Dive Brief:
- The Federal Transit Administration has committed almost $500 million to the Fort Worth (TX) Transportation Authority’s $1 billion TEX Rail project, according to the Dallas Morning News. The FTA will spread the payments over four years.
- By providing Fort Worth residents with access to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the nine-stop, 27-mile rail line will also connect the city and its suburbs to Dallas via a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) airport rail transfer.
- The TEX Rail, which is scheduled to open at the end of 2018, is expected to attain a ridership of 13,700 daily trips by 2035. Construction crews broke ground on the line earlier this year.
Dive Insight:
Local and state dollars will fund the $501 million TEX Rail balance. According to a June report, opponents of the deal were hoping federal dollars would be held up long enough for their protests and objections to take root and scuttle the project. Those critics claimed the rail will have no real positive effect on the environment, will not relieve traffic congestion and won't provide the area's low-income residents with better transportation options.
In October, DART approved $2 billion for two other projects, including a suburban rail link of its own to DFW and a subway system. There is significant support for the plan, but critics have said that DART’s ridership doesn’t warrant such an ambitious rail project and that it should devote more resources to its existing rail assets and bus system. In fact, a Chicago transit study determined the DART network was one of the most underused and expensive when compared to other metros.
Ridership is also at issue in what is turning out to be a significant delay to construction on the $5.6 billion, 16-mile Maryland Purple Line light rail project. Project officials based their initial ridership numbers on the estimate that 25% would come from the Washington, DC, Metro system but did not include a projected decline in ridership amid safety and maintenance concerns. A group of local residents filed a legal challenge based on that and other issues, and a federal judge stopped the project pending an additional review by the FTA to determine if another environmental impact application is necessary. If that is the FTA's decision, then construction could be pushed back another six months or shelved altogether.