Denton County Transportation Authority
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The Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA) is the transit authority that operates in Denton County, Texas, which is northwest of Dallas County. The DCTA operates bus service in two cities within Denton County.
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[edit] History
[edit] Precursor Agencies
LINK was the city owned mass transit service operated by the City of Denton, Texas, from 2002 to 2006. LINK was absorbed into DCTA's local Denton bus routes, now called CONNECT.
Dial-A-Ride, the county paratransit system, was also absorbed and renamed DCTA ACCESS.
Neither Lewisville nor Highland Village (the other current members of DCTA) operated bus lines prior to DCTA's formation.
[edit] Creation of DCTA
The DCTA's creation was put to voters in 8 cities in Denton County. Denton, Lewisville and Highland Village approved the half-cent sales tax need to create the agency on September 13, 2003. The cities of Copper Canyon, Corinth, Double Oak, Flower Mound (which was a part of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system in the '80's before pulling out) and Shady Shores did not get the majority votes need to join the agency. Of the five that declined, only Corinth is on the future commuter rail line which will parallel Interstate 35, while Denton and Lewisville are on the line (Highland Village is not).
Other Denton County cities were ineligible to hold a vote to join for a variety of reasons. The Colony currently levies the state maximum of 2% in local sales tax, which would preclude adding an additional 0.5% to join DCTA. Carrollton extends into Denton County, but is already a member of DART.
The Corinth City Council voted in August of 2006 4-3 to give its citizens a chance to rejoin the agency. Voters could have approved or denied the measure, which would have made the city find a way to pay the half-cent sales tax, along with a $200,000 buy in fee. That is roughly half the amount they would have paid had they joined the system in the beginning. However, one council member, Lynn Mayfield, opted to rescind her vote thereby killing the measure and taking the chance to vote away from Corinth citizens.
[edit] Bus service
The DCTA currently operates express bus service to Downtown Dallas (one route from Denton and one from Lewisville), a third Denton-Carrollton-Downtown Dallas route, as well as local service (eight unique routes in Denton and two routes in Lewisville, which traverse the same streets but one route is clockwise around the city while the other is counterclockwise). No bus routes currently operate in Highland Village, though an express route is in the planning stages.
[edit] Future Rail Service
The agency hopes to have a commuter rail line run from Denton to Carrollton, which will link up to the green line at the future Carrolton Square station. The green line is a light rail line in the DART system that will run from Carrollton to Pleasant Grove in southeast Dallas and pass through downtown Dallas. The DCTA commuter line will be up and running by 2010 and running 100% by 2030 while the Green Line is expected to be complete by the end of 2010. The planned route is a former Union Pacific rail line which roughly parallels the highly congested Interstate 35E.
For updated information on the rail line DCTA has created a separate web page.
[edit] Member cities
The following cities voted to join the DCTA on September 13, 2003 and levy a half cent sales tax to finance the system.
All three cities are still members as of December 2006.
As mentioned above, Corinth was to have placed a measure to join DCTA on the November 2006 ballot, which initially was approved by the council but later rescinded. No other cities have any current plans to join.
