Mass Transit

Many believe the cities themselves can finance an expansion in the DART Rail system. However, the city budgets have been strained to the brink by our housing slump as they deal with existing expansion issues. It is time for the county government to pony up to the bar and work with the cities instead of let them fail individually. The County has to step in with initiatives to kick-start this project if we are ever going to see rail service succeed. If we do not stand together, we will surely fall apart.

We have to have seamless regional transit in order to be effective in the future. With Collin County on line to double the population north of Plano by 2030, it’s imperative that we give our citizens access to rail or bus transportation as soon as possible. My opponent says he wants mass transit, yet he publicly refuses to allow our HOV lanes to extend any further into the County. Increased access to the HOV lanes is the single cheapest and fastest way to decrease traffic on Highway 75, and remove pollution from the air.
My focus is not only on HOV, but on finding ways to kick-start the DART Rail system north of Plano, AND to get bus transit for our citizens.

DART Rail can move forward by having the County work not only with McKinney, Fairview, and Allen, but by having other cities in the area participate in the equation of future expansion. We need to get Frisco online with DART as well, and ensure that the push north does not stop at Highway 380. Expansion is twice as expensive today as it was in 2000. We need to realize that it will double in price again in ten years.

Express Bussing could happen almost immediately, allowing business people to take a bus from their city centers to downtown Dallas and Denton. This is a service already provided by the city of Denton that has decreased the choke hold on Interstate 35-E. We don’t need to re-invent the wheel here, just take what works and focus on bringing it to use against our future challenges.

Transportation is a key issue because we as the County have little direct jurisdiction on state highways or municipal roads, yet we have more access to funding for such initiatives than the cities do. The 2007 bond package for our municipal roads definitely helped the cities leverage enough to pay for their road projects. This is yet another instance of how important it is for our cities to stand together in order to succeed.

We all realize that Mass Transit is vital to growth in the region, and something no single city can do by itself. We have to bond together in order to create plans for a seamless transit system in Collin County.