The signs went up first. Taped to the poles along Preston Road at stops like Livingston, they told Route 237 riders something a special election had already decided for them: after four decades, DART service in Highland Park was ending. By the time the last bus rolled through on May 13, the town had already lined up its replacement and pushed the button on launch day.
That part of the story is over. The part that matters now is quieter, and it's playing out inside Highland Park Village and the Shops of Highland Park, where the people who most needed a transit replacement are, in some cases, the last ones to hear it exists.
The Math That Ended a 43-Year Membership
Highland Park's exit wasn't sentimental. On May 2, roughly 70 percent of voters chose to leave DART, while neighboring Addison and University Park held the same withdrawal vote on the same ballot and chose to stay. Highland Park became the first city to leave the regional transit agency since Flower Mound and Coppell did in 1989.
The numbers explain the vote better than the politics do. Town Administrator Tobin Maples has said Highland Park paid a little more than $8 million into DART last year through its dedicated sales tax, a figure that was projected to climb toward $9 to $10 million this year. Against that, the six-month pilot for the town's own microtransit replacement was budgeted at roughly $417,000, or about $750,000 if extended to a full year. Mayor Will Beecherl framed it in blunt arithmetic: running Via, he said, would be "a whole lot cheaper" than paying DART.
The usage side of the ledger backed up the case. DART reported about 35 boardings a day on Highland Park's single bus route, spread across 15 stops that closed the week service ended. Leaving didn't erase the town's obligations entirely. Highland Park still owes a share of DART's outstanding debt, and the Texas Comptroller will keep collecting the town's 1 percent DART sales tax until that share, estimated at $30 to $40 million, is paid down through future collections. But redirecting the ongoing revenue, not the sunk cost, was what town leaders were after.
What Replaced the 237 Bus
In its place: Highland Park On-Demand, a microtransit service the town contracted through Via Transportation, running since May 13 with a four-vehicle fleet. The service covers trips that start or end anywhere inside Highland Park and up to a mile beyond its borders, with direct links to Mockingbird Station and Love Field.
The quick version, if you haven't tried it yet:
- Hours: 5 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week
- How to book: the Highland Park On-Demand app, or a call to 214-785-4345
- Cost: free during the six-month pilot, a deliberate choice so riders who'd already paid a DART fare wouldn't pay twice
- Coverage: Highland Park plus a one-mile radius, including Mockingbird Station and Love Field
- Paratransit: a separate arm called Highland Park Access, prebooked up to four days out, for riders who qualify under the town's paratransit eligibility rules
The town also built in an accessibility layer DART riders would recognize. Wheelchair-accessible vehicles are part of the fleet, and eligibility for the paratransit side can be established with proof of prior DART paratransit status or a doctor's note.
Three Months In, Two Different Highland Parks
By June 2, about three weeks after launch, the service had logged 595 completed trips and 479 created app accounts, according to figures the town's Director of Policy Development and Strategic Initiatives, Letecia McNatt, shared with local reporters. By the August town council session, McNatt reported ridership still climbing across the same four-vehicle fleet, with Highland Park Village and Mockingbird Station as the two most popular pickup and dropoff points.
Growth is real. Adoption is uneven. Some of the new accounts came from residents who never rode DART at all and simply liked the convenience of an app-based ride within town. That's a different population than the one DART actually served, and it shows up when you talk to the people working the counters in the Village.
In early June, a manager at Mi Cocina in Highland Park Village had the app downloaded but said he wasn't sure of its coverage area. Managers at both Mi Cocina and Honor Bar said most of their employees wouldn't need a DART replacement anyway, since they drive to an off-site employee parking area and use a separate pre-existing shuttle to get to work. An employee at Coupe's in the Shops of Highland Park said she knew of a few coworkers who'd had to change their commuting plans since town voters opted out of DART.
The town has been working the gap from its end too. Early signage advertising the new service drew criticism for lacking Spanish-language information, a fix that's since gone up along Preston Road where the old bus stops used to be.
None of this means the pilot is failing. It means the easy part, replacing a bus route almost nobody rode, isn't the same test as replacing the informal transit lifeline some Village workers were quietly relying on. Free rides solve the fairness problem DART riders raised. They only solve it for the riders who know the free rides exist.
The Clock Nobody's Watching
Highland Park On-Demand launched May 13 as a six-month pilot, which puts its natural endpoint around mid-November. That means the town is past the midpoint now, close enough to the end that the decisions made in the next few months will likely set the permanent shape of the program, not just the trial version.
Two things are still unresolved. First, the fare. Council members floated a $3 one-way trip and $3.50 paratransit fare before deciding to run the pilot free, and the possibility of future fee-based rides came up again at the August council meeting. Whatever the town decides, it will be deciding it based on ridership data collected during a free window, which is a very different sample than what you'd get once people have to pay.
Second, the Builder Shuttle, officially called the Workforce Circulator in town documents. As of the most recent public reporting, it had not yet launched. The idea is to move contractor crews from off-site parking into job sites around town, cutting down on the work trucks parked along narrow residential streets that officials say can slow emergency vehicles. Mayor Beecherl has described the goal plainly: get contractor parking off the streets and van those workers in instead. The proposal was still headed back to council for further review the last time the town addressed it publicly.
What This Means If You're Here Right Now
If you live in Highland Park, the practical version of all this is simple. The rides are free right now, through roughly mid-November. The app covers Highland Park Village, Mockingbird Station, Love Field, and everything in between. If you've been meaning to try it, the free window is the reason to do it now rather than later.
If you employ people in Highland Park, or you're a landlord whose tenants commute through the Village or the Shops, the awareness gap is worth closing on your own timeline rather than waiting for the town's signage to catch up. A five-minute conversation with staff about how the app works costs nothing and may save someone a commute headache before November arrives.
The bigger pattern here is one worth watching if you own property or manage rentals in Park Cities. A town that voted itself out of a regional system and built a private one in six weeks is not a town that moves slowly on infrastructure decisions. Whatever Highland Park decides about fares and the Builder Shuttle by winter will likely stick for a while.
If you own or manage rental property in Highland Park or the surrounding Park Cities and want a read on how changes like this affect tenant demand and day-to-day operations, Lardner Group works this market from the ground up, not from a spreadsheet. Schedule a consultation and we'll walk through what it actually means for your property.
