Fort Worth & Dallas Team up on Streetcar Projects

From: Fortworthology
By: Ken Buchanan // July 17, 2009

After a recent meeting, officials from Fort Worth and Dallas have decided to shift their regional focus on transit, with a new emphasis on each city’s respective modern streetcar plans. As a result, Fort Worth and Dallas are teaming up and going to the feds as a unit, applying for $95 million to jump-start the Fort Worth and Dallas streetcar systems. Says Gordon Dickson in the Star-Telegram:

Dallas and Fort Worth, with help from the council of governments, would apply for $95 million in federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants by Sept. 19. The U.S. Transportation Department can award up to $1.5 billion at its discretion, with no more than $300 million going to any one state.

Federal rules would require that the money be spent by Feb. 17, 2012. That date would be the latest that construction could begin.

This is a major step forward for the Fort Worth streetcar project. Previously, city officials expected to still be in the planning stage of the project by 2012. If Fort Worth and Dallas can secure this jump-start money, the Fort Worth streetcar will be radically sped up - we’ll be seeing dirt turning no later than that February 17, 2012 date. It’s even possible the system could be running in 2012. When combining the jump-start funds with local funds, we would expect the full starter system becomes a very real possibility - or at the very least, Downtown plus one of the other lines (perhaps the Near Southside, since that line doesn’t require waiting on a new bridge to be built as the 7th Street line does). We’d also expect to see further cooperation between Fort Worth and Dallas on these plans - say, ordering cars together in the same batch.