The Failure of Dallas TOD

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the transit agency serving Dallas and a dozen other cities, is proud of the fact that it has built the longest light-rail system in the country. It is almost as proud of the many transit-oriented developments (TODs) built near light-rail stations. Of course, it never mentions that many if not most of those developments were subsidized through below-market land sales, tax-increment financing, and other government assistance.

Apartments and condos surround the Las Colinas light-rail station in Irving, Texas, yet that station attracted only 137 round-trip riders per weekday in 2019.

To transit advocates, such subsidies are justified because they boost ridership. But is there cause for such justification? How well have transit-oriented developments worked in promoting DART ridership?

The answer appears to be “not very well.” DART’s vision was visibly failing by 2016, and it has only gotten worse since then. Despite construction of new TODs every year, Dallas light-rail ridership declined in every year from 2015 to 2019. Bus ridership also declined from 2015 to 2018 but recovered in 2019, a recovery not shared by the light-rail system.

Many light-rail stations have seen lots of apartments and offices built within a half mile of the station, yet ridership remains low. A Houston Strategies blog post points out that TOD near the Las Colinas station in Irving includes thousands of apartments and several large office buildings, yet that station attracted the second-fewest riders of any station on the DART system in 2020.

“Everywhere you look in Irving, and particularly in Las Colinas along the DART corridor, you see cranes and construction,” DART quotes Irving’s mayor as saying. “The transit oriented development projects, when completed, will have delivered 23 projects that include 15,000 residential units, and nearly 11 million square feet of retail and office space.”

According to a fact sheet published by DART in 2013, at least 4,000 apartments and condos had been built or were under construction near the Las Colinas station as well as several hotels. The fact sheet claimed that an average of 740 people got on or off a light-rail train per weekday at the Las Colinas station.

If Las Colinas ever had 740 trips per weekday, it certainly didn’t in 2019. According to DART’s most recent data, average daily ridership at Las Colinas was only 274 per day, the third-lowest in the system. (As Houston Strategies noted, it dropped to the second-lowest in 2020, but declines in that year were partly due to the pandemic.) Keep in mind that number includes both boardings and deboardings so 274 represents just 137 round-trips per day.

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“The arrival of the DART Blue Line in Downtown Garland in 2002 helped spark new life into our city’s core with transit oriented development,” says the mayor of Garland. Garland’s city hall, high school, post office, and other offices are located near the station, providing more than 4,000 jobs and residences for close to 1,400 people, says DART’s 2013 fact sheet. The fact sheet claims 2,334 average daily riders, but by 2019 this had collapsed (if it was ever true) to 511, the eleventh-worst performing station in the system.

Then there is the city of Carrollton, which was featured in a 2009 New York Times article about how light rail was spurring economic development. The Antiplanner quickly revealed that this development had received more than $13 million in subsidies.

DART quotes the mayor of Carrollton saying, “The DART Green Line to Downtown Carrollton provides fundamental support for our developmental initiatives.” Apparently, what he means is that light rail provides an excuse for the city to subsidize development. DART’s 2013 fact sheet for downtown Carrollton says 1,600 residents and 2,800 jobs were located within a half mile of the station, which attracted 653 daily riders. By 2019, six years of growth had moved this to 611 daily riders, not exactly a great victory. This made it the seventeenth-worst-performing station in the system.

“The sky is the limit when it comes to projects in and around the Farmers Branch DART Green Line Station,” DART quotes the mayor of Farmers Branch saying. “The Mustang Station multi-family building has completed phase 1 and is getting ready to start on phase 2.” According to the Farmers Branch fact sheet, this development was supposed to have at least 257 apartments. The station area also included city hall, schools, a conference center, hotels, and at least 1,650 residents and 4,100 workers. The fact sheet claimed 825 average daily riders, but this had fallen to 758 by 2019, making it the twenty-fourth-worst-patronized station in the system. I guess the limit was a lot lower than the sky.

Thanks partly to tax-increment financing new developments near the downtown Plano light-rail station include housing for more than 4,000 people and employment for nearly 4,000, according to DART’s fact sheet. According to Plano‘s mayor, “DART drives the pulse of Downtown Plano and has ignited a true renaissance.” The fact sheet claims average daily ridership of 686 in 2013, but this had dropped slightly to 660 by 2019.

Of course, some Dallas light-rail stations attract more than a few hundred riders per day, but most of them are in or near central Dallas, not in suburbs that have spent millions of dollars subsidizing TODs. Although DART likes to brag about how much economic development has been “generated” by light rail, the reality is that development would have taken place without the light rail; after all, Dallas is a growing region and people need places to live. All the rail line and subsidies did is influence where in the region it took place.

So if developers have to get subsidized to persuade them to build TODs, and light-rail ridership is declining despite the TODs, when what good are they? The only answer is that TODs help achieve planners’ goals of densifying regions. That’s not much of an answer especially in Dallas, where densities would have to be massively increased to have any affect on transportation and where minimal land-use regulation will ensure that such massive increases never take place.

In short, TOD is simply a scam. Like Portland’s light-rail mafia, which guided subsidies to favored developers who would build TODs, Dallas light rail and TODs are merely a way of transferring money from taxpayers to developers.