The North Central Texas Council of Governments Regional Transportation Council approved an additional $1.6 million to fund moving the proposed route that loops west of downtown forward to the federal review process Thursday. The move follows a resolution last month by the Dallas City Council that opposed the previous preferred route, which officials worried could disrupt plans for a new $3 billion convention center and other high-dollar development projects near Reunion Tower.
The consultants heading up the environmental review process have not requested additional funds to account for reviewing another alignment, council director Michael Morris said. But the council asked for the money to be cleared in anticipation of a potential future request.
“We know we need to advance the western alignment to make sure it works, make sure there’s no fatal flaws,” Morris said. “My suspicion is we may need some money to finish because we’ve engineered more than we thought we’re going to engineer.”
The $6 billion project would ferry up to 30,000 passengers a day between Dallas and Fort Worth in as little as 30 minutes. The Trinity Railway Express makes the trek in about an hour, but transportation planners hope the rail line would eventually connect to a separately planned high-speed train linking Dallas to Houston estimated to cost $30 billion.
The new route, first presented in July, would run parallel to South Riverfront Boulevard and above a parking lot across from the Dallas County jail and courthouse. It would cross the Jefferson Boulevard and Houston Street viaducts and a portion of I-30, connecting to a federally cleared, seven-story-tall station in the Cedars.
The revised route would eliminate connections between points of interest like Union Station and convention center hotels. It could also cut the 31-mile rail line off from the convention center entirely, which Dallas officials do not want.
Interim city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert is expected to formally request a direct connection to the convention center be included as part of the high-speed rail study, according to arecent city memo. Morris said Thursday he believed the council had already received the request, but he had not had a chance to review it.
“One thing that’s clear is, no matter where that station goes, we do need that connectivity to our convention center, so you have our commitment to making sure that we work with whatever parties it’s required to get that connectivity,” Dallas City Council member Jesse Moreno told the council Thursday.
Dallas’ July resolution opposing a rail line through downtown also triggered an economic impact study of the Dallas-Fort Worth project. Dallas is currently accepting requests for proposals from contractors to commission the study.
Though officials originally discussed getting results in spring 2025, the goal is now to have results by October of this year, Dallas City Council member Omar Narvaez said.
“Now we’re talking October that it’s in front of us because we know that we need to get we need to get this moving,” Narvaez said. ”As we get that economic impact study then we’re going to have all the data that we need, I think, in order to make a good decision so that we can continue along with high-speed rail.”
Amtrak, which is spearheading the separate Dallas-to-Houston project along with Texas Central, has raised concerns about the western alignment and is expected to issue a formal statement to that effect.
“We’ve heard through our conversation with Amtrak concern about moving away from the downtown option, the 2b option, since that did provide pedestrian connections from an Amtrak high-speed rail station in Dallas…and Amtrak’s at-grade hub at Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station, two-thirds of a mile to the north,” NCTCOG program manager Brendon Wheeler said.
Although Dallas officials have expressed doubts about the need for the Dallas-to-Fort Worth rail line, transportation planners have said the route could serve as a connection point on a potential national rail network. The line would connect riders with Austin, and primes the region for connectivity with potential rail lines in other states are built.
With Dallas-Fort Worth’s population expected to balloon to 11 million by 2045, it’s also part of a larger effort to tackle growing highway congestion in creative ways. NCTCOG operates a program aimed at attracting new transit technologies to the region and connecting them with local governments.
A transportation system made up of elevated autonomous cable cars that riders can hail on demand is one that could be piloted through the program.
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