Plano City Council received an update on local advocacy through the Regional Transportation Council, which is part of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, during a preliminary open meeting Oct. 28.
In a nutshell
Plano Mayor John Muns said that Michael Morris, the director of transportation at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, will advocate Plano’s priorities on the city’s behalf to the DART Board of Directors.
Andrew Fortune, Plano’s director of policy and government relations, said the three priorities for the city include:
- Establishing an interlocal agreement between Plano and DART to allow for up to 25% of the city’s sales tax contributions to be used for local transportation projects
- Allowing an a-la-carte model to allow cities to choose the DART services, such as bus or light rail, that make the most sense within the community
- Creating a Legacy West circulator or shuttle
“The idea is that once people drive into the business park, they should not have to get back in their car to go have lunch or a meeting in another building,” Israelson said. “GoLink doesn’t provide the frequency or the access point to offer this, it needs to be a more robust service.”
Quote of note
“If we’re going to have useful public transit, it’s going to have to somehow take into account the rest of Collin County to the north of us,” council member Anthony Ricciardelli said. “Without that, it will be impossible for DART to deliver adequate value to the city of Plano.”
What else?
In addition to highlighting local priorities, an action item on reducing the city’s sales tax contribution by a quarter-cent is included on Plano’s legislative priorities, which was adopted during the Oct. 28 meeting.
