At a bus stop just outside of Arlington, a woman named Dorotha waits for her ride. A hospital bracelet from earlier that same morning dangles from her wrist. To even be standing at her stop, she'd first had to first phone a friend for a ride. A retiree, Dorotha is a regular public transit user all throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and generally considers the systems to be efficient with only minor flaws.
“One of my first times in Fort Worth, I missed one bus. I didn't know it would go offline, then there wasn't another bus,” Dorotha said. “So I got stuck.”
She relies heavily on three main systems—Trinity Railway Express, DART and Trinity Metro—to provide mobility between cities. For Dorotha, public transportation is not only an affordable option but one she has depended on numerous times throughout her years.
Having lived for 33 years in Dallas before a recent move brought her to Fort Worth, she’s noted many differences and unique characteristics between each area’s public transit. In her experience, one of the most cumbersome areas to navigate is the city of Arlington.
“All depends on traffic,” Dorotha said. “But it’s hard, you can’t get a bus to Arlington. Can’t get one—he’ll go to Texas Stadium—AT&T Stadium and he’ll flip around. But he’ll get you to the stadium. He won’t go into the community like these buses here.”
Dorotha is hardly alone in her daily struggle to get around solely by way of public transportation.
The average Texan commutes 27 minutes to their job every day, but what if a personal vehicle isn’t a feasible option? Five of the major Texas cities—Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio— have been identified as heavily transit-dependent areas with what are, effectively, “blind spots” known as transit deserts.
“Transit deserts are areas where public transportation supply is notably lower than transit service demand,” wrote Junfeng Jiao in an excerpt from The Journal of Transport and Land Use.
Transportation is a fundamental steppingstone that provides mobility for Americans to access grocery stores, healthcare, and employment opportunities. However, the accessibility disappears when there is no vehicle ownership or public transportation available in a resident’s local community.
“My taxes pay for roads and infrastructure that allow people to drive their cars, so what is the deal about paying for people to get around who don't have cars?” said Dr. Austin Allen, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.
While housing is the single largest expense for Americans, the cost of transportation cannot be overlooked when evaluating household finances. When combined, the two expenses account for approximately half of the average U.S. household budget. In short, if you require but do not have adequate access to public transportation, it exasperates the affordability of housing by limiting one’s reach and economic opportunities.
Two North Texas “transit deserts,” the cities of Arlington and DeSoto, decided the best way to approach this problem was by means of innovation, implementing their own on-demand ride-share services as opposed to traditional methods of public transportation. The projects, funded in large part by the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), are cost-effective, but they aren’t without their own shortcomings, leading critics to label them insufficient.
The city of Arlington provides a unique case study on public transit as it was for many years the largest American city without a publicly funded transportation system. Voters went as far as to reject proposals on three separate occasions, the most recent of which came in 2002, deeming even a quarter-cent sales tax increase to be too great a burden to their pocketbooks.
While the city did eventually launch a modest bus route, the Metro Arlington Xpress, it ran for just over four years with a limited route designed to connect the CentrePort/DFW Airport station along the Trinity Railway Express to downtown Arlington and the University of Texas at Arlington. The intention behind this briefly supported system, senior officer in the Office of Strategic Initiatives Alicia Winkelblech said, was to highlight the need for a transportation system and collect community feedback before the modest system was allowed to fail.
“I think at the most we had like 300 rides per day [with the Metro Arlington Xpress bus line] and it wasn't making sense for the money,” Winkelblech said. “We did that on purpose because we wanted to dip our toe and see what the feedback from the community was. What it did was highlight a need for some kind of public transit, but it also highlighted that that probably wasn't the right public transit.”
Enter Via, a micro-transit ride-share service the city partnered with in 2017. Rather than being left up to voters for approval or requiring a sales tax increase, officials instead drew from the city’s general funds to foot one third of the ambitious plan’s cost, approximately $322,500. The remaining balance was paid for by the Federal Transit Administration in the form of grants–something the agency regularly does for cities attempting to innovate new potential solutions to transit needs.
Via sees some 300 riders per day in the city of Arlington, charging users between $3-5 per ride depending on distance. For any destination more than 5 miles away, the service charges $5. For all other rides, the price is $3. Weekly passes are also available to make the service more affordable.
Users can download the app on their smartphone and hail a “shuttle” much like they would an Uber or a Lyft, though their ride will likely include other passengers in a carpool structure. For users who don’t have smartphones, shuttles can be summoned by a landline phone and then paid for with a prepaid card. Cash is not accepted by Via.
The strongest feature of the Via system, Winkelblech says, is its scalability. Because it’s an “on-demand” service, the cost to the city is dynamic, which avoids running empty or mostly empty buses at cost to taxpayers. Shielded from this, Arlington reportedly saved $1.1 million due to a lack of public demand. Those savings, in turn, were then rolled back into the city’s general funds.
Although Arlington may not have had a previous transportation system to compare Via against, the ride-share service has undoubtedly addressed many of the community’s needs. Riders can summon shuttles all throughout the city within one to three blocks of their current location and then travel anywhere within the city’s 99-square mile radius at a reasonable price.
With Arlington’s past notoriety as the country’s biggest transit desert, Its innovative approach was bound to garner the attention of other North Texas cities. After observing the first few years of Arlington’s experiment, the city of DeSoto elected to create their own ride-share service, STAR Now.
DeSoto lacked mobility throughout the city prior to April 2018, when a contract with STAR Transit was established. The partnership with STAR Transit enabled DeSoto to create a fixed route and demand response for residents.
The fixed route has 15 stops that provide connectivity throughout the city and enable residents to access the University of North Texas DART station. On the other hand, the demand response is an option available to residents who need to be picked up from the comfort of their homes.
“People want that flexibility,” said assistant city manager Kimberly Garduno. “They don’t want to just sit on a bus and go from stop to stop because they may need to go across town for a job, or an appointment or to an entertainment destination.”
In the state of Texas there is a shortage of rental homes that are affordable to residents, leading several households to become cost-burdened. The burden forces renters to sacrifice important necessities, such as a personal car or healthcare.
The availability of public transportation is essential when it is the singular option for residents who are unable to afford other options. With the arrival of STAR transit, DeSoto residents who lacked a car were given an affordable and efficient alternative option.
McDonald’s employee and musician, Larry Smith, gets off at the UNT DART station after finishing a shift from his job. Smith is a DeSoto resident who has solely depended on public transit to access his employment for two months because his two cars are not functional. Much like Dorotha, he has struggled with the timing and availability of buses.
“It’s just some routes that just take too long, you know, so if I had a preference I would prefer a car but for those who do not have a car—DART is amazing,” Smith said.
Negative feedback received by STAR Transit has mainly been about the availability of our services, says STAR deputy executive director Kim Britton.
“[The complaints] are part of the reason why we’re transitioning over to STAR Now because [STAR Now] will increase availability and give people more options to be able to get transit throughout the day,” Britton said.
On-Demand service, STAR Now, will officially initiate in January 2022 and is expected to replace the current fixed-route service and demand response.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments has a regional transportation council made up of professionals who conduct studies to evaluate affordability and efficiency of transportation systems.
In 2018, the Southern Dallas County Transit Study was conducted to analyze the issue of southern cities with limited or complete lack of transportation. A plan was produced for the cities identified in the study— Cedar Hill, Lancaster, and DeSoto—it is divided into three phases over the span of 20 years.
Project Manager and transportation planner David Garcia explained that even though STAR Now is a great opportunity for DeSoto, it might only be a temporary solution.
“Micro-transit really just addresses those local needs, so those local trips within the jurisdiction with not much connection to neighboring cities,” Garcia said.
The second phase of the study highlights the connectivity demand that is absent in the micro-transit zones. In DeSoto, there would no longer be any connectivity beyond the city limits with the arrival of STAR Now, so there are recommendations to establish three fixed routes with the goal of increasing mobility between surrounding cities.
“So micro-transit, it's a very, very attractive option because it’s, relatively speaking, low-cost and quick to implement,” Garcia said.
STAR Transit development has proven to be a popular choice for the elderly and disabled residents of DeSoto, according to the STAR ridership reports provided by Britton.
“I think the ridership reflects the effectiveness of [STAR Transit] just from a numbers standpoint,” Britton said.
While each system has its strengths and has helped address public demand to a degree, those same transit desert blind spots remain.
“It does not provide transit diversity, allowing all income levels adequate, varied, and affordable transit access,” said Diane Allen, a landscape architecture expert and professor at UT Arlington. “The city and state still over subsidize automobiles through the cost of road infrastructure and improvements and provide little subsidy for public transit. Transportation access is still very inequitable.”
When Via was first discussed as a potential solution to Arlington’s public transportation issue in 2017, Diane Allen expressed skepticism about its potential to resolve the city’s affordable transportation deficiencies. Her colleague and fellow UTA faculty member, Dr. Austin Allen shared her assessment, but was willing to acknowledge the service “would be great” if it were part of a greater system of transportation options rather than a one-size-fits-all effort.
“The deal,” it seems, is that Arlington voters are unwilling to approve a tax increase under almost any circumstance beyond a new professional sports stadium for the Texas Rangers or Dallas Cowboys.
The experience, which Allen said was more so a middle ground between public transportation and Lyft or Uber but certainly would not qualify as public transportation.
While these transportation services do help commuters get around their respective cities, they keep them confined to their individual city limits. This means any riders with business in another city, be it a doctor’s appointment, their place of work, or otherwise, would need to take one system to the edge of the city’s limit and then open a separate application on their phone to hail that city’s ride-share service to either complete their commute or finish that particular leg of it.
This apparent flaw is likely the result of the federal grant money cities are awarded for such innovative programs, as well as the desire to keep sales tax revenue within their respective city limits. The more cities that follow this model, the more sectioned off these communities are likely to become.
Despite their flaws, there is value in micro-transit ride-share services like Via and STAR. The federal grant money to implement such systems may help lessen the financial burden to support such necessary services but using them to outright replace traditional public transportation, despite their existing weaknesses, is problematic. Ideally, such services would exist as alternative options within a healthy ecosystem of public transit, not as a one-size-fits-all solution.
In Arlington’s case, citizens have, on multiple occasions, soundly rejected a sales-tax increase to fund the city’s public transit. Understanding something needed to be done, the city appointed a transit advisory committee in 2016 to determine the best course of action.
“They spent a year reviewing materials, studying about Arlington, hearing from different professionals in the industry,” Winkelblech said. “They heard from Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), and Trinity Metro, and Lyft, and Catholic Charities –which is one of our nonprofits that does some transportation, a couple different ride-share companies,” though not Via, “and the North Central Texas Council of Governments.”
In their review, the committee came across an old transit study done by DART as part of the 2013 Metro Arlington Xpress venture. The study concluded that traditional public transit would not be feasible citywide due to Arlington’s “spread out” corridors of transit. As such, the committee recommended a model that was more “scalable” and, most importantly, “phasable,” which ultimately led to the concept of ride-share and Via.
If traditional public transportation is not feasible for Arlington, even using some of the savings through Via, such as the $1.1 million saved in 2020, could potentially help support a modest system like discontinued Metro Arlington Xpress.
For other cities with fewer complications, a marriage between the services would ensure that cities support not just the most citizens possible but provide adequate accessibility that adapts to an individual’s needs rather than limiting them to the framework of a single service.
Micro-transit could evolve if connectivity is considered. The ride-share programs in Arlington and DeSoto have proven to be affordable and effective for their designated cities, but the impact could be greater. Allowing citizens to transport beyond city limits through a singular system would expand their opportunities because with extensive options available, citizens are no longer tied down to a single community.
Diversify the approach. Innovate new programs but continue to invest in modest forms of traditional public transportation along the way. If the innovative service proves to be “scalable and phasable,” as Arlington’s transit advisory committee endorsed, perhaps future iterations will allow cities to better pivot from the traditional systems. Until then, city officials should remember that they're investing not just in programs but their own citizens, and that one size never fits all.
Comentários