Is the City of Allen Working on Getting DART Rail Service?
The City of Allen is extremely interested in moving rail transit further north in the US 75 corridor. In 2005 the North Central Council of Governments studied the regional rail issue in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the northern extension of DART in the US 75 corridor is the one with the largest ridership potential.

At this time we need to resolve three core issues to address the implementation of a regional rail plan for the Cities not within in the DART or Fort Worth T transit service areas. The core issues include:

• Funding - DART requires the dedication of 1 cent of the sales tax dollars generated in the service area for local funding
• Governance – Determination of how the regional system will be integrated into existing systems
• Technical – Determination of the best mode of transportation through DART (light rail, commuter rail, or new technology)

The first step in resolving these issues is to work through the legislative process to provide for the creation of a regional system and to provide a funding mechanism. For funding, a menu of additional local option taxes are proposed on a County wide basis since many of the non DART cities (Allen included) are unable to allocate additional sales tax to be dedicated to transit.

The past legislative sessions have not provided a funding mechanism or governance mechanism to resolve the regional rail issues. Consequently, there is no short-term outlook for the light rail system to be extended to Allen.

Please contact our Engineering Department if you need additional information at 214.509.4576.

Click here to visit the North Central Texas Council of Government's website for more information.

Click here to view the Regional Rail Corridor Study through NCTCOG's website.