News

Please see below for information on a public meeting between DART and representatives of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 441, scheduled for Thursday, December 12, 2024, at 8:30 a.m., in the Multimodal conference room at DART Central Station.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING

Elected leaders of DART’s member communities have issued a press release announcing a commitment to remain in DART and participate in the Reimagine DART process.

DART made several changes to bus service on Sunday, November 24, 2024. The changes included:  

As of Nov. 4, 2024, a transportation company called UZURV is now operating in Central Iowa to provide some trips to DART’s existing Paratransit customers.  

DART plans to end all services in the City of Grimes at the end of the service day on June 14, 2025. This change is due to the City of Grimes’ decision to withdraw from DART late last year. 

The following services will be impacted:

DART’s Ride to Thrive program allows people who receive food assistance, housing assistance or workforce assistance to pay about half the cost of a regular bus fare. Riders who use this program must re-enroll every two years. Many Ride to Thrive customers will need to re-enroll in the program in fall 2024. 

Recently, DART, and specifically the long-term funding of our regional transit service, has been in the news as local elected officials disagree on how much each community should contribute to our regional transit system. These discussions come at a time when many communities are reassessing what they are willing to invest in as they confront a tough economy, high inflation, and state mandates on property taxes limiting the tax revenue they can collect to fund essential public services.

Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) and its governing body, the DART Commission, have launched an 18-month collaborative effort to establish a shared vision for how public transit can meet communities’ needs and connect people to vital destinations across a growing region.

The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) provided 3,504,072 rides across all transit services in Fiscal Year 2024 (July 2023 – June 2024), an increase of nearly 9% from the previous year.

Ridership grew on several DART services last year: