A Major Update — and a Critical Moment for Transit in Plano 🚍
Greetings from Keep DART In Plano!
Hello everyone,
Thank you again for signing up at KeepDARTinPlano.org and for standing with thousands of neighbors who believe in transparent, accountable, rider-focused public transit for our city.
We’re officially a 501(c)(4)!
This important milestone allows us to advocate more strongly, speak more boldly, and organize more effectively. Your support is the reason this movement is growing.
We launched Facebook, YouTube and Instagram! (Still looking for volunteers to assist us with these!) And we’re providing a link to our Google Drive with all of our collected information so far!
🚍 What We’re Doing Next
To spotlight the real rider experience, we are organizing a Bus Ride-A-Thon and inviting the entire City Council to join us.
We need volunteers for:
Route planning
Outreach
Rider engagement
Event logistics
If you can help, join our weekly Tuesday calls at 7:30 PM.
✊ Your Call to Action
If you believe Plano deserves:
âś“ Strengthen our partnership with DART
✓ Decisions made in daylight—not behind closed doors
âś“ Transit solutions based on data and rider needs
Now is the moment to get involved.
Please:
Forward this email to three neighbors
Ask friends to sign up at KeepDARTinPlano.org
Check out TransitTruths.com
We’re building a community that will not be dismissed—and we’re just getting started.
Thank you for standing with us,
Keep DART in Plano
🚨This overview may be lengthy!🚨
🔎 A New Piece of the Puzzle
Over the last several weeks, we’ve been working to understand why Plano chose to initiate a DART withdrawal election—especially without a clear replacement plan.
And now, we’ve learned something significant:
City of Plano representatives have been meeting with other city councils and encouraging them to call their own withdrawal elections.
This was happening behind the scenes while residents were repeatedly told that “DART won’t negotiate.” Our first FAQ has already documented—and proven—that this narrative is false.
These revelations—and the City’s decision to pursue a low-turnout special election—paint a troubling picture of a process driven not by residents, but by City leadership.
To get answers, we have recently submitted open records requests for all emails sent to or from Councilmember Maria Tu and Andrew Fortune this year. We intend to shed light on how and why these decisions have unfolded.
🔨 What the City Is Now Proposing
Plano is negotiating a new agreement with DART—one that dramatically reshapes transit in our city. Here’s what it includes:
1. Elimination of All Local Transit Service
By January 1, 2029, DART would discontinue:
All standard bus service
All GoLink and microtransit service
All non-rail transit inside Plano
Only rail and express buses would remain.
2. A Partial Sales Tax Giveback
Beginning in 2026, DART would return a portion of Plano’s 1% transit sales tax:
25% in 2026
35% in 2027
45% in 2028
50% annually from 2029–2031
Funds must be used on mobility projects only.
3. Plano’s Restrictions
Plano would be required to:
End all legislative efforts about DART governance or funding
Halt the withdrawal process
Undo previous withdrawal actions within 72 hours
Accept that DART can suspend payments if Plano restarts withdrawal or legislative pushes
This is a major departure from what many believed this process was about.
🚍 Why This Matters for Riders
Cutting bus and demand-response service without a proven, scalable replacement will directly affect:
Seniors
Workers
Students
People with disabilities
Anyone who relies on transit for daily mobility
This is not a minor change—this is a structural redesign of how (and whether) thousands of people get to work, school, healthcare, and essential services.
âť—Microtransit Is Not a Replacement
Plano has suggested it may “develop its own system,” often pointing to microtransit as the alternative.
But independent research—including a widely cited MIT analysis—shows that microtransit:
Moves significantly fewer riders per hour
Costs far more per trip
Requires heavy subsidies
Consistently fails to scale
Performs worse than fixed-route service even in lower-density areas
Replacing fixed routes with microtransit is not modernization—it’s degradation.
Residents deserve a transit plan rooted in evidence, not experiments.
⚠️ A Critical Issue: Timing, Turnout & Trust
More than 100 residents showed up at City Council asking the City to delay the DART withdrawal vote until a real, vetted transit plan was in place. These weren’t outside groups—these were the very residents who elected the council.
Despite this overwhelming request for transparency and due diligence, the Council moved forward with a May special election, one of the lowest-turnout moments of the year.
And here’s the deeper issue:
A decision this consequential shouldn’t have been rushed onto the earliest possible ballot. Plano should have delayed until the City could come to the table with a viable, thought-out backup plan—but the goal here is clearly to use this election as a negotiation tactic, not a community-driven decision.
In all honesty, many of us don’t believe this ever should have gone to a ballot without a plan. But even if Council insisted on putting it to voters, they had options:
They could have placed the measure on the high-turnout November ballot;
Or simply waited until a feasible, transparent transit alternative existed.
They chose neither.
Instead of responding to residents who asked for more time, more information, and more clarity, the Council advanced a process that minimizes participation and maximizes their leverage over DART. It raises serious questions about why this timeline was chosen, who benefits from rushing it, and why public input was disregarded at the very moment it mattered most.
TL;DR
Plano pushed forward a DART withdrawal election without a real transit plan, despite more than 100 residents asking the City to slow down and do this responsibly. Meanwhile, City representatives were encouraging other cities to withdraw from DART—even as Plano publicly claimed that “DART won’t negotiate,” a narrative we’ve proven false.
Instead of delaying the vote, the Council selected a low-turnout May election, signaling that this is being used as a negotiation tactic, not a community-driven decision.
The City’s proposed agreement would eliminate all buses, GoLink, and microtransit by 2029, with no viable alternative in place.
We need a transparent plan, not rushed politics. Join us, speak up, and help us protect reliable transit in Plano.
