Cowtown’s car-centric culture may hit the brakes in the coming decades as growth-related congestion is expected to clog major traffic corridors.
Billions of dollars on road projects aim to address the rapid sprawl in once-rural parts of Tarrant, Parker, Denton and Johnson counties, officials said.
Some motorists have already ditched their vehicles, opting for public transit on commutes to avoid getting frustrated by increased traffic congestion.
Dallas resident Amoné Shippy, a program manager at Fort Worth-based Lockheed Martin Corp., takes the Trinity Railway Express passenger train on his way to work. He boards the train at Victory Station near the American Airlines Center and rides for an hour west. Tables and power outlets on the train enable him to focus on work during the 34-mile trip.
“I find it more relaxing to be on the passenger train,” he said from the platform of the downtown T&P Station. “I don’t have to deal with all the traffic. It’s a straight shot to get to downtown Fort Worth. From the train station, I usually take an Uber to get to my job.”
Fort Worth reached 1 million residents this year, and projections show North Texas is on track to add 4 million more people — including about 500,000 to the city — during the next 25 years, pushing the region’s population to 12 million.
Traffic is already strained as officials estimate nearly 500,000 workers 16 years and older drive across Fort Worth highways and thoroughfares. Commute times landed Fort Worth at No. 10 in Forbes’ “Hardest Commutes in the U.S.” study with an average time of 26.80 minutes. Dallas had only a slightly higher average commute time of 29.70 minutes.
Traffic congestion can create a dangerous cycle that affects employment, business relocations and the local economy, said Brendon Wheeler, senior program manager for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a planning organization that allocates funds for transportation, air quality and other projects to 16 counties.
“It not only affects where people move. It affects where businesses move,” he said. “It affects economies.”
The annual cost of North Texas congestion and traffic delays will be $36.4 billion in 2050, the council of governments estimates.
That’s why officials across the region are exploring transit solutions. Those include tolled lanes, rapid bus service in high-use corridors and a proposed high-speed rail line that includes Fort Worth and Arlington.
In June, a long-range regional transportation plan outlining $217.3 billion in needs for North Texas road, rail and air quality improvements through 2050 was approved by the Regional Transportation Council, an independent policy group of the council of governments that has local leaders on its board. Meanwhile, Fort Worth city officials are developing a Moving a Million comprehensive mobility plan to prioritize road projects and align them with state and regional 2050 plans.
Being able to move a skilled workforce across the area is important in attracting companies looking to relocate to North Texas, said Richard Andreski, president and CEO of Trinity Metro.
“Transit is front and center at that,” Andreski said. “The ability to access talent in some industries depends on being close to transit. There’s certain types of industries, tech is one, where tech workers (from other large cities) want to be around transit.”
However, getting drivers to change habits could be difficult. Nearly 70% all North Texas workers drive alone to work, according to Dallas Regional Chamber research. Commuters like Shippy who use public transportation make up less than 1%.
The council of governments doesn’t have projections on the number of vehicles expected to be on the region’s roads within the next 25 years.
However, the agency’s 2045 mobility study estimates that population growth will result in a 42% increase in vehicle miles traveled — a metric used by transportation planners that tracks every mile driven to measure total travel and travel pattern changes over time in a region.
Road trips across the region to other parts of the state will take longer as well, Wheeler has noted. Trips to metro areas such as Houston once took about three and a half hours from Fort Worth. Now motorists can travel for up to six hours to reach the city because of congestion, Wheeler said.
“The issue is our highway system, as we know it, not only can’t keep up but the travel along the highway system is expected to just get slower,” Wheeler said. “As the world gets smaller, somehow our travel is getting slower.”
An expanding city
In far north Fort Worth, where the city has seen a rapid development of businesses and housing in the Alliance area, traffic is a top concern.
City Council member Alan Blaylock hears from motorsists almost daily about Bonds Ranch Road congestion, for example. A nearly $32 million project will widen the road as well as provide other improvements, such as new streetlights and sidewalks, bike and pedestrian lanes, and drainage upgrades.
“That is one of my top priorities,” said Blaylock, who is also a member of the Regional Transportation Council.
Congestion is most apparent in the Alliance area, where new developments include data centers, shopping centers and now a planned film production studio. Vehicles can be slow or backed up for miles, even with managed toll lanes. Western Fort Worth is also experiencing a building boom with numerous new housing developments and retail centers under construction.
In the summer, Fort Worth officials set aside about $32 million for street maintenance in the 2026 budget, but the city is short about $66.1 million. City leaders said more investment is needed. A planned bond election next year could ask voters to approve more than $40 million for bridge and street projects as part of about $517 million budgeted for streets and mobility, officials said.
The city’s Moving a Million safety and mobility plan aims to be a comprehensive guide to 2050 transportation solutions once it is completed.
The plan is key to the city’s future mobility, centered around people’s movement through vehicles, pedestrian and bicycle paths, and freight transportation, said Kelly Porter, Fort Worth’s assistant director of regional transportation planning and innovation. The plan establishes timelines to fund short-term and long-term future capital projects.
“It’s going to help shape the transportation future for the city locally over the next 25 years,” Porter said in a promotional video about the plan. “We’re going to be integrating all kinds of things into these efforts, such as technology, land use, parks and green space, and we’re really thinking about a whole host of factors as we go forward with this long-range vision for transportation in our city.”
Local road projects detailed
Fort Worth road projects will address safety and mobility.
- Among the work is a $4.7 million project to restripe about 750 feet of Miller Avenue/Oakland Boulevard from Eastland to 1st streets. Officials plan to improve bicycle safety and add countermeasures that include lane separations, new signals and curb ramps.
- Fort Worth promotes bike lanes on city streets to encourage alternative transportation. Some areas, such as the Evans Avenue corridor, have been repainted recently to keep motorists out of bicycle lanes.
- The bike lane project is expected to start next June and be completed by March 2027, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
- Vaughn Boulevard, on the city’s east side, is part of the Main Street America program and will be improved with new pavement, sidewalks, and water and sewer connections to improve infrastructure and mobility. The project, between Emerson and Hardeman streets, will cost more than $1.3 million as part of the 2022 bond program.
Work is scheduled to start in October and could be completed by April 2026, according to a state filing.
State and regional leaders are allocating billions for major expansions of highways to deal with growth and road deterioration. In 2000, about 83% of Texas roads were in acceptable condition but that percentage dropped to 77.6% in 2020, TruckInfo.net research showed.
At the intersection of three highways in southeast Fort Worth, a $2.2 billion Texas Department of Transportation project will rebuild and widen 16 miles of Interstates 820 and 20 as well as U.S. Highway 287.
That Southeast Connector, which won’t be completed until 2028, is part of TxDOT’s Texas Clear Lanes initiative, intended to address safety and mobility at the most congested choke points in the state.
Across town, TxDOT is focusing on highway upgrades to the city’s far west side — a high-growth area where new housing and the UTA West campus will be built. Three infrastructure projects — totaling $541 million — will address mobility on the I-30 and I-20 corridors between Aledo and west Fort Worth in Tarrant and Parker counties.
The North Texas Tollway Authority is also expanding highways. That agency will spend $250 million to widen about 13 miles of the Chisholm Trail Parkway, the tollway from Fort Worth to Cleburne, as growth moves southwest.
“TxDOT is working with our many partners in mobility — the Regional Transportation Council, transportation staff of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and other local government entities — to address transportation needs of North Texas,” said Shawna Russell Jones, the agency’s northwest Texas communications director.
Transit solutions
Weatherford resident Don Lemmons, a Navy Desert Storm veteran, and wife, Kathy, use the Trinity Railway Express when they attend sporting events in Dallas. The train is a more convenient option for them, he said.
“It beats sitting in traffic,” Don Lemmons said. “I wish there was a train from Weatherford to downtown Fort Worth.”
While Lemmons may not get his wish anytime soon, more rail options are being considered for Fort Worth.
Trinity Metro transit officials are planning a TEXRail train extension into the Medical District and want an urban rail system that runs from downtown to an entertainment district that has not been determined.
Transportation planners said that high-speed rail projects within the Texas Triangle — the megaregion that includes North Texas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio — would aid in moving people across the state. One such proposal would have Fort Worth connect to Austin, San Antonio and Mexico with a route that would run along Interstate 35.
Peter LeCody, president of Texas Rail Advocates, which supports rail transit systems, said if a Fort Worth to Dallas high-speed rail line is developed, other passenger trains could follow behind it on the same tracks at slightly slower speeds, similar to European rail systems.
“Sometimes, I just think we don’t think outside the box on some of this,” LeCody said.
Shippy, the Lockheed Martin program manager, said he would like to see more robust regional transit options, including high-speed rail and faster TRE trains between Fort Worth and Dallas. He also would like to see a rail connection to Arlington’s entertainment district.
“I wish it would come to fruition,” Shippy said.
Fort Worth native Jemini Miller, 24, uses Trinity Metro’s TEXRail line to get to her housekeeping job in North Richland Hills.
“I don’t have a car so it makes life easier, especially for those that are less fortunate,” she said.
The Regional Transportation Council’s Mobility 2050 plan focuses the bulk of funding on roads, about $97.5 billion, while rail and bus improvement projects totaled nearly $60 billion.
Stephen P. Mattingly, a civil engineering professor and director of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, said he believes a high-speed rail system may work better between major cities rather than within metropolitan areas since he sees it as a major competitor with air travel versus vehicular travel.
“It’s a tough sell for me,” Mattingly told the Fort Worth Report. “I’m concerned that the high-speed rail isn’t even going to get up to high-speed rail speed. It’s going to accelerate, then it has to decelerate (in Arlington) immediately, before it even reaches its cruising speed.”
Other transit options — such as vertical takeoff taxis and aerial gondolas — are in development in Fort Worth and Arlington. Fort Worth aviation officials are planning upgrades at Meacham International Airport, Texas’ second-busiest general aviation airport.
The council of governments plans to partner with Southwest Research Institute to create a technology platform to analyze transportation data to use in determining future infrastructure and transit projects.
A test of the region’s public transportation systems will come next year when North Texas hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer games in Arlington. More than 100,000 daily visitors are expected to visit the region and bring in $1.5 billion in economic impact, Mike Crum, Fort Worth director of public events, told the City Council on Sept. 23.
TRE equipment upgrades are planned and $4 million is allocated for repaving more than 300,000 square feet of a Texas Rangers parking lot so it can accommodate the weight of dozens of buses. That lot will serve as a main drop-off and pick-up spot for buses carrying fans on the Trinity Railway Express from the CentrePort Station near Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Shuttle buses from Fort Worth and Dallas will also supplement the train service.
Many areas are exploring driverless vehicle systems to address freight and passenger transportation needs. Arlington, for instance, recently officially ended a pilot self-driving rideshare program. The service is expected to relaunch by early 2026.
However, they can’t be the only answer as such systems add more vehicles to already stressed highways, council of governments’ Wheeler said.
“We need to find solutions to get people off the streets and move them around,” Wheeler said. “Your already congested roads are going to get worse.”
Mattingly said road infrastructure projects increase as the population grows, but multiple transit options must be considered.
“We’re going to build roads, but I’m not viewing building roads as our solution,” he said. “I think that making additional investments in a system will have the potential to replace auto trips is what we’re really wanting to do. Some of the systems I’m just not sure will replace auto trips.”
Mattingly said he would like to see more rail investments to speed up existing services.
“Building roads is not going to solve our commuting problem.”
Future road projects planned
The Texas Department of Transportation is planning major road projects for the Fort Worth area within the next decade. Among them.
- On the east side, East Lancaster Avenue, also known as State Highway 180, will be reconstructed from I-35W to I-820. TxDOT plans to award the contract in 2027.
- Millions will be spent to construct new frontage roads on U.S. Highway 81/287 in the Alliance area of far north Fort Worth. Jones said about $76 million is dedicated for 2026 with at least $230 million scheduled in 2029.
- In the Arlington area, more mainlanes will be added to I-30 from Cooper Street to the President George Bush Turnpike. TxDOT plans to name a contractor for that project in 2029.
- Jacksboro Highway/Lake Worth Boulevard, also known as State Highway 199, will be reconstructed from White Settlement Road to I-820. That contract is expected to be awarded in 2031.
Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.