Are 500 signatures enough to reignite talks of mass transit in Arlington?

ARLINGTON – 500 signatures was all that was necessary for the City of Arlington to start talking about mass transit on their Facebook page.

“Wow, what do you think about this? A UTA student has over 500 signatures on a petition for public transportation in Arlington,” the City proudly posted on their Facebook wall. What the city doesn’t say is that the petition appearing on the liberal-leaning site Change.org, can be signed by anybody at any location, and thus doesn’t accurately represent the wishes of Arlington residents.

For decades, mass transit has been a source of contentious debate among Arlington residents. Mass transit proposals have been rejected by voters three times in recent years.

This new petition is being circulated by UTA nursing freshman Anthia Meme. Upon doing further research, I found that Ms. Meme made several inaccurate statements about public transportation in Arlington, including her opening statement which reads, “Arlington is the biggest city in the United States without public transportation.“ I did the “investigative journalist” thing and here’s what I found.

Although often ignored by proponents of mass transit, there are currently three public transportation services readily available to the citizens and students of Arlington.

Ms. Meme says “college students (have to) rely on friends with cars to get from one place to another (in Arlington).” However, UTA students have access to one of three FREE shuttle routes offered by school Monday through Friday. Students looking for a Saturday lift may schedule a ride with the Mav Mover Shuttle Service and at a cost of just $2.00.

The City also provides Handitran service to elderly and disabled residents. This service allows any elderly or disabled resident to schedule a pick-up time convenient to them. A Handitran bus will pull up in front of a resident’s house and take them to their destination. Handitran will also drop riders off at two nearby Trinity Railway express stations, Centreport and Hurst/Bell. Now that’s convenience!

Mission Arlington also transports people in need to various locations throughout Arlington for jobs, education and job training, social service needs, childcare, after-school programs, tutoring, and more. Every major hotel in Arlington offers shuttle service to destinations around Arlington for tourists and guests.

Anthia Meme cites the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), “the leading force in advancing public transportation,” as the source for several of the statements used in her petitions. The one link she provides to the APTA website leads to a “not found” page.

Elsewhere on the APTA website, they noted that Ft. Worth would be launching a pilot program to offer commuter bus services from Arlington to Ft. Worth. However, due to “low ridership and a lack of public funding,” the program was cancelled in August of 2011 by Arlington’s otherwise pro-mass transit city council.

Dallas-Fort Worth is currently served by two commuter rail lines, DART and the Trinity Railway Express (TRE). In 2010, the TRE had only 2.5 million riders for the entire year, down from the previous two years. This averages to just 6850 riders per day, not a very impressive number for a metroplex of over four million residents.

With mass transit come a number of concerns, including cost and crime. Just last week, the Dallas Morning News reported on a shooting that took place at a DART bus stop in Richardson. Two people were killed and two wounded. Just today, FOX 4 reported on a suspect who received 30 years in the juvenile system for pushing a DART passenger in front of a train and killing him. Crime is not uncommon for DART. 2011 Transit Authority crime statistics for DART lists 1718 incidents involving crimes against persons or property and over 35,000 fare evasion citations. As far as we know, these figures were not reported by local news outlets which tend to be pro mass transit. Those who claim that mass transit does not bring criminal activity to an area are ignoring these numbers.

It’s easy to be in favor of mass transit when it’s on the taxpayer’s dime. However, should mass transit come to Arlington, it will be the property-tax paying residents who will be expected to fund it, not UTA students who typically are here today and gone tomorrow.

In 2009, in response to rising deficits, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for New York implemented a commuter tax up to .34% on quarterly business payrolls including self-employed individuals. New York employers are forced to cover the cost of the city’s failing transportation system. For example, an employer who pays a worker $3,500 per quarter pays an additional $119.00 out of pocket to cover the new tax. Citizens in New York might think they are getting a bargain. However, businesses simply raise the price of their goods and services to cover the added expense. This ultimately lowers the buying power for everyone in New York. While you might be spending $0.18 of every dollar to keep up a car here in Texas as Ms. Meme’s petition claims, you don’t have New York’s through-the-roof cost of living. People are moving from New York to Texas and not the other way around. The cost of New York mass transit is one of the reasons we are seeing all these new faces.

The case for mass transit isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The taxpayer has to pay for it, yet the petition being circulated by Ms. Meme can be signed by anyone from anywhere. An online student petition or anything similar is not an accurate reflection of taxpayer will. Those favoring mass transit should be asking the opinion of the people who would be expected to pay for it. We think they would find that mass transit remains a pill Arlington won’t swallow.