business give back project proposal

DART AROUND DALLAS 1

DART Around Dallas

Nhi Nguyen, Luke Mullen, Alex Asefaw and Jim Ingalls

BCOM 3311.501, Business Communication

Professor Elizabeth Bruce

2015, April 30


DART Around Dallas Figure A. Image of logo. From Dart, Logo image #1 https://www.dart.org/newsroom/imagelibrary.asp

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 fastest-growing, 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 174th birthday. 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). Sims also observes... 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. Or information about developments?

In the 19th 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 20th 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.

The 21st century would describe Dallas as a city that harvests entrepreneurs pursuits, style, innovation, and high accessibility. Fortune 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).

Did i follow the correct format for section headings?

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.

You may be wondering, How am I possibly paying for something with my 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 (UCSUSA, 2014). As vehicles emit particles into the environment, the surrounding residents inhale the chemicals that will deeply penetrate lungs and inflame the circulatory system. From here, we experience short term damage such as asthma or allergies which is our bodies way of rejecting the toxins.

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. 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. 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. 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).

An increase in 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.

Real Estate at a bargain is another reason Dallas is a desirable location when looking for a home, causing drivers to be more willing to commute farther to work. This is part of what makes the commute so congested. 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, do you realize that as you accelerate, decelerate, and sit idle in what seems to be parked stuck in traffic we are wasting more fuel and creating more man made pollution than if we were to drive at a constant speed?

Ask yourself how many times you pumped on the brakes, and stepped on the gas pedal today. Think about how many times your neighbor did, in addition to everyone in your neighborhood, and city. We may not realize the harm in our single handed contribution to man-made pollution because it seems irrelevant to count one persons pollution trail but given the prolific rate that Dallas has evolved in terms of population, size, and economy.


Table 1. Image of gas consumption. From Streets blog, http://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/09/28/which-counties-have-the-biggest-oil-addiction-problem-we-still-dont-know/

This table illustrates the top ten counties in the nation with the highest gas consumption. Dallas ranks fourth out of ten counties for dependency on gas,

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 estimated that we drive 15,000 miles (Federal Highway Administration, 2015).

On average when we change our oil every every 7,000 miles and using 5 quarts of oil. If commuters on DART save 5 days per week of personal miles driven, then we could see a 71.23% reduction in miles driven. (12,000/365= 32.876 miles per day), (32.876 X 5 days= 164.38 miles per week), 164.38 x 52=8,547.95 mile per year), (8,547.95/12,000=0.7123).This 71% reduction in fuel and motor oil consumption would save time, money, and reduce significant pollution, while increasing efficiency.


Any economics course will teach you the laws of supply and demand, and the relationship between buyers and sellers. With these laws in mind, wouldnt it make sense to emphasize the need for an ideal environment where efficiency is maximized while loss, and wastes were minimized? On average a Dallas motorist spends 20.5 hours stuck in traffic a year. (Robert Wilonsky, 2013). Which amounts to about 1,700 dollars in wasted fuel (Nicholas, Sakelaris, 2014). Whether this amount of time and money is large or not is relative to each individual, but i have yet to meet anyone who would 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, 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.

Here are multiple 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 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.

In 2014, More trips were taken on public transit than any other time, in 60 years- nearly 11 billion rides nationwide (Art Guzzetti, 2015). It appears to be a trend, and Dallas needs to focus on our public transit situation for than ever. With Dallass health, population, and economy in mind, The Richards Group would like to present our proposal to harbor the trend of public transportation in Dallas with Dart Around Dallas.

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 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 two fold. 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 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, radio advertising will be targeted toward reinforcing the branding message of how smart, cool, convenient, and economical it is to use DART.

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, links, 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 Staff

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 uneffected. 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, on page 8. 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 $500,00.00, 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 below.

Budget

# of employees Position Compensation Subtotal

2 secondary research $15.00/hr (40x12) 15,484.80

6 primary research $20.00/hr (40x12) 6,1920.00

2 graphic artist $40.00 (40x12) 41,280.00

4 production designer $50.00 (40x12) 103,200.00

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 10,000.00

Web site development and hosting 5,000.00

Outdoor advertising (6 signs@1200/ month x12 months) 86,400.00

Radio spots (150.00 per,3x day, 56,700.00

TV Commercials 200,000.00

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 costs DART nothing to participate in, other than their consultation time. The potential financial upside for DART is budgetarily very significant. The establishment of The Foundation for Public Transportation creates a separate entity capable of independently continuing to solicit funds from; other 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 is also a win-win 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. And the potential savings on fuel consumption, air pollution and human capital (in the form of saved person-hours) benefits society as a whole.


References

Figure A. Image of logo. From Dart, Logo image #1 https://www.dart.org/newsroom/imagelibrary.asp

Figure

Guzzetti, A. (March 9, 2015). Transit group says buses, trains an increasingly popular option. CBS Chicago. Retrieved from http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/03/09/transit-group-says-buses-trains-an-increasingly-popular-option/

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-commutes-in-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/APTA_Health_Benefits_Litman.pdf

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-bumpy-congested-roads-are-jolting-your-wallet.html?page=all

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-counties-have-the-biggest-oil-addiction-problem-we-still-dont-know/

Wargo, J. 2006. The harmful effects of vehicle exhaust. Eviroment and Human Health, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.ehhi.org/reports/exhaust/summary.shtml

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-fort-worth-commuters-waste-20-6-hours-a-year-stuck-in-traffic-which-is-much-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-commute-count-507397-coming-into-dallas-county-each-morning.ece

(February 20, 2015). Average annual miles per driver by age group. Federal Highway Administration. Retrieved from http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm