Signs went up on Preston Road before anyone took the bus stops down. Taped paper notices, one bus route at a time, telling riders that after May 13 the 237 would keep driving through Highland Park but would no longer stop to let anyone on or off. For a stretch of Preston Road that had carried DART buses since 1983, it was a quiet way to end a 43-year arrangement.
Highland Park voters made that decision on May 2, with roughly 70 percent supporting withdrawal from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. Texas law allows a member city to hold that kind of vote once every six years, and this was the year Highland Park used it. Addison and University Park had the same question on the same ballot and chose to stay. Highland Park did not.
What most residents have not fully clocked is that the town's replacement service is currently free, that it is running on a hard six-month clock that started ticking the day it launched, and that the town has already started talking publicly about what changes once that clock runs out. If you live here, the useful thing to know is not really how DART ended. It is what to do with a program that will look different by winter.
What actually left with DART
DART's departure was not just about one bus route. Three separate pieces of service disappeared from inside Highland Park's borders at midnight on May 14:
- Route 237 no longer stops anywhere within town limits, even though the bus itself still runs along Preston Road on its way to other destinations
- The Park Cities GoLink zone, which had filled in gaps for shorter trips, stopped operating in Highland Park entirely
- DART paratransit service to, from, or within the town ended, along with any park-and-ride facilities the agency had maintained there
Town officials had a number they kept coming back to during the debate: DART reported about 35 boardings a day on Highland Park's single bus route. That low ridership figure became the town's justification for betting on something smaller and more targeted instead of trying to keep a fixed-route bus alive.
What replaced it, side by side
In place of DART, the town rolled out Highland Park On-Demand, a microtransit service run under contract with Via Transportation. It launched the same week DART pulled out, alongside a paratransit companion called Highland Park Access.
| DART (through May 13) | Highland Park On-Demand (current pilot) | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Fixed Route 237 along Preston Road | Highland Park plus a one-mile radius, with links to Mockingbird Station and Love Field |
| Hours | Standard DART bus schedule | 5 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week |
| Fare | Roughly $3 local fare | Free during the pilot |
| Booking | Fixed stops, no app required | App or a phone call to 214-785-4345 |
| Fleet | Shared regional bus fleet | Four vehicles total, two wheelchair accessible |
| Paratransit | DART paratransit | Highland Park Access, booked up to four days ahead |
The coverage area is genuinely broader than the old bus stop suggests. A ride can start at your front door and end at Mockingbird Station or Dallas Love Field, which is more reach than the single Preston Road route ever offered.
The free rides were a late call, not the original plan
The town's first plan was to charge close to what DART charged: a $3 one-way fare, with a $3.50 fare for paratransit. That plan changed at the same meeting where the council canvassed the election results and set the launch in motion. Town Administrator Tobin Maples explained the reasoning to WFAA this way after the vote to make rides free during the pilot:
"They've already paid their DART fee. They'll get on our on-demand and we'll take them to their doorstep."
The logic was fairness for people who had already paid into the regional system and were now being asked to find a new way to finish a trip that used to include a bus stop inside town. It is a good deal for anyone using the service right now. It is also, by design, temporary.
Four vans, and the routes that are actually getting used
Here is a detail that matters more than it sounds like it should: the entire fleet is four vehicles, and only two of those are paratransit capable. That is not a criticism of the program so much as a fact worth knowing before you assume a ride will show up in five minutes on a Friday evening when Highland Park Village is full.
Ridership has been climbing since launch. By June 2, about three weeks in, the town reported 595 completed trips and 479 app accounts created, with six active paratransit riders. At the Town Council's August 11 session, Director of Policy Development and Strategic Initiatives Letecia McNatt reported that ridership on the four-vehicle fleet was continuing to grow, and named Highland Park Village and Mockingbird Station as the two most popular pickup and dropoff points.
That pattern tells you something about who is using the service so far. It reads less like a workforce replacement for the old Route 237 commute and more like a way to get to dinner, shopping, or the train without moving a car. Whether that is a feature or a gap probably depends on whether you are the one riding it or the one who used to depend on the bus stop that is no longer there.
The town also faced a real awareness problem early on. Initial signage along Preston Road did not include Spanish, which drew criticism given that many former Route 237 riders commuted into Highland Park for hourly work. The town has since added English and Spanish signage near the old stops, but if you know someone working in the Village or the Shops of Highland Park, it is worth a conversation about whether they actually know the app exists.
A separate idea still waiting in the wings
Alongside the passenger service, town officials floated a second program aimed at a different problem entirely: construction traffic. Highland Park has a lot of active building and remodeling, and contractor trucks parked along narrow residential streets have been a recurring complaint, partly because they slow emergency vehicles. The proposed fix, sometimes called the Builder Shuttle or the Workforce Circulator, would use off-site parking and vans to move contractor crews to job sites instead of letting them park up and down the block. As of the most recent public reporting, it was still under review and had not launched. If your street has a project underway, it is worth watching for.
The date that actually matters
Highland Park On-Demand launched May 13. A six-month pilot puts its natural endpoint around the middle of November. At the August 11 council meeting, officials specifically raised the possibility of moving to fee-based rides once the pilot period ends.
Nothing has been decided yet, but the direction is clear enough. The free window exists to build ridership data and goodwill during the transition, not as a permanent feature. If you have been meaning to try the app, download it, or figure out how paratransit eligibility works, the next couple of months are the moment to do it while rides cost nothing and while the data being collected still has time to reflect how the whole town actually uses the service, not just the people who found it early.
Requesting a ride is simple enough for anyone to test once: download Highland Park On-Demand from the App Store or Google Play, or call 214-785-4345 if you would rather book by phone. Paratransit riders need to apply for eligibility first, with documentation from a current transit agency or a doctor's note, through the town's microtransit page.
Highland Park has changed how it gets from one point to another for the first time in more than four decades. Whatever comes after November, the version worth understanding is the one running right now.
If you are watching how a specific block or street in Highland Park is holding up, or wondering what a property near Mockingbird or the Village is actually worth this year, Catherine Cole and her team spend their time in these details for a living. Reach out anytime to talk through what you are seeing.
