Jan 14, 2008 10:15 pm US/Central
DART Funding Troubles Could Cause Riders Delays
Reporting
Jack Fink
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
When Steve Maher changed jobs last year, he moved so he could take the DART rail to and from work downtown.
"I actually don't have a car," he said. "It saves me a lot of money."
Like thousands of other DART riders, it also saves him time sitting in traffic.
But some Dallas City Council members are now expressing concerns that DART's funding crisis could cause traffic tie-ups, which the rail lines are designed to solve in the first place.
All trains will go through Downtown once all planned rail lines are open by 2018.
To keep trains moving Downtown, DART has proposed building and operating a second track alignment.
But council members worry DART may delay the project to make up for a $900-million shortfall in building its Orange Line to Irving by 2011.
Councilwoman Linda Koop said, "If you had just a single line, it could start to back-up traffic."
She said it could cause a bad traffic situation because there would be more trains than the lines could handle. The trains would block cars and trucks from moving in and out of Downtown.
But DART Executive Director Gary Thomas said he's not proposing delaying a second Downtown alignment.
He said the City of Dallas is working with DART to keep street and rail traffic moving, but he acknowledges potential for problems.
"Without the second alignment, if there's some unanticipated problem, it does back trains up," said Thomas.
That's not what riders like Maher want to hear. "When there are all sorts of unknown delays, that does annoy me and I'm sure it does lots of riders," he said.
In a stunning admission Tuesday, Thomas told Dallas council members he and staff knew about the near billion-dollar shortfall, but didn't tell DART board members and the public for seven months.
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