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DART Around Dallas

DART Around Dallas

Nhi Nguyen, Luke Mullen, Alex Asefaw and Jim Ingalls
BCOM 3311.501, Business Communication
Professor Elizabeth Bruce
2015, April 30

Figure A. Image of logo. From Dart, Logo image #1

https://www.dart.org/newsroom/imagelibrary.asp

DART Around
Dallas

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DART Around Dallas

Its 5 p.m. on Friday and your weekend has officially started; just one
problem, the highway is a parking lot. You want nothing more than to be
home and relax but instead you are sitting still on the highway. It is only 10
miles to the house but it will take you an hour to get there. Your stress levels
are rising and your blood is starting to boil, as everyone around you is
honking and just as frustrated as you are. If only this dreadful event could be
avoided. Fortunately for you, it can.
Public transportation is the backbone of every great city in the
America. Getting people from point A to point B while avoiding heavy traffic
and promoting a more environmentally friendly lifestyle are the selling points
to a great public transportation system. Dallas-Fort Worth is the fastestgrowing, fourth-largest and fifth most-congested metro in the country. The
need for a greater reliance on the public transportation system in Dallas is
evidenced by the high congestion on our roadways and growing pollution
concerns. It is going to take a small effort of everyone in the Dallas
community to help this problem.
Dallas History
Over 2.5 million residents live in Dallas, and in 2015 we celebrate its
174 birthday (Sims, 2012). John Neely Bryan, Indian trader, farmer, and
lawyer who founded Dallas in 1841 after realizing its potential for becoming
a town. Its wild to think that our robust city of Dallas started out as 640
acres of land, a hand drawn sketch with a designated courthouse and 20
streets (Sims, 2012). One has to wonder what John would have said about
how accurate his guess was about Dallas being a prime location to start a
town.
th

In the 19 century the Federal Reserve, Southern Methodist University,

Dallas Love Field Airport, and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport would
put Dallas on the map. During the 20 century Dallas redefined luxury when
Neiman Marcus opened in downtown, which led to the prestigious shopping
development we know as Highland Park. The East Texas Oil Field which was
the largest known petroleum deposit at the time was discovered (Visit Dallas,
2014).
th

th

Visit Dallas also describes 21 century for Dallas as a city that harvests
entrepreneurs pursuits, style, innovation, and high accessibility. Fortune
st

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DART Around Dallas

magazine named Dallas/Fort Worth as the number one business center.

Today Dallas is one of the leading convention destinations thanks to its
facilities, restaurants, recreational opportunities and wide variety of
entertainment. Dallas is a fairly new city, which covers about 343 square
miles. Dallas has established many brag worthy milestones within the last
few decades, but along with all of this success is traffic comes pollution that
harms our health, environment, and economy. Dallas is home to some of
Americas worst traffic jams. Dallas area drivers have it worse than anyone in
the country. (Michael Lindenberger, 2010).
Health and population
The luxury of privacy and convenience that comes from driving our
cars comes at the cost of our health, environment, and economy. We may
not recognize it as a problem yet because it seems to be a problem for the
next generation to worry about, but our goal at the Richards Group is to take
preventative action as opposed to reactive steps to avoid paying with our
health, and economy.
Individuals may be wonder how this pollution can seriously affect their
health. Vehicles emit numerous carcinogenic chemicals in the air such as
Acetaldehyde,
acrolein,
carbon monoxide,
benzene, 3-butadiene,
formaldehyde, diesel exhaust, and volatile oxides of nitrogen (Wargo, 2006).
As vehicles emit particles into the environment, the surrounding residents
inhale the chemicals that will deeply penetrate lungs and inflame the
circulatory system. This is the root of short and long term damage residents
experience, such as asthma or allergies which is our bodies way of rejecting
the toxins.
Wargo also notes that short term effects on our health include asthma,
and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), such as bronchitis.
Asthma and COPD can mean anything from irritated, itchy, red, watery eyes,
sinus headaches and infections, to excessive mucus production. As a Texas
resident, I can attest that if there is one day out of the week that allergies
are not bothering me, it would be counted as a rare occasion. Outdoor air
pollution affects everyone, and the elderly and adolescent are at high risk
since results can be fatal if medical attention is urgent during an asthma
attack. One study shows that Children are 40% more likely to have an
attack on high outdoor pollution days (Wargo, 2006).
Long-term effects range from birth defects, cardiovascular disease,
cancer, and diabetes. These are the more serious, and even terminal
illnesses that can result from man-made pollution. What makes it scary is the
fact that from the moment we are exposed to the pollution, its nearly

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DART Around Dallas

impossible to realize until it is too late. Carbon monoxide is nearly

undetectable as it does not have an odor, or color but it hinders our body by
keeping our blood from carrying oxygen to the brain, heart and tissues
(Wargo, 2006). The specific carcinogenic causing cancers are benzene,
formaldehyde, and 3-butadiene. EPA estimates that vehicle emissions
account for half of all cancers attributed to outdoor air pollution, killing more
Americans than breast and prostate cancers combined (Wargo, 2006).
Dallas will experience a surge jobs and residents as big name
corporations relocate to Dallas results in more people, cars, and ultimately
congestion on the roads. At the beginning of each day the U.S. Census
Bureau estimates that, 507,397 people who live in other counties fire up
their cars, and go to work in Dallas County. On the other side of the highway
there is 173,836 Dallas County residents driving to their jobs someplace
else (Michael Young, 2013). Even if we plan to build more highways to
accommodate for this growth, the environment will still suffer from the extra
pollution as a result of the added pollution.
One of the noted reasons why Dallas is such a desirable location to
move to is that real estate is a bargain, bringing attention to families looking
for a home. This also causes drivers to be more willing to commute farther to
work, which is part of why Dallas experiences high levels of traffic
congestion. Housing options that Stretch into the prairie, offering more
square footage and cheaper prices (Michael Lindenberger, 2010). Our
region is relatively flat in Dallas, making everything very accessible since we
have the freedom to locate and grow anywhere since we dont have physical
barriers like mountains to limit us.
Individual Economy and Environment
Congestion significantly reduces a citys economic growth. Statistics
rank Dallas is the fifth most congested city in the country, only behind Los
Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. (Wilonsky, 2013).
Except we have not adopted public transit into our daily routine unlike most
of these other cities. It may seem like common sense to say that the more
cars that are on the road, the higher levels of air pollution that area will
experience. However, individuals may not realize that the act of accelerating,
decelerating, and sitting idly in traffic wastes more fuel and creating more
man made pollution than if we were to drive at a constant speed?
Individual motorists should ask themselves, how many times they
pumped on the brakes, and stepped on the gas pedal today. Next, ask how
many times each person did in their neighborhood, in addition to everyone in
the city. We may not realize the harm in our single handed contribution to

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man-made pollution because it seems minimal when we count one persons

pollution trail, but given the prolific rate that Dallas has evolved in terms of
population, size, and economy.
Dependency on oil: The Streets Blog rates Dallas Texas as the fourth most
dependent county when it comes to gasoline consumption. This is a huge
concern, not only due to the wastes we emit, but we are polluting our air and
water in the process of extracting fuel. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
oxides and Sulphur oxides are released during the fracking process, reducing
the rates of photosynthesis, plant and tree growth (Blenkham, 2013).
Blenkham also observes that during the extraction of gasoline, Fracking
fluid contains toxic chemicals that returns to the surface containing naturally
occurring radio-active materials. This could be detrimental to the wild
animals, and residents surrounding the targeted area for fuel extraction as
they are exposed to this polluted water.
Table 1. Image of gas consumption. From Streets blog,
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/09/28/which-counties-have-the-biggest-oiladdiction-problem-we-still-dont-know/

Measuring the cost of congestion on the economy

To put a hypothetical situation to project our concept I want you to
image that 50 internal combustion engines idling in traffic with 50
passengers versus 50 single engine busses each carrying 35 passengers and
not idling in a traffic jam because now the freeway is cleared of 1,750 cars
(50 busses x 35 passengers = 1,750 cars). One of the benefits from less cars
on the road would be less frequent oil changes in cars. In a year, it is

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estimated that we drive 15,000 miles (Federal Highway Administration,

2015).
On average when we change our oil every 7,000 miles we consume 5
quarts of oil. If commuters on DART save 5 days per week of personal miles
driven, then we could see a 71.24% reduction in miles driven. (15,000/365=
41.1 miles per day), (41.1 X 5 days= 205.5 miles per week), (205.5 x 52 =
10,686 mile per year), (10,686/15,000=0.7124).This 71% reduction in motor
oil, as well as fuel consumption would save time, money, and reduce
significant pollution, while increasing efficiency.
Any economics course emphasizes the laws of supply and demand,
and the relationship between buyers and sellers. With these laws in mind, we
must create a city that is efficient so destinations are easily accessible in
order to minimize wastes and loss in order to increase productivity. On
average a Dallas motorist spends 20.5 hours stuck in traffic a year.
(Wilonsky, 2013). Which amounts to about 1,700 dollars in wasted fuel
(Sakelaris, 2014). Whether this amount of time and money is large or not is
relative to each individual, but whos ever known someone to turn down
nearly a full day with $1,700 to spend as they wish.
Dallas economic growth
Dallas is currently the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United
States (Murray, 2011), which is a prolific growth rate considering we are not
even 200 years old. John Neely Bryan would be pleased to know that his
instincts about Dallas having the potential to be a successful town were
100% correct. Dallas currently leads as a top city with 18 area businesses
that were named Fortune 500 companies (Visit Dallas, 2014).
American Business Journals observed in 2014 new developments that
will contribute to the exponential growth Dallas is about to experience:
Toyotas new $350 million North American corporate campus, Nebraska
Furniture Mart, State Farm Insurances new regional corporate hub, The Star
which is the Dallas Cowboys new training complex, and FedEx Offices new
corporate campus will redefine this status. This is promising for our
economy, but without the efficient planning of resources and transportation
Dallas could potentially become overwhelmed and lose our potential to be a
top city.
In a study that determined drive time for both congested and free flow
traffic conditions, there was a relationship between traffic congestion and
productivity rates. As traffic congestion increases, destinations become less
accessible which will stunt the growth of our economy and productivity.
Dallas could potentially increase its economic productivity by $46 billion

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dollars annually, and it is projected that this amount could be $64.4 in

twenty years (David Hartgen, 2009) as a result of free traffic flow
conditions.
The Richards Group Proposal
Our proposal, to address the current and growing problem of traffic
congestion, is to initiate a paradigm shift in the planning and development of
public transportation. The current paradigm is wait and see, and build and
pay as you go while trying to not overextend their meager ration of tax
dollars. Rather than the current evolutionary planning process were are
proposing the implementation of a revolutionary planning process. Rather
than wondering what Dallas will look like in the future, lets decide what
Dallas will look like 200 years from now and start laying the groundwork for
that vision today.
Being Proactive
Possibly, many off you have heard the old story of how the Allen brothers
were ridiculed for making the streets in historic Houston so wide. Back in
1836, Im sure that they seemed ridiculously out of scale. As we drive
through Houston today it is manifestly obvious, in spite of their best
attempts to be visionary, and to allow for the future growth of their new
town, that they werent visionary enough. How about New York Citys Central
Park? How over-the-top crazy did that seem back in 1857? In the sketches
and drawings of the early stage development of Central Park, it wasnt
central to anything. It was raw land which was essentially located out in
the middle of nowhere. Only with the fulmination of time and future
development was its location and ultimate destiny able to be fully
appreciated for the intellectually-farsighted genius that is was.
How much do we appreciate our National Parks System? What might have
become of all of that natural wilderness beauty without the vision of
presidents Grant (Yosemite 1872), and Roosevelt (Yellowstone et al 1901-09).
While considered by many at the time, to be unprecedented and
unconscionable land grabs by the Federal Government, I doubt in todays
world that many (if any) would care to second guess the wisdom of those
decisions.
Now lets consider: The Transcontinental Railroad, Hoover Dam,
Eisenhowers Interstate Highway System, putting a man on the moon, the
Hubble telescope, the Human Genome Project, and the Mars Rover. Just by
way of touching on our achievement- high-points, are a good representative
sampling of the things we have been able to accomplish when we

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collectively put our effort, and more importantly our collective financial
support, towards a goal.
So, what is the difference between being a visionary and being a
lunatic? Success is the ultimate dividing line between the two concepts. Why
do some visionary undertakings succeed while others fail is the real question
and the answer to this question is twofold. First, and most importantly is
continuity of leadership. Secondly is having sufficient funding to make the
vision a successful reality.
In order to facilitate Dallas and the Dart Agencys ability to be
successful visionaries, The Richards Group proposes to create a charitable
foundation whose purpose and stated mission is to promote the use and
development of mass transportation in the Dallas area. The Richards Group
will operate The Foundation for Public Transportation and contribute The
Richards Groups professional marketing skills and leadership services to
design, develop and initiate the implementation of a branding and marketing
campaign. The campaign will be designed to create a high level of civic
pride, civic financial support and increased demand for public transportation.
The foundation will be the custodian of the proceeds from the marketing
campaign, with DART being the targeted beneficiary. Contingent to The
Richards Group donating its time, talent, and money to establish both the
campaign and the foundation will be a contract between DART and The
Foundation. This contract will provide for The Foundation to continue to
manage the marketing campaign after its initial launch for a period of 5
years. Renewal of the contract is contingent upon the success of campaign
and continued cooperation of DART with The Foundation.
Extent of The Richards Group Give Back
The Richards Group will perform comprehensive secondary research from
the historical origin of public transportation through, and including, a
comparison and contrast of current public transportation systems throughout
industrialized urban centers around the world. We will identify all known
strengths and weaknesses, as well as solutions. Additionally, The Richards
Group will provide acquisition of all primary research data including; surveys,
interviews, and focus group sessions in order to determine emotional and
psychometric obstacles to citizen adoption and participation in public
transportation. Once all of the research has been compiled, a comprehensive
branding and marketing campaign will be designed and presented to DART
for approval.
The comprehensive marketing campaign (once approved) will
encompass: the branding concept, print material, a web site, television
advertising, radio advertising, outdoor advertising and a social media

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campaign. Following the information acquired from the primary research the
approved branding concept will be developed into logo wear and product
design which will be featured in all advertising.
Our main goal in branding will be to present public transportation as
something that is; cool, smart, socially responsible, convenient, safe, and
something to be both civically as well as individually proud to support. All
logo wear will be sporty, classy and useful such as backpacks, umbrellas,
travel mugs, rubber dress overshoes (for rainy days) etc.
The print material will initially be limited to program specific tri folds and
posters. The tri folds will be used for solicitation of individual business
participation in and with the fundraising marketing campaign. These will be
placed in the hands of outside sales personnel who will be going door-to-door
throughout the Dallas business community soliciting merchant participation.
This effort will be all-inclusive, ranging from charitable foundations to major
corporations to small business owners. The posters will be distributed to
participating businesses for them to display, touting their participation and
financial contributions to the Dart For Dallas project.
The web site will be for disseminating information, accepting donations,
and selling logo wear and products. Participating business community
members will be featured dominantly throughout the web site. Links to their
individual web sites will be presented as well as locator maps that will
actively provide directions as well as rail and bus connection points, and
other necessary route information, to ease the use of public transportation.
Television advertising will focus on brand reinforcement messages. Initially
we will limit these spots to three local news channels. Radio advertising will
also be targeted toward reinforcing the branding message of how smart,
cool, convenient, and economical it is to use DART. Radio spots are budgeted
for three station at three spots per day each, for 40 weeks. The social
media campaign will be targeted toward branding, raising awareness,
heightening social consciousness, and planning social events utilizing Dart
transportation. Here also, there will be mention of, links to, and advertising
for participating business members.
Staffing
Staffing costs will born by The Richards Group as outlined in the budget
section of this proposal. In essence, the Richards Group will donate the cost
of its employees compensation up to the limit as outlined in the budget.
The Richards Group Staf

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Since strong and continuous leadership is so crucial to the success of any

visionary type undertaking, we will provide all experienced and professional
employees necessary to carry out the design, development, and
implementation of the branding and marketing program up the point where it
has generated $500,000.00 in revenue. At This point our BGB component
ceases and our contract as marketing consultants takes precedence. As such
we would continue to manage and operate the marketing/fundraising
program on a contingency fee basis of 40% of annually produced revenue
from the marketing program, or $3,000,000.00 per year, whichever is less.
DART Staffing
Existing DART staff requirement will be unaffected. Any additional hiring
by DART will be solely as a function of growth in ridership and the need for
additional routes to handle growth and expansion as a whole. Any increase in
operating costs for DART will be as a marginal function of their increased
business, and will thusly be self-funded by increased payment of fares.
Budget
Our budget projections are tabulated in table 1. The Richards Group is
committing to a financial contribution that amounts to just under $2,000,000
in employee salaries and actual cash expenditures to cover daily operational
expenses toward this project. The actual development, design and
implementation cost is $1,485,884.80.There is a potential contractual
performance liability on our end which could be the additional amount of
$500,000, bring us to our maximum business give back limit of
$1,985,884.80. This maximum expenditure would occur in the case that the
success of the project simply became untenable and The Richards Group had
to contribute the $500,000 to satisfy the campaign revenue generation goal;
essentially buying ourselves out of the project. The budgetary particulars are
enumerated in the following budget table.
# of
employees

Position

Compensation

Subtotal

secondary
research

$15.00/hr
(40x12)

15,484.80

primary
research

$20.00/hr
(40x12)

6,1920.00

graphic artist

$40.00
(40x12)

41,280.00

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DART Around Dallas

production
designer

$50.00
(40x12)

103,200.0
0

20

outside sales

$20.00
(40x52)

894,400.0

Misc: room rental

10,000.00

Misc: refreshments

10,000.00

Trifolds

500.00

Posters

1,000.00

Initial inventory of logo products

Web site development and hosting

10,000.00
5,000.00

Outdoor advertising [6 signs@1200/ month

x12 months]

86,400.00

Radio spots [150.00 per,3x day

x(40wks/3)x3stations]

56,700.00

TV Commercials

200,000.0
0

Total budgetary commitment of The Richards

Group

1,485,884
.80

We are allocating 12 weeks each, for the secondary and primary

research projects. These two activities will run sequentially to each other. We
want all of the secondary research performed first so all involved research
staff can share and analyze the data prior to beginning the primary research.
This will necessarily need to be performed in order to design a targeted and
effective primary research program. Once the target issues have been
identified and the psychometric evaluations synthesized, primary research
can begin to be gathered.
In light of all the evidence in consideration we at The Richards Group
feel that this proposal represents a no-lose situation for DART. The project will
cost DART nothing to participate in, other than their consultation time. The
potential financial upside for DART is monetarily very significant. The
establishment of The Foundation for Public Transportation creates a separate
entity capable of independently continuing to solicit funds from other

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charitable institutions, wealthy individuals, corporations, small business,

individual donors, as well as possible receipts from government grants. If the
branding and marketing campaign works as planned then it becomes
financially self-funding, also generating perpetual funding directly to the
foundation, and subsequently to DART. The directed gifting from the
foundation to DART would be a non-budgetary source of income for DART,
and as such could not be used against them in government funding
applications. The benefits to the individual citizens of Dallas are also a winwin scenario. Those willing to participate in public transportation will benefit
directly, by having a better public transportation system. Those citizens who
steadfastly refuse to use DART will benefit indirectly in supporting the cause,
by having thousands fewer drivers competing against them for space on the
roadways. In addition, the potential savings on fuel consumption, air
pollution, and human capital (in the form of saved person-hours) benefits
society as a whole.
Due to the scope of The Richards Group Proposal, our request to The Dallas Area
Chamber of commerce is going to be modified from the original rules of this competition. Rather
than asking for 50% funding, we are simply requesting that the chamber donate, whatever
amount they had budgeted for this contest, to The Foundation for Public Transportation where it
will help fund the beginning of an economic power house for the long term benefit of everyone
in the Greater Dallas area.

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References
Figure A. Image of logo. From Dart, Logo image #1
https://www.dart.org/newsroom/imagelibrary.asphttps://www.dart.org/newsroom/
imagelibrary.asp
Table 1. Image of gas consumption. From Streets blog,
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/09/28/which-counties-have-the-biggestoil-addiction-problem-we-still-dont-know/
Blenkham, H. January 23, 1013. Bad for the environment, bad for the climate
but global dependence on fossil fuels just keeps getting bigger. The
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Retrieved from
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/climatechange/archive/2
013/01/23/bad-for-the-environment-bad-for-climate-but-globaldependence-on-fossil-fuels-just-keeps-getting-bigger.aspx
Carlisle, C. October 2, 2014. Report: DFW relocations, corporate expansions
key to real estate recovery. American Business Journals. Retrieved
from http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2014/10/02/report-dfwrelocations-corporate-expansions-key-to.html
Hartgen, D. (August 25, 2009). Gridlock and growth: The effect of traffic
congestion on regional economic performance. Reason. Retrieved from
http://reason.org/files/ps371_growth_gridlock_cities_full_study.pdf
Lindenberger, M. (December 15, 2010). Commutes in Dallas-Fort Worth are
worst in U.S., study says. Dallas News. Retrieved from
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/20101215-commutesin-dallas-fort-worth-are-worst-in-u.s.-study-says.ece
Litman, Todd. (June 2010). Evaluating public transportation health benefits.
Victoria Transport Policy Institute. Retrieved from
http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/APT
A_Health_Benefits_Litman.pdf
Murray, L. June 28, 2011. Dallas-Fort Worth ranks as 4th largest metro area.
American City Business Journals. Retrieved from
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2011/06/dallas-fort-worth-ranks-as4th-largest.html
Sakelaris, N. (June 23, 2014). DFWs bumpy congested roads are jolting your
wallet for $1,700 a year, report says. Dallas Business Journal. Retrieved
from http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2014/07/dfws-bumpycongested-roads-are-jolting-your-wallet.html?page=all

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DART Around Dallas

Sims, J. (December 24, 2012). Today in Dallas photo history 1810: Dallas
founder John Neely Bryan born in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Dallas News.
Retrieved from http://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/09/28/which-countieshave-the-biggest-oil-addiction-problem-we-still-dont-know/
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Health,
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Wilonsky, R. (April 2013). Study: Dallas-Ft Worth commuters waste a 20.6
hours a year stuck in traffic, which is much better than it used to be.
Dallas
News.
Retrieved
from
http://transportationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/study-dallas-fortworth-commuters-waste-20-6-hours-a-year-stuck-in-traffic-which-ismuch-better-than-it-used-to-be.html
Young, M. (March 5, 2013). Census commute count: 507,397 coming into
Dallas County each morning. Dallas News. Retrieved from
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/census/20130305-census-commutecount-507397-coming-into-dallas-county-each-morning.ece
History of Dallas. May 30, 2014. Visit Dallas. Retrieved from
http://www.visitdallas.com/about/history-of-dallas/