More Bad News From DART

As I mentioned to many people that called me about the DART over budget, this is just the beginning. The City of Dallas,Mayor Leppert, Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne)Caraway, Tennell Adkins had better wake up and get involved in the process of reprogramming the projects and the budget at DART. When you know and understand how much of the additional Rail was to be in the city of Dallas,who pays into DART approimately 55% of the sales tax revenue, and now that service can be lost or moved out to a point where it is irrelevant. The extensions to the Univ. of North Texas, Inland Port,Westmoreland and Redbird Lane, West Dallas and the Cotton Belt all may be moved out for years or taken off the project list completely.

This short fall did not just happen, and while the agency is putting a spin on the reason for the short fall,the most inexperienced person should be able to see that designing the Orange line to Irving is not where the shortfall started. It is only
20% designed. Look at the current lines under construction and see if they are over budget and how that impacted the current budget. All of the current expenditures have been sanctioned by the Project Management Committee and then by the board. If one would just listen to the committee tapes you would hear the explanations that were given to the board for the higher cost,and you would have an idea of why the agency is where it is today.

Mayor Leppert,Dwaine (Dewayne,Dwayne) Caraway, Tennell Adkins, Willis Johnson, Jerry Allen, Ron Natinsky, Sheffie Kadane, Elba Garcia and Dave Newman need to tell the citizens of Dallas how they plan to handle what is about to happen to Dallas citizens with the Light rail buildout, BRT (Bus Rapid Transit)and HOV lanes. I think that it is going to ultimately be devastating to Dallas, Irving, Rowlett, Addison and Farmers Branch.