Dive Brief:
- Despite lacking approximately $537 million in federal funding, officials said the $1 billion TEX Rail will still open on schedule in 2018, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. The high-speed train will connect downtown Fort Worth to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in Irving, TX.
- Some advocates of the 27-mile rail, which will feature other stops in Fort Worth's Tarrant County, fear that if the project isn't fully funded before the start of the next state legislative session in 2017, opponents will try to derail the entire plan.
- The high-speed rail system's "philosophical" opponents have said 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, as suggested by the Fort Worth Transportation Authority.
Dive Insight:
The rail's opponents are counting on the project's federal funding being held up so that they can launch a campaign to prevent the TEX Rail project from going forward. Heading up the local opposition is Sen. Konni Burton from Colleyville, TX, who has said that a huge project like the rail, which passes through Colleyville, should have been up to the voters of Tarrant County. Residents succeeded in having a planned Colleyville station removed from the TEX Rail route.
High-speed passenger rail systems have had a rough go in the U.S. lately. Developers scuttled plans earlier this month for a Chinese-backed rail system between Las Vegas and Los Angeles after lawmakers insisted that the train be manufactured in the U.S., a requirement that is impossible to meet, proponents said, because "there are no high-speed trains manufactured in the U.S."
Another rail system that has had a difficult time getting up to speed is the California High Speed Rail Authority's bullet train. That project has been plagued with delays because the authority did not make all the necessary land purchases in time to meet its original schedule, and lead contractor in the first segment, Tutor Perini, just won almost $64 million in change orders and a contract extension of 17 months because of those delays.
The system has been under fire ever since a Times investigation said that the authority had not been honest with legislators about the cost and feasibility of the project during the initial funding phase. Since that investigation, the state Legislature has held several special hearings into the system's operations.