educate," DART means they will be explaining why the fares will go into effect at the beginning of next year and even higher fares will be implemented the following October regardless of what anyone who depends on DART for transportation in these troubled economic times thinks about the increase.

Here you can find a chart of the proposed new fares plus a schedule of the DART undemocratic propaganda sessions.