I Walked The Line

Fourteen miles on a train is pretty much enough time to make a few phone calls and drink your tea. Fourteen miles on foot is quite a bit longer.

I left the crowd at the Parker DART station at 6:40am on Saturday morning with five supporters who felt as strongly about the need for rail expansion as I did. Even at that early hour, the Plano Parker station was full of people who were travelling to Dallas for a day’s work or arriving in Plano for their job. With 750,000 citizens in Collin County, never a day goes by without industry making its mark.

We walked along the path of the proposed rail line, talking to voters and concerned citizens about the desire to see mass transit grow beyond the city of Plano. Our path took us along the side of the old Southern Pacific Rail - a line of train tracks that extends all the way north into Sherman. DART purchased the entire line in April of 1988, with an eye towards the future. They understood back then that as Dallas, Denton, and McKinney grew, they would need more than simple bus transportation to get them past the year 2000.

We talked about the growth patterns in the North Dallas and Collin County area. Plano was all horse ranches and cornfields when my family moved to Texas in ’76, but now it’s corporate headquarters for several global companies like JC Penny, Frito Lay, EDS, and Cisco. Collin County continues to grow north, with McKinney, Frisco, and Allen passing around the title of "Fastest Growing City In The Nation" over the last five years. The next wave of super-growth is already started in Melissa, Anna, Prosper, Princeton and Celina.

In the end we agreed that cities could not sustain the growth without rail and bus transportation. Will the DART Rail system ever rival the transportation systems of Atlanta or Washington, D.C.? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to mass transit - the key is simply to compare what we’re doing to the rest of the world and find what works best for us.

It was just past noon when we arrived at St Mark’s Church in McKinney to a welcoming crowd. People are excited about the chance to make a difference in their world - the idea that we can create change in our own society has once again caught fire in America. A few swigs of Gatorade and a pat on the back, and I felt right as rain.

I stood on Sharlene’s pickup and reminded the crowd, "A few years from now when this rail line is finished, you’ll be able to ride in ten minutes what took us all morning to walk. And you can tell your friends that you were here. You helped bring the DART Rail to Collin County for our future!"

Thanks to my fellow walkers: Julie and David Cuniglio, Carman Marshall, Larry and Lou Ann Jackson, Ang and Christian, and Edward and Winter Manuel (my kids). Thanks to everyone who came out in support of what we’re trying to accomplish for our future. Thanks also to my wife Suzi, my manager Sharlene, and my friend John for your support - I couldn’t do it without you!