Victory Lane Express shuttle buses will once again be offered to fans who want to beat traffic this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.
The Fort Worth Transportation Authority has offered the race-day shuttle service since 2005, and will again deploy the buses for Saturday's O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge and Sunday's AAA Texas 500. Although it is just a niche service – carrying less than 1 percent of overall speedway traffic – it does help the T get its foot in the door in the thriving Alliance area, where expanded bus routes and even commuter rail could be on the way in the near future. On race days, traffic officers give the buses priority access in and out of the speedway grounds, so riders don’t have to wait for traffic to unwind.“It could be an even bigger issue this year, because of all the road construction in that area,” T spokeswoman Joan Hunter said.Fare is $10 round trip. Buses depart from Tarrant County College Northwest Campus, 4801 Marine Creek Parkway, from 8 to 10 a.m. both days. Return service begins 30 minutes after the races from a designated speedway lot. Buses depart as they’re filled, and typically 15 to 20 vehicles are used as shuttles on race days, Hunter said. The buses use Texas 114 and Interstate 35W like the rest of race-day traffic, but are given priority access in and out of the speedway – saving riders minutes or even hours that they might otherwise spend stuck in gridlock.This fall’s races occur as workers are widening a two-lane stretch of Texas 114 to four and six lanes between I-35W and Farm Road 156. However, all lanes will be open on race days, contractors have said. On Monday, changeable electronic signs normally used to warn motorists of lane closures instead bore the message: “Welcome Race Fans.” Static signs also were installed along Texas 114 to inform motorists: “All lanes open during races.” The $15.4 million Texas 114 expansion is being funded mostly by Denton County bond funds and the county’s portion of regional toll road revenue from the Sam Rayburn Tollway project in the Lewisville-Carrollton area. The project began in December 2010 and is expected to take 27 months. It’s the first phase of a $90 million effort to improve Texas 114 from I-35W to the Wise County line.While handling race-day traffic is an issue today, there’s a longer-term question about how to improve public transportation during the work week in the thriving Alliance Airport area. For years, officials at the T have said they would entertain the idea of building a race-day commuter rail service from near downtown Fort Worth to Texas Motor Speedway, following rail lines that roughly run parallel to FM 156 – and speedway officials, who don’t charge for general parking, have said they’d support the extension of passenger rail to their area.But some officials, especially Fort Worth Councilman Jungus Jordan, are pushing for faster development of a weekday commuter rail line to serve not only the speedway but the bustling commercial areas and massive residential developments in far north Fort Worth. The issue of transit in the Alliance area will be discussed in detail Wednesday during a monthly meeting of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition. The meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Intermodal Transportation Center, 1001 Jones St. in downtown Fort Worth.tHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
