Fasten your seatbelts, Highland Park residents and visitors. The town’s microtransit and paratransit programs will hit the road on May 14.
Highland Park On-Demand, the town’s microtransit program, will provide travel within the town and in a one-mile radius around it. Service will include connections to Mockingbird Station and regional transit services, according to a town news release.
Highland Park Access will provide pre-booked, door-to-door service for paratransit riders, who can travel into or out of Highland Park across the current Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) service area, according to the release.
To learn more or to book a ride, visit hptx.org/microtransit.
At a March 13 meeting, town councilmembers voted to make microtransit free for users during the program’s six-month pilot period. An adult fare was initially slated to cost $3 for one-way trips.
The council did not want commuters to pay twice to enter or leave the town, once for DART, and again for Highland Park’s transportation service, town administrator Tobin Maples explained after the meeting.
“They’ve already paid their DART fee. They’ll get on our on-demand and we’ll take them to their doorstep,” he said. “And there’s no fee for that.”
Paratransit will cost $3.50 per ride.
Almost 70% of Highland Park voters favored exiting DART in a May 2 special election. The town canvassed the election results on Wednesday, March 13. While DART’s bus 237 will still pass through Highland Park on March 14, it will no longer stop in the town.
Prior to withdrawal, Highland Park paid DART 1% of its sales tax, half of what it is able to retain locally. The town’s contribution was projected to reach $9 million in 2026, Mayor Will C. Beecherl wrote to People Newspapers prior to the election.
The withdrawal vote doesn’t mean that the town is free of its financial obligations — it will still need to pay off a share of DART’s debt.
Sales tax dollars are crucial to municipalities’ finances, and especially to those like Highland Park that are fully developed, Beecherl explained after the meeting. He said that DART’s funding model should be reworked, which could result in additional changes, such as a multi-county transit program.
“The DART model from 43 years ago is stale,” he said. “It’s failed. It hasn’t grown. Three members have dropped out of DART.”
Also during the meeting, the council recognized outgoing members Lydia Novakov and Marc Myers, and administered the oath of office to the mayor and town council members, including new members Mike Tibbals and Margaret S.C. Keliher.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story misstated the date that Highland Park micro transit and paratransit services will begin. The services will start on May 14, not March 14.
