DART Needs to Build a Subway Downtown

In fact, it could be even worse. You could get caught between the two, so you wouldn't even have the option of turning round and giving up. Then your only option would be to climb up on the roof of your car and hurl imprecations at the Fates. That would be a memorable way to spend your last visit to downtown Dallas. Ever.

That's why the Dallas City Council 18 years ago made DART sign on the dotted line: According to DART's "Interlocal Agreement" with the city, a copy of which I have in my desk, "DART will commit to construction of a subway downtown" as soon as the train trips on Pacific reach 24 per hour.

I mention that I have the agreement in my desk, because, incredibly enough, some members of the current DART board and the current city council have professed surprise in public meetings when informed that such an agreement exists.

It's not just a handshake agreement. It's a fully executed, written contract.

I also have in my desk a DART study called "Corridor Capacity" showing that the "trigger" level of 24 trips per hour will be blown through the roof in 2010 as soon as the Green Line becomes operational.

So the subway will happen, right? It's in the contract. Right? If it doesn't happen, downtown Dallas is screwed. DART wouldn't do that. The city council wouldn't allow that to happen. Right?

Umm. Think back with me. On November 22, DART CEO Gary Thomas reveals to the DART board that DART has under-estimated its capital construction costs by, uh, let's see...100 percent. Instead of costing $1 billion, DART's current expansion plans will cost $2 billion, Thomas says.

Thomas explains he has kept the shortfall a secret from his board for a year, because he was hoping it would go away. I submit this is like a guy with a large tusk growing from his forehead. You say, "Gary, pardon me, but you have a tusk on your head." He puts his fingers to his lips and says, "Shhh."

On January 30, DART board chair Lynn Flint Shaw resigns under a cloud involving personal finances, criminal charges, a secret personal contract with Deloitte Touche (DART's external auditor) and allegations of irregularities with political contributions. On March 10 she and her husband are found shot dead in their home.

Stick with me through another wrinkle here. Shaw was treasurer of a political fund-raising committee for Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert. Even though Leppert has denied it publicly, it is well-known and was widely reported at the time that in August 2007, two months after he took office, Leppert personally engineered Shaw's ascent to the chair of the DART board.

Leppert and the city council now are in gridlock over an appointment to replace the late Ms. Shaw on the DART board. Half the city council wants to replace her with Joyce Foreman, the person Leppert helped remove from the board in order to pave Shaw's way to the chair. The other half is listening to Leppert's personal pleas not to reappoint Foreman.

Leppert and the city council have been stuck on the dime ever since the Shaw situation began to unravel six months ago. The effect has been to leave the Dallas DART board members in disarray and without leadership, to say nothing of being generally humiliated.

The suburban members, meanwhile, leapt into action immediately when the budget shortfall was revealed.

A clever, coordinated campaign enabled them to get the Irving-Rowlett Orange Line on the books—committed, ready for contracting, practically under way—while Leppert and the Dallas City Council were still flubbering around about the Shaw situation.

You can't blame the 'burbs. They want their new lines built. We want new lines built. New rail lines cost about $80 million a mile. For a good five months, it looked as if there was only going to be enough money for one side to win.

The 'burbs will never admit this, but I have been talking to DART board members on both sides, off the record, for months: The truth is the 'burbs don't care if downtown traffic gets backed up. They want their lines. No matter what. If traffic downtown gets messy, too bad. Downtown Dallas is for the City of Dallas to figure out. The 'burbanites are just passin' through anyway.