Dallas' Highland Park votes to leave Texas' second-largest public transit system

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Transportation
Dallas’ Highland Park votes to leave Texas’ second-largest public transit system

Voters in Highland Park chose to leave Dallas Area Rapid Transit amid complaints that the transit service isn’t worth the cost.

by Joshua Fechter and Colleen DeGuzman
May 3, 2026, 6:21 a.m. Central Updated May 3, 2026, 10:23 a.m. Central



A DART bus cruises down South Westmoreland Road in Dallas on Feb. 2, 2020. Duy Vu for The Texas Tribune

DALLAS — Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the state’s second largest public transit agency, fractured Saturday as voters in one suburb chose to leave the transit system.

Highland Park will pull out of DART, according to election returns Saturday. It’s the first time any city has pulled up its stake in the agency since 1989 when Flower Mound and Coppell opted to leave.

Voters in Addison and University Park also weighed in on proposals to leave the system but chose to remain in the agency. This leaves 12 cities connected through DART.

Nearly 70% of voters in Highland Park decided to discontinue DART in the town, according to final but unofficial returns. The result was mirrored in Addison, where 70% voted to remain connected to the system; University Park was more narrowly divided, with 54% voting to stay.

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[Chasstev365]

1. Just what working poor needs right now

[BigMin28]

2. No surprise

Anyone living in Highland Park has no need for mass transit. Those that live in this wealthy little town surrounded by Dallas and it's neighbor, University Park, are more likely to have a chauffeur than ride a train or heaven forbid, a bus.

[tanyev]

3. Yes. However, they may be unpleasantly surprised to learn that all the people

who clean their houses, take care of their children, teach their children, work in their favorite restaurants, work in their favorite stores—basically anyone who works in a service industry in HP—may now have a much harder time getting to work.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. I suspect that Highland Park will lose some service workers

I suspect that most Highland Park residents won’t miss DART bus service, but a lot of the service workers who clean their houses or work at the Highland Park Village shopping center will either ask for higher wages or tell their employers that working for them simply isn’t worth it.

I came from a privileged background and remember an earlier spat that Highland Park had with the former Dallas Transit System. I took the DTS bus to school because it was far faster than the school’s bus. I was lucky: I was young and spry and my folks lived at the southern edge of Highland Park and I could walk to the nearest bus stop in Dallas’ Oak Lawn neighborhood and did so until the spat was settled.

Of course this was before the Republican Party’s holy war against public transit went into high gear…