Regional Transportation Council approves slight name change

The Regional Transportation Council is getting rebranded.

The 45-member transportation policy group, which recently settled a lawsuit with the North Central Texas Council of Governments over its legal and financial duties, gave initial approval to a slight name change at an Oct. 5 meeting. 

The Arlington-based entity will maintain its RTC name but will add a tagline — North Central Texas Metropolitan Planning Organization — to emphasize its transportation policy-making and financial decisions. 

Officials said the modification was needed as a new tri-party agreement with NCTCOG and the Texas Department of Transportation moves forward and new organization bylaws are established. Under the agreement, the council of governments will be the transportation body’s fiscal agent and have no role in policy-making or staffing decisions.

Amanda Wilson, an NCTCOG senior program manager for communications, said having a distinctive name that is not generic was needed to maintain the council’s recognition across the country.

“We wanted to make sure that we were not creating confusion,” she said.

Wilson said the tagline helps indicate that the group represents the North Central Texas region as well as three urbanized areas: Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Denton-Lewisville and McKinney-Frisco. 

Once the agreement is completed, staff would be identified as RTC employees and slight changes would be made to the council’s website, external email and other identifying documents.

Denton County Judge Andy Eads said he appreciated the staff recommendation for a simple, revised name.

“I mean this as the biggest form of compliment, I appreciate the lack of creativity,” Eads said. “I think we have a stellar reputation across our region, the state. Nationally, we’re known as the RTC and that we’re highly functioning and understand project delivery.”

Rick Bailey, a Johnson County commissioner and immediate past RTC chair, said the rebrand keeps the group’s historical name.

“To keep this tradition, to carry this on forward, it’s not a big change but it’s a big enough change without change,” he said.

The council asked staff to ensure that the new name would be legally defensible and trademarkable.

Members will vote on new bylaws once those are complete, said Carrollton Mayor Steve Babick, chair of the group’s bylaws subcommittee. Changing the name now helps advance the new MPO agreement before a second bylaws vote is taken in December.

“We all know where we are because of a disagreement,” he said. “I do like the staff recommendation.”

Changes to the group’s name and bylaws came after an August settlement in a lawsuit that stemmed from the April firing of transportation director Michael Morris by Todd Little, then the council of governments executive director. Morris was later reinstated in May.

Little left his job in August after the NCTCOG executive board voted 8-6 to a mutually agreed separation.

Eric E. Garcia is senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected].

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