2001 House Bill 5467 ↩

House Roll Call 896: Passed

To create a new Detroit area regional transportation authority (DARTA) comprised of the Detroit area regional transportation authority and the suburban mobility authority for regional transportation (SMART), and including Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties and those cities, townships, and villages within those counties that are subject to DARTA. SMART’s independent authority would be taken over by the new entity. Within 15 months, DARTA would present to the legislature and the governor its recommendations for legislation to establish a dedicated funding stream for itself. Overall funding would come from existing or new federal, state, local, and regional tax dollars, and DARTA would be the designated the recipient for all federal transit funds for the region. DARTA would plan, design, construct, operate, administer, acquire, and contract all public transportation facilities of the region. The governing board of DARTA would be composed of two representatives from Detroit, two each from Oakland and Wayne counties, and one each from the other counties. No action could be taken by the board unless at least one of the members from Detroit and one from Oakland and Wayne County each concur. DARTA would be prohibited from reducing the worker's compensation, unemployment compensation, pension, seniority, wages, sick leave, vacation, health and welfare insurance, or any other benefit of employees in a transit system that is taken over, even if the employee was transferred to another entity under the authority. DARTA would have authorization to borrow, and to collect taxes, property taxes, special assessments, or charges collected by a political subdivision within its area, pursuant to a contract with that unit. DARTA would be empowered to acquire facilities, assets, and rights of existing and operating private or public transportation systems, and if negotiations for acquisitions do not reach a conclusion, would have the power to impose binding arbitration or condemnation on the other system. See also House Bills 5468 and 5523.