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There’s a movement on to get Dallas students free rides on DART

Supporters say the initiative would promote access for low-income students and boost ridership

High school student Jordan Sanchez knows how to evade notice when taking Dallas public transit to school and he doesn’t have the money to pay: sit at the front or back of the train car, pretend to be asleep, display a mobile ticket without activating it.

He also knows what to do if he gets caught.

“The first thing you try to do is make up an excuse … because you want to get to school, but you have no money,” he said. If they decide to kick you off, “you can try to sneak on the next train that comes by.”

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Sanchez, a rising junior at Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet, said if transit were free then it would take the stress out of getting to his classes. He usually can’t come up with the fare.

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That is precisely what Dallas Area Rapid Transit is considering for students in Dallas: a pilot program that offers them free rides.

“The DART Board of Directors are just beginning the initial discussions and research concerning the practicality of the student transit pilot program for K-12 students,” said spokesperson Gordon Shattles.

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Factors they’re looking at range from financial and operational questions to safety issues, he said.

“Safety, first and foremost, is on all board members’ minds,” said budget and finance chair Jon-Bertrell Killen. “Beyond that, it’s exploring sustainable ways to afford the program.”

A six month pilot program would cost DART about $1 million, said Killen, adding that students take more than one million rides on DART every year and together with schools spend about $2 million on the agency’s services.

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Word of the initiative reached Sanchez when he met Jack Chrismon, who had been advocating for it together with Sunrise Movement Dallas. Chrismon, who was circulating information about the program on social media, caught his interest.

Both Sanchez and Chrismon live miles from the magnet schools they attend, putting them outside the range of yellow school bus routes. Their parents work full time and aren’t able to drive them to school, leaving DART as their only option.

A rising senior at the School for the Talented and Gifted, Chrismon takes a 40-minute train ride to and from school every day. He buys the monthly reduced fare pass for children on his phone for $48, something he knows many are unable to afford.

He tells Sanchez to be careful on the train when he can’t pay — enforcement officers can issue citations, something he wants to eliminate by pushing for the program.

“Having free DART for students would allow them to be fearless, to not have that fear of getting ticketed on board,” he said.

Killen said his view of DART’s role in Dallas changed when the agency began delivering groceries to residents at the height of the pandemic.

“It really clicked for me that we have opportunities that maybe we haven’t explored,” he said.

One of those opportunities was offering free fare for students, something he knew was happening at transit agencies in cities such as Austin and Los Angeles. Success stories in those places got him thinking and he first brought the idea to the DART board in January.

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The proposal would offer free services — including bus, rail and paratransit — to all K-12 students in the Dallas area. Students over 12 years old would need to show a student ID to ride and students under 12 would need to be accompanied by a guardian.

People get on a DART bus on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at University of Texas Dallas in...
People get on a DART bus on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at University of Texas Dallas in Richardson, Texas.(Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)

Offering free fare to students could promote equitable access to transportation, decrease administration burdens on DART and school districts, and also contribute toward DART’s future rider base, said Killen. And in a county where 70% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged, according to data from the Texas Education Agency, the impact could be palpable.

The pilot program would inform a comprehensive fare study the agency will conduct over the next year, which would evaluate existing student fare options.

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Reduced fare is available to Dallas-area students but navigating the system can be a struggle, said Chrismon. Rather than simply buying the pass online or at school, students have to travel downtown to an office on Akard Street to get one.

Board member Michele Wong Krause emphasized the importance of evaluating DART’s current student fare options at a meeting in April.

“The question then becomes how are those things working and are they actually being effective in any way,” Krause said. “And if they are, then do we need to do any more for this.”

Killen said there’s no official timeline for the rollout of the program but that it’s his “intention as budget chair to re-engage on this topic later this fall.” At the moment the board’s attention is on working through the agency budget, he said.

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At the meeting in April, CEO Nadine Lee pointed to other issues that deserve their attention.

“I will readily admit this is not my highest priority,” she said about the potential program. “My priority right now is security on the system, operator absenteeism, and… cleanliness as well.”

The transit agency introduced a redesigned bus system earlier this year only to find that they were shedding operators, leading them to cut back service on one third of their routes. They are still down 160 drivers.

The agency also saw an increase in incidents involving harassment earlier this year, leading them to seek more officers to man their services.

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If making services free for students is the difference between having reliable and safe services or not, Killen said DART won’t move forward with the program. But he feels optimistic about doing both.

“We’re a big agency, we can walk and chew gum,” he said.

Sanchez has a routine now for getting to school that mostly works, waking up 30 minutes early every morning so he has a buffer in case he encounters trouble on the train.

He knows the ropes but hopes in the future others won’t have to learn them.

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“I’m not really worried about myself anymore because I’m almost done with high school,” he said. “This would generally help the new rising freshman … who just want to get to school and then they get kicked off the bus and they panic, and they don’t know what to do.”