(The following story by Nicholas Sakelaris appeared on the Keller Citizen website on August 23.)
KELLER, Texas — Area leaders plan to make a united appeal to the Texas Legislature in hopes that Dallas-Fort Worth can fund 250 miles of passenger rail by 2030.
With the state’s permission, an election would be held seeking voter approval to raise local taxes and fees to fund a 9.6 billion rail system.
Possible funding methods include a $100 increase on vehicle registration fees, a regionwide gas tax increase, higher sales tax for new vehicles and a $100 new resident impact fee.
The plan would take 20 years to implement and would bring rail to outlying suburbs like Cleburne, Frisco, McKinney, Waxahachie and Rockwall.
With an additional 3 million residents expected to move here by 2030, just widening and replacing existing roads won’t be enough, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
“Can you imagine putting them on the same infrastructure that’s out there today? We need this [rail] system today,” Morris told more than 300 people Aug. 15 at the 11th annual Transportation Summit in Irving. “You know how unreliable the road system can be.”
Some in attendance criticized those tax increase proposals, saying they would be unpopular.
R.G. Smith of Keller said raising registration fees on vehicles would increase the number of unregistered vehicles. The higher fees and gas taxes would be like “sticking something down the working people’s throat.”
Rail North Texas, a partnership of several area cities, has met about 20 times since early January to get a proposal in place before the Texas Legislature starts its next session in 2009.
Rather than doing it city by city, Rail North Texas is pushing for a regional election on one ballot.
“We all are suffering the same mobility crisis,” said Jungus Jordan, a Fort Worth city councilman and chairman of a transit subcommittee. “The only way we’re going to get that authority is when our citizens stand up and say ‘I want rail.’”
Calling the area’s aging road system “frightening,” Colleyville City Council member Mike Taylor said the plan isn’t perfect, but the region has to move forward.
“People have reached a point where they’re inconvenienced,” Taylor said. “Everywhere I go I hear more people’s concerns about traffic.”
Attitudes about passenger rail seem to have shifted in Texas as gas prices increase, just as they did during the fuel crisis in the 1970s, Morris said.
Gas prices are not the only reason.
“It’s the fact that we have gridlock and air quality issues that we need to address,” Jordan said.
Ridership on the Trinity Railway Express, which goes from Fort Worth to Dallas, has increased dramatically and, Morris said, the parking lots at several TRE stations have had to be expanded.
Riders can’t even board a southbound Dallas Area Rapid Transit train in Richardson because it’s already full from the Plano stations, Morris said.
“They’re taking rail in huge numbers,” Morris said. “We are loading up trains.”
One new rail line would run on the existing Union Pacific track through Arlington and Grand Prairie along Interstate 30, linking the new Cowboys Stadium and the Rangers Ballpark at Arlington.
Another would run parallel to Texas 360 to Texas 183.
Traffic is always a nightmare at Texas Motor Speedway and plans are underway for a train that would take fans from Fort Worth to the track on race day.