The CEOs of Dallas Rapid Area Transit and Fort Worth's Trinity Metro want to leverage the economic power of developing real estate next to rail lines. But both leaders say legislation going through the Texas statehouse could hamper those efforts.

DART CEO Nadine Lee and Trinity Metro CEO Rich Andreski said at an Urban Land Institute event March 27 that their agencies want to work with developers to build densely around transit hubs. Andreski pointed to the transformative power of such projects, including in Grapevine, where a rail stop has spawned a wave of new development such as the expansion of Hotel Vin and brownstone residences.

Two bills in the Texas Legislature, House Bill 3187 and Senate Bill 1557, could allow DART member cities to cut contribution to the transportation agency by 25%.

"If this funding proposal goes through, obviously it would have destructive, detrimental impacts to DART," Lee said. "I don't know anybody who can lose 25% of their revenue and still survive."

Lee also said the bills could impact the agency's ability to use debt to fund capital investments, such as bus and rail fleet replacements.

The DART board has approved a potential compromise: diverting 5%, instead of 25%, of the sales tax revenue it collects to a general mobility fund for member cities. Even that cut would affect every route, Lee said.

Steeper cuts to funding could hamper the agency's ability to partner with businesses and respond to the development community, she said.

Andreski said while the bills being considered might not impact Trinity Metro immediately — the Fort Worth transit agency collects a different amount of sales tax — they could have an impact in the long run as the organization considers how to meet the demands of a growing population.

"While this bill may not impact us today, it very well could impact us in the near future, and we're going to be ... more vocal about that," he said.

Both CEOs encouraged developers to speak to lawmakers about the need for transit. That message was heard loud and clear at the ULI event, where business leaders championed the benefits of being located near rail and offered suggestions for improving the development process.

"Our time is now to advocate," said Tom Huth, president and CEO of Palladium USA International Inc., a major multifamily developer.

Dallas-Fort Worth is seeing a wave of developments next to rail lines, such as a $2 billion mixed use development in Grand Prairie and Fort Worth next to the CentrePort rail station and plans to refresh the area around DART's Arapaho Station in Richardson.

Between 2019 and 2021, 31 development projects were built within a quarter mile of DART stations, totaling $980.1 million in property value, according to a study by the University of North Texas Economics Research Group.