Competing for Transit Service in North Texas

"Now that Dallas Area Rapid Transit has built the nation’s longest light-rail network, its officials have their sights set on a goal that has eluded them for 31 years: enticing new cities to join the agency," report Brandon Formby and Ray Leszcynski.

The objective of adding new agencies has taken on new urgency in recent years as once-rural agencies now offer viable public transit, positioning themselves as DART competitors.

As for why that's a problem: "Area officials fear that if suburbs just outside the current service area continue to eschew DART, regional public transit will become a jumbled patchwork instead of a seamless system. And that, they surmise, could suppress transit usage from North Texans who don’t have the patience for a complicated transit structure."

Causing some of the resistance on the part of potential member cities is the one-cent sales tax that funds DART, according to the article (a similar one-cent sales tax in Houston was recently lauded as a potential model for other cities.)