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Plano a big part of light rail’s success
Plano’s Robert Pope has served as the city’s DART board representative for 10 years. Pope was previously Plano’s assistant city manager, public works director and city engineer before leaving the city in 1977./Chris McGathey
By Amy Morenz, Staff writer
Plano’s DART light-rail stations have been open for only four years, but the three stops are among the transit agency’s major success stories as it celebrates its 10th anniversary of light rail this week.
Plano’s average daily ridership at the Parker Road station has tripled from 1,398 riders when it opened in 2002 to 3,198 in April. Those riders will be treated to breakfast on Monday as DART recognizes its first decade of train service.
Customers are gradually finding the downtown Plano station, at which daily traffic has increased from 414 riders in 2002 to 786 in 2006. The Bush Turnpike station, actually a few yards south of the Plano border in Richardson, has quadrupled ridership, from 285 passengers per day in 2002 to 1,157 passengers this April.
One of the biggest decisions Plano city officials made was changing plans for downtown Plano in light of the coming rail line, said Robert Pope, Plano’s DART board representative for the past 10 years,. Downtown Plano was initially designed as a special-events platform that would be open only for those events.
“We realized the opportunity for planning for downtown. That plan got closer to construction and the city worked on trading properties, closing streets and making downtown redevelopment feasible,” said Pope, a real estate development who was previously Plano’s assistant city manager, public works director and city engineer.
Today, Plano’s staff constantly gives tours of a downtown area experiencing a transformation since DART added light rail. Cities such as Garland and Carrollton now look to Plano as an example of how light rail can support a Transit Oriented Development lifestyle,” he said.
“We were one of the first to recognize the potential of downtown around stations,” he said.
Plano’s downtown retail task force will soon complete its examination of how downtown retailers can capture more customers. Downtown’s property values skyrocketed after DART added its downtown stop, real estate experts said.
A recent DART study showed transit-oriented development drives property values higher. Between 1997 and 2001, residential property values near the light-rail stations rose 30 percent more than the control group of properties not served by rail.
Plano was the first city in North Texas to participate in Fannie Mae’s Smart Growth Initiative aimed at increasing both transit-oriented development and transit ridership. Those buying a home within a half-mile of a station can add part of their transportation savings to their qualifying income.
Plano officials have been working since 1997 to foster the idea of a transit village around downtown and invested in enlarging nearby Haggard Park, building the Courtyard Theater and supporting renovations at the Cox Building next door.
The city’s vision for a transit village comprises a mix of government, retail, office and residential uses. The former Rice Field property was dedicated on Thursday for a new townhouse development.
Plano’s downtown transit village received the Celebrating Leadership in Development Excellence award for redevelopment from the North Central Texas Council of Governments in 2003. An estimated $3.3 million in private funds have been invested along DART’s 45-mile system, DART director Gary Thomas told the Richardson Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
One of Pope’s biggest surprises was the ridership Plano is generating for the DART light rail. Parking at the Parker Road Station is a constant issue because it’s the northern terminus of the system’s Red Line. Passengers from non-DART cities to the north use the station to gain access to downtown Dallas.
Because trains are limited to no more than three light rail cars -- to avoid blocking downtown Dallas intersections n DART has ordered smaller inserts that can fit in the middle of existing trains, Pope said. Their lower floors will help operators avoid longer stops to pick up wheelchair customers. The inserts will also serve more passengers.
About 60 percent of the region’s residents are expected to live outside DART’s existing service area, Thomas said. Voters in nine counties could be surveyed to see if they would support a sales-tax increase for additional commuter rail. The legislature would have to approve the change to raise the current sales tax ceiling of a half-cent designated toward transportation, Thomas said.
“We’re studying the criteria for a survey to see what we could do,” said Pope, “The DART board is encouraging waiving that tax cap to allow non-member cities to adopt up to a penny for transit. We want to see what our constituents want to pay for it.”
DART’s 2030 plan is expected to include a proposed Cotton Belt link to provide east-west rail connections from Plano and north Richardson to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Public hearings are expected late this summer or this fall.
Contact staff writer Amy Morenz at 972-398-4263 or amy.morenz@scntx.com.
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