DART's new CEO tells a rail summit a 2027 bill would grow its board past 20 seats to even out city voting

Legislation expected in the 2027 session would give Dallas Area Rapid Transit a board of more than 20 so that no single city holds an outsized voice, DART's new chief executive told a regional rail gathering Tuesday, the Fort Worth Report reported.

Nathaniel "Nat" Ford, who had been DART's CEO for 12 days, spoke on a panel at the 2026 Commuter Rail Summit, held at a downtown Fort Worth hotel, alongside the heads of Trinity Metro and the Denton County Transportation Authority. Michael Morris, the Regional Transportation Council's transportation director, moderated.

The Report did not detail how the seats would be divided. Some of those cities have questioned the benefit they get for what they pay in, and Highland Park has chosen to leave the system, the Report noted.

What the transit chiefs said

Ford said DART is pushing regional service by leasing arrangements with the two other agencies, fares that work across all three systems and spending to add rail capacity, according to the Report. He put DART's system at 66 stations on 93 miles of light-rail track and said 37 transit-oriented developments near its lines add up to $1.93 billion in economic benefit.

DCTA chief Paul Cristina said his agency is working to extend its A-train from Carrollton's Trinity Mills Station into downtown Carrollton, where riders could catch the Silver Line or DART's light rail trains.

Morris told the audience the region's population is expected to reach 12.5 million by 2050 and that rail service has to grow to keep up with traffic.

He said planners have begun looking at whether the existing agencies could become the core of one regional system and, according to the Fort Worth Report, described the hope as "high-speed rail in the center of the region, connecting downtown Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio."

He also said that widening the transit agencies' boundaries to take in more cities would bring in more money, because studies show many people in cities outside the systems already ride them.

Sources

fortworthreport.org