Executive Summary

DART light rail - Next to Dallas Love Field

Direct LRT Access to Dallas Love Field was Denied

Collateral damage to the Love Field West Neighborhood

As presented by www.DartNeedsLove.com

Washington / Congress Briefing Report

March 12, 2007

·       1999 - Dallas City Council voted a Resolution to Take DART Light Rail Transit (LRT) Directly into Dallas Love Field.

·       1999-2004 DART Board did not formally support going into Love Field.

·       March 4, 2004 DART and Dallas Execute Interlocal Supplemental Agreement No. 7 stating in Section 1.02 “Full Efforts.  CITY and DART agree to each use their full efforts to achieve the implementation of the Tunnel Option.”

·       June 22, 2004 DART Committee of the Whole Briefing – Discussion on Update on Love Field Interlocal Agreement – Following is a statement by Douglas A.  Allen, DART Exe. VP Program Development - “In conversations with the FTA, they will not give DART approval to go into final design until DART decides whether or not to go into Love Field.  They [FTA] have resisted and consistently resist any approval.  They will give DART a rating on both, but before they give it the approval to go into final design they want to know whether or not we are going into Love Field.”  Note:  This is after DART signed the Interlocal Agreement No. 7 to use Full Efforts to achieve the implementation of the Tunnel Option on 3/5/06.  Mr. Allen went on to say “Staff’s focus and priority is the base [alignment].  Staff is working diligently to get the base recommended because that is a for sure project.  Once the base is nailed down that is when staff will shift its attention Love Field.  Love Field hasn’t been causing any of these delays, it has been the base and the modeling questions relative to the base.”

·       November 23, 2004 DART receives the FTA denial letter about doing the Tunnel into Love Field.  FTA states – “Generally, FTA does not rate projects (or design options to current projects) that have not been adopted as the preferred local alternative and formally approved into preliminary engineering or final design.”  Note:  DART still, some eight (8) months after signing InterLocal Agreement No. 7 to use Full Efforts to achieve the implementation of the Tunnel Option, cannot tell FTA it is their preferred local alternative and formally approved into preliminary engineering or final design.  DART agreed to use Full Efforts yet they evidently did not, as shown above, prior to this FTA denial letter to Tunnel into Love Field.

·       2004 after the November FTA denial letter- DART is not going to Tunnel into Love Field for they did not do the successful work or get the approval from FTA.  DART must go along the side of Love Field up Denton Road.

·       June 12, 2006 Dallas, Forth Worth, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and the DFW Board inter in a local agreement to remove the Wright Amendment in eight (8) years.  This will increase the Traffic, Noise and Pollution at Love Field and the surrounding neighborhoods by as many as 3.5 million passengers a year.  A DART line direct into Love Field sure would help.

·       July 12, 2006 – The U.S. House Aviation Subcommittee held a public hearing on Reforming the Wright Amendment with testimony from the likes of Dallas Mayor Miller and Southwest Chairman Mr. Herb Kelleher to name a few.  Some of the testimony was:

CHARMAN MICA.  I followed your commuter rail and light rail.  You actually all got some of the money when central Florida went down the tubes and you did a great job.  I followed that project.  And I am really impressed with what you have done with both commuter rail and light rail.  I saw you bringing in a plan to bring in some transit to, it it was not at Dallas when I visited, it is not there not?

MAYOR MILLER.  Well—

CHAIRMAN MICA.  Or Love.

MAYOR MILLER.  Well, we have one line that goes through Dallas Northeast to Southwest, we are going to cross it with a brand new line that will go by Love Field.  We asked, actually, to connect it directly to Love Field and we were turned down by the Federal Government.  They said that there weren’t enough passengers to justify.

CHAIRMAN MICA.  And we need to change that.

Mr. KELLEHER.  That was because of the Wright Amendment, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN MICA.  But we really need to look at that.  We do.  And it is a chicken-or-egg kind of thing, which comes first and people will use it.  But we should almost have a requirement that any of our major transportation aviation facilities are connected by mass transit.

I will be glad to look at that

I know you have sort of thrown in the towel, which I think I just read about this this past week, but I am very, very impressed with what I have seen down there.

That was the one thing that I was concerned with. And we might want to revisit that.  I will ask the staff, too, to see if we can talk to folks about that.

And I don’t mind reaching PFC or other money to make the connection.

And I see that is something you were looking at.

·       September 29, 2006 the Senate and the House passed the Wright Amendment Reform Act of 2006. This will affect the passenger count at Love Field, going from 5.5 million a year to over 8.5 million passengers a year upon the full repeal of the Wright Amendment.  This will be 54.5% increase in traffic at Dallas Love Field, and do not forget the help it will give to the 6 million citizens in North Texas because of the repeal of the Wright Amendment by having lower air fares and more jobs.  Alleviating more traffic is exactly what DART lives for and this is what our Federal dollars are best used for.  This is the opportunity DART management lost for Texas and our visitors from every state to Dallas Love Field Airport.

·       October 2006 - Present.  DART is now pushing the rail line up the side of Love Field through the Love Field West Neighborhood, along Denton Drive over a 1.4 mile stretch.  DARTs plan is to:

Disrupt the Neighborhood of 2,246 homes, with almost 6,000 residents that is 85% Hispanic, 13% Anglo and 2% Black, Asian, and other.

There are two schools – Obadiah Knight Elementary School has 950 students and 110 staff and the other school is OLPH Elementary School that has 150 weekday students and 700 weekend students and 45 staff.  The schools as a group back up to the commercial building that is in the same block that is adjacent to the DART tracks where the trains will go by at 64 mph on average every 2 ½ minutes at the peak hours from 6-9AM and 3-6PM each day.  The proposed transfer station will also have 18 buses an hour going to and from this station as well as the trains and the adjoining freight trains four times a day.  This equates to over 1,300 to 1,500 young children mixing with the movement of all these adjacent transportation vehicles.

Closing five (5) Denton Drive intersections and signalize the remaining seven (7) Denton Drive intersections that cannot be supported from a standpoint of safety.  These streets were not designed for these kinds of traffic loads.  These streets do not have the proper width to handle these traffic loads. The school buses to deliver and collect students at these schools will not be able to navigate the remaining streets for there is no room.

DART's report to FTA states the population will grow 10%, yet 40% of this neighborhood is zoned multi-family and is underutilized today with the biggest real estate boom in 25 years on the way up their streets.  Closing the streets and putting a 64 mph train at your front door every 2-½ minutes will close off this neighborhood to participate in such an economic growth.  This will hurt this neighborhood by retarding their economic potential.

DART’s proposal will support seven (7) traffic and crossing signals from Empire Central to Shorecreset, a distance of 1.6 miles, almost doubles the Nationwide Standard.  There is evidence from research that placing more than three (3) traffic signals per mile increases the traffic accident rate.

Closing the street that serves Williamson Printing Corporation that has 400 employees.  They will have to move if the street is closed.

DARTs proposal will allow the additional 3.5 million new passengers at Love Field to increase our Noise, Traffic, and Pollution because it bypasses the airport. So the benefit of Mass Transit is lost yet the neighborhoods will still get the penalty of living next to a 64 mph loud train every 2-½ minutes with all the dangers that come with it.  It also reduces the value of the homes compared to if the trains were not there and the roads were not closed.

·       February 28, 2007 – Mayor Miller at the City Council Meeting made the following statement about DART going directly into Love Field, via a Tunnel:  “Every step of the way DART fought us, the Staff, the Board, the Director, everybody, every step of the way”…”DART told them [FTA] every step of the way we [DART] do not want this Tunnel and that is why we do not have the Tunnel today, in my opinion” – Mayor Miller.  The documents and DARTs own statements seem to prove her correct.

·       March 3, 2007 – www.DartNeedsLove.com was launched to show support for putting DART directly into Love Field and to save the Love Field West Neighborhood from Traffic, Noise, Pollution and Safety for their children in the adjacent two (2) schools.

·       March 9, 2007 - It is our understanding that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson informed Dallas Mayor Miller that any change to the FTA Full Funding Grant would cause the entire $700 million to be forfeited for breach of contract.  Not many mayors in any city would be willing to risk such a statement to become reality.  We do not expect Mayor Miller to take such a risk.  We now request Congress to help find a way to assist the Love Field West Neighborhood from having to take the brunt of DARTs appearance of a breach of their contract with Dallas to “use their Full Efforts in achieve the implementation of the Tunnel Option” [into Love Field] as stated in the Interlocal Agreement Supplement No. 7 dated March 3, 2004, section 1.02 under heading called Full Efforts.

·       March 12, 2007 – The Love Field Neighborhood DART Committee will be in Washington from March 12 – 15, 2007 to meet with Members of Congress to ensure they are not the victims to what is evidently a bad design that was not communicated to the community until some 10 months ago.  For that is how long the neighborhood has been fighting DART, street-by-street and block-by-block.  They do this especially for every child in this neighborhood.  This fight is from a neighborhood that is mostly made up of low to middle income families with minority status.

·       March 12, 2007 – If DART is not going to Tunnel direct into Love Field then the Love Field West Neighborhood needs Congresses help to not let DART damage Love Field West Neighborhood.  The only design that is a good safe design cost money.  If DART cannot afford the project than do not put the expense of a bad plan on the neighborhood and make them pay the price of having the quality and safety of their lives drop.  The right design would be to Tunnel under the neighborhood streets and not close them.  This will get the trains under ground and away from the schools and the 1,500+ children as well as keeping the streets open.

DART Needs LOVE!  Just like we all need Love Field Airport

Unfortunately DART is bypassing Love Field and causing extreme damage to Love Field West Neighborhood.  If we cannot do the right thing for Love Field we at least need to do the right thing for the neighborhood.

Thank you for your time and consideration.