For Richard Watkins

[Mookie]

Is RRROW and/or DART subsidized by city/county/state/Feds?

Is your ridership fairly high?

Do you think population has everything to do with your success? Trying to get from Point A to Point B faster and w/o having to drive your car and find parking?

Still not sure this would ever be supported between Lincoln and Omaha at least at this time.

I am looking for something to explain why it is so successful in Texas - unless it is just sheer numbers of people and size of cities.

Jen

[Mookie]

Is RRROW and/or DART subsidized by city/county/state/Feds?

Is your ridership fairly high?

Do you think population has everything to do with your success? Trying to get from Point A to Point B faster and w/o having to drive your car and find parking?

Still not sure this would ever be supported between Lincoln and Omaha at least at this time.

I am looking for something to explain why it is so successful in Texas - unless it is just sheer numbers of people and size of cities.

Jen

[Anonymous]

For Jen

We have three sources of funding-fare box, sales tax revenue, and federal funding. Fare box only pays 15% of our direct operating expense. There is not a transit system in the world that pays their way with the fare box. New York, with its high population density has a fare box recovery ratio of about 60%-the best in this country. The Underground in London by law must pay direct operating expense by fares. With 8 million riders per day they get a sizeable amount of income through the ticket stalls. It seems that every time I go to Lonon (3-4 times per year on business) the Undereground fares have been raised again. I can remember when they were 30 pence (50 cents US) for a zone 1 ride. Now they are £1.6 ($2.60) for the same ride. This only pays direct expense-no capital improvements and their cars and stations show it. (The government is making capital grants to clean up the system)

Our second source is sales tax whch I previously said averages about $350 million per year. Our board policy is to allocate this 50% to capital and 50% to operating expense.

The third source of funds is federal grants for capital projects. The DOT grants funds to all transit properties for capital prujects based on ridership, past stewardship of grants, etc. Usally this is a 50% federal 50% local funds for capital projects.

The fourth source of funds is advertising on buses (I am against this, but lost the vote), sales of surplus property, and rents for use of our transit corridors for fiber optic ROW. This category is small potatoes in the big picture.

We do not get any city funds or funding from the state for anything. We operate like a private company by budgeting projected income from sales tax and ridership then plan our projects accordingly. In the present economy sales tax revenue is down about 8% from our projections and we are doing serious belt tightning.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has about 5 million population although only about 65% of this population base is in the service area of DART of the Fort Worth T. Traffic congestion is bad in our area and people perfer to ride and read the paper rather than get ulcers driving in stop and go traffic. We have programs where companies sign up for annual passes for ALL employees with the company subsidizing the passes to varying degrees. One local company is big into mass transit and an employee only pays $24 per YEAR for an unlimited pass. Our fares are low by national average-$1.25 per ride and $2.50 for a full day pass. A day pass to go from Dallas to Fort Worth costs $4.00 and includes unlimited use of buses and trains of both systems. (At this time Fort Worth does not have any light rail service.)

DART has ridership of 9,000 on the Trinity Rail Express, 50,000 on lur light rail, 150,000 on the bus per day. Many of our riders are from depressed areas and are transit dependent.

Other than congestion I do not know why transit is so successful in Texas. The old saying is "You will get me out of my pickup when you pry my dead fingers off the steering wheel". Simialr statements have been made about gun ownership in parts of the country. We have been successful getting people out of their private vehicles without prying the fingers off the wheel. I am proud of DART. We are held up as an example in the industry as to how a transit system should operate. The DOT has told some start up transit systems to get their act to gether like DART then come back to them and talk.

All for now.

***

[Anonymous]

For Jen

We have three sources of funding-fare box, sales tax revenue, and federal funding. Fare box only pays 15% of our direct operating expense. There is not a transit system in the world that pays their way with the fare box. New York, with its high population density has a fare box recovery ratio of about 60%-the best in this country. The Underground in London by law must pay direct operating expense by fares. With 8 million riders per day they get a sizeable amount of income through the ticket stalls. It seems that every time I go to Lonon (3-4 times per year on business) the Undereground fares have been raised again. I can remember when they were 30 pence (50 cents US) for a zone 1 ride. Now they are £1.6 ($2.60) for the same ride. This only pays direct expense-no capital improvements and their cars and stations show it. (The government is making capital grants to clean up the system)

Our second source is sales tax whch I previously said averages about $350 million per year. Our board policy is to allocate this 50% to capital and 50% to operating expense.

The third source of funds is federal grants for capital projects. The DOT grants funds to all transit properties for capital prujects based on ridership, past stewardship of grants, etc. Usally this is a 50% federal 50% local funds for capital projects.

The fourth source of funds is advertising on buses (I am against this, but lost the vote), sales of surplus property, and rents for use of our transit corridors for fiber optic ROW. This category is small potatoes in the big picture.

We do not get any city funds or funding from the state for anything. We operate like a private company by budgeting projected income from sales tax and ridership then plan our projects accordingly. In the present economy sales tax revenue is down about 8% from our projections and we are doing serious belt tightning.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has about 5 million population although only about 65% of this population base is in the service area of DART of the Fort Worth T. Traffic congestion is bad in our area and people perfer to ride and read the paper rather than get ulcers driving in stop and go traffic. We have programs where companies sign up for annual passes for ALL employees with the company subsidizing the passes to varying degrees. One local company is big into mass transit and an employee only pays $24 per YEAR for an unlimited pass. Our fares are low by national average-$1.25 per ride and $2.50 for a full day pass. A day pass to go from Dallas to Fort Worth costs $4.00 and includes unlimited use of buses and trains of both systems. (At this time Fort Worth does not have any light rail service.)

DART has ridership of 9,000 on the Trinity Rail Express, 50,000 on lur light rail, 150,000 on the bus per day. Many of our riders are from depressed areas and are transit dependent.

Other than congestion I do not know why transit is so successful in Texas. The old saying is "You will get me out of my pickup when you pry my dead fingers off the steering wheel". Simialr statements have been made about gun ownership in parts of the country. We have been successful getting people out of their private vehicles without prying the fingers off the wheel. I am proud of DART. We are held up as an example in the industry as to how a transit system should operate. The DOT has told some start up transit systems to get their act to gether like DART then come back to them and talk.

All for now.

***