North Texas transportation officials will begin talks with Dallas administrators to see if a proposed high-speed rail route from Fort Worth and Arlington is achievable.
Regional Transportation Council leaders said they want to discuss options for a proposed western alignment route that would run west of downtown Dallas to reach a station south of the city’s Central Business District and Interstate 30 to connect with Houston.
Transportation council members decided in November to advance the western alignment with an elevated track despite opposition from Dallas.
Dallas City Council members approved a resolution in January reinforcing their 2024 opposition to an elevated rail line through downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. West Dallas and nearby parks were added to the prohibited areas for the rail corridor under the resolution.
“We had been working on that western alignment for two-plus years and this is the first time that we’d been told that we could not be anywhere near that portion of downtown Dallas,” said Dan Lamers, a senior program manager for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
“We had previously understood that meant we needed to be outside the development area of both the Convention Center and the Reunion (Arena) development area,” Lamers said. “We had questions — does this particular resolution essentially preclude the western alignment that we had been spending the last two-plus years on? We haven’t formally heard anything from the city of Dallas on this point.”
Lamers said informal discussions with Dallas officials indicated the city would not support the western alignment route from Fort Worth and Arlington.
In its resolution, the Dallas council directed transportation planners to look at alternatives such as upgrading existing rail corridors such as the Trinity Railway Express passenger train between downtown Fort Worth and downtown Dallas or developing an underground high-speed rail option for Dallas as planners proposed in Fort Worth and Arlington.
Transportation officials said they want to preserve the environmental clearance work they’ve spent years working on to achieve Federal Transit Administration approval. Transportation staffers and a consultant also have made significant progress on a Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program grant for the Fort Worth-Arlington corridor.
That work began in February after the North Central Texas Council of Governments executive board approved the consultant contract with conditions imposed by the Dallas City Council in January.
Still, Lamers added that “we don’t have a path forward if we are not looking at the western alignment.”
To date, it has cost about $13 million to develop the rail corridor as well as the western alignment route, Lamers said.
If the high-speed project doesn’t happen, the region could be forced to pay back as much as $7.2 million in federal funds used to develop the rail corridor, officials estimated.
Transportation director Michael Morris said he is not in favor of returning federal funds and noted that Metropolitan Planning Organization partnerships along the Interstate 35 corridor have already been approved.
However, the work already completed by the council of governments staff could be used for another high-speed rail alternative proposed about seven years ago.
That proposed route would start at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, connect with Fort Worth and Arlington before extending south to Austin, San Antonio and Laredo. The Texas Department of Transportation is interested in developing that line along I-35, officials said.
Morris said it was important to get clarity from the city of Dallas to see if the local line can be developed since there is no current way for a train to reach the high-speed rail station.
He suggested that transportation council chair Rick Bailey, a Johnson County commissioner, send Dallas officials a letter to initiate a meeting with transportation council members, including those from Arlington and Fort Worth.
Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said it won’t hurt to talk to the city of Dallas to advance the local high-speed rail route.
“Is it a flexibility type of thing we’re dealing with over there?” he asked.
Morris said a meeting would help regional leaders better understand the Dallas council’s concerns.
“Is there some way, maybe through the brainstorming of the elected officials, that they can come up with some way to be able to salvage the ability of high-speed rail service through Arlington and Fort Worth,” Morris said. “Some Dallas council members think it’s a waste of time but I don’t think it’s a waste of time with all the effort and all the money we’ve put into this to not continue this conversation.”
Dallas City Council member Lorie Blair said the process should be collaborative and that the project should not be directed to the city as something officials should just accept.
Eric E. Garcia is senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
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