The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) unanimously approved the DART Forward 2035 plan last night.

The plan is designed to enable DART to serve more people more frequently, and officials say it will allow for people to connect between communities without having to travel downtown.

The plan is part of the process of DART becoming a truly regional transit system, General Manager Elizabeth Presutti said. When DART was formed from the Metro Transit Authority in 2006, there wasn’t a plan in place showing exactly how it was going to work as a system.

“We didn’t have any documents and we hadn’t looked at this system from a regional perspective, and that’s what we have with this plan,” Presutti said.

As part of the process, DART is proposing property tax increases of between 10 and 17 cents per $1,000 of valuation beginning next year. For more information on the plan, click here.