DALLAS — All over downtown Dallas, you can’t miss Eddie Bernice Johnson’s fingerprints: in DART’s Rosa Parks Plaza, its light rail lines, bus operations and of course, Union Station.
“Eddie Bernice Johnson is such an icon, particularly for DART,” Dallas Area Rapid Transit CEO Nadine Lee said. “She was so instrumental in making sure that our projects actually got funded.”
By the time Johnson left Congress last year, she’d helped secure about a million in federal funding for DART, including a $700 million grant in 2006.
Johnson, 89, died New Year’s Eve.
“We have the longest light rail system in the country, we wouldn't have been able to build all 93 miles of the light rail without her influence,” said Lee.
Lee said in her conversations with Johnson, the congresswoman always looked to the future and to how the transportation system could’ve been made better. In August, DART gave her the agency’s first annual Legacy Award in honor of her support of DART and public transportation.
“It really wasn't until I got to Congress myself, that I understood just how much she had already done for our region,” said U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas congressman.
First in the Texas House and later in Congress, Johnson worked closely with Kay Bailey Hutchison to secure funding for DART, the Trinity River, its bridges and other transportation projects.
“We worked so well for Dallas, and for Texas together,” said Hutchison, who retired from the U.S. Senate in 2013. “(We) had so many victories for, for Dallas and for Texas, because we were the committee's that could make decisions.”
Johnson, a Democrat, and Hutchison, a Republican, put partisan differences aside to make North Texas better.
“The great Union Station that is named for her is going to be a lasting legacy as it should be for what she did for Dallas,” said Hutchison, who said she and Johnson became close friends.
Those that know Johnson say her contributions will last well beyond all our lifetimes.
“If you're any one of us who enjoys so much of what we take for granted in North Texas, at some point the next week when you say your prayers, or whatever you do, … you should utter to name Eddie Bernice Johnson, and express a word of gratitude to her,” said former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk.