Can a rapid bus line on Lancaster transform these east Fort Worth neighborhoods?
A drive along East Lancaster from downtown to historic Handley, a pocket of bridal boutiques and art galleries just past Loop 820, is a slog of traffic lights and low-rise buildings, mostly dollar stores, payday lenders and under-used strip malls.
A century ago an interurban streetcar line would have zipped passengers from Cleburne to downtown Dallas past growing residential neighborhoods and pockets of rural Tarrant County. Then when the Metroplex gave up on transit in favor of the automobile, Lancaster was dotted with motels, car repair shops, diners and other businesses that catered to the motoring public until Interstate 30 was built.
Today the thoroughfare, often six lanes wide, is still more friendly to cars than people and, with the exception of Reby Cary Youth Library, there has been little new development, said Dan Haase, vice president of the Central Meadowbrook neighborhood and an East Lancaster aficionado.
Haase said many residents of east Fort Worth are hoping to bring growth to the corridor akin to what Fort Worth has seen in other areas. Perceptions of Meadowbrook are already shifting as new residents move in, he said, and just a little push could put the neighborhoods on the map.
“We’ve seen it happen everywhere else — look at Near Southside, West Seventh, Race Street,” he said. “That’s where we need to go.”
One tool to spur that change is a planned rapid transit system that would connect downtown Fort Worth to Handley with a special, fast bus line. The city and Trinity Metro are developing a plan for how the future bus line on the corridor would work and what the development it spurs to should look like. Three virtual meetings are planned through June, with additional chances for input later this year before the plan, dubbed Advancing East Lancaster, is released in December.
Bus rapid transit is like light rail, but without the rail. Buses travel in dedicated lanes, physically separated from traffic, and stop at well-lit stations, not regular bus stops. Traffic lights are timed to give the bus lane priority, ensuring that buses stay on time.
The East Lancaster corridor is prime for bus rapid transit, said Jeff Davis, Trinity Metro’s board president, arguing the area has “a demonstrated need” for better bus service. Route 89/SPUR, the current Lancaster line, is Trinity Metro’s most used service. In January 2020, before the pandemic, more than 73,200 people rode that bus, up from just under 69,000 a year before. Ridership dropped to about 59,500 in March 2020 when the pandemic started and has hovered around 43,000 since.
Davis said improving the line with rapid buses, which come every 15 minutes and as quick as every 5 minutes for special events, would increase ridership dramatically. Extending the line into Arlington could mean more than 1.7 million annual riders, enough to pay for the operating costs, he said.
“It will shock that whole area into an economic development, transformational moment,” Davis said.
Construction of the bus line a little more than seven miles to Handley Drive, which involves reducing Lancaster by one lane in each direction and building dedicated stations, will cost about $160 million, half of which should come from the Federal Transportation Administration. The Texas Department of Transportation has committed $50 million and Trinity Metro says it can afford about $5 million. That leaves $25 million unfunded, which the metro has requested from Fort Worth.
A 2022 city bond election proposal budgets about $320 million for mobility, with almost all of it devoted to street improvements and none allocated for transit. Conversations about additional funding for Trinity Metro have been ongoing at City Hall. Some council members, like outgoing District 9 representative Ann Zadeh, argue the city should devote more to transit as an economic driver. Others, including District 4 council member Cary Moon, say Trinity Metro needs to improve service before getting more money to improve service.
Haase said residents in his neighborhood are hopeful the city and Trinity Metro can make the plan a reality — it’s been discussed for more than a decade.
The city has attempted to spur growth in areas of East Lancaster before. Three urban villages, areas designed for dense populations, a mix of businesses and bike and transit friendly streets, have been designated in the Near East Side, at Oakland and Lancaster and in Handley. Years after being established, little growth has come to the pockets, Haase said.
But in 2019 the city approved a public improvement district for part of the street. For about five miles of East Lancaster, Fort Worth collects extra property tax, worth 26.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, to fund improvements to public safety. In the first year, crime fell 30% in the area, Haase said, a major improvement. Though East Lancaster has had the perception of high crime, he contends it has “never really been that bad.”
Bringing the bus line to East Lancaster would help even more, he said. A special incentive the City Council passed a few years ago would give developers a tax break for building within a mile of transit stops like rail and bus rapid transit stations. Once the bus stations are built, Haase sees pockets of apartments and shops popping up along Lancaster. The developments would bring the density needed to support more local businesses and grocery stores.
Redevelopment like this often brings worry of gentrification, when long time residents are priced out, but Haase, who has lived in Central Meadowbrook since the 1980s, said a mix of affordable or “workforce housing” along with market rate apartments would keep the area from becoming too expensive.
“This is sort of an ‘If you build they will come,’ thing,” Haase said.
Judy Taylor, president of the Handley Neighborhood Association, thinks the rapid bus line could “do a lot of good” for the quiet neighborhood that stretches from just west of Loop 820 to Cooks Lane.
Folks might come to Handley for the strip of bridal stores, a few antique stores and a high-end art gallery, but residents are “hungry for a grocery store,” a local eatery and more small shops, she said. Taylor would like to see something done with the former Cowtown Inn, one of the many motels that popped up on Lancaster when it served cross-Texas motorists. But there’s not a lot of room for other development, she said, and she worries simply connecting Handley to downtown won’t be enough to spur interest in either bus line or the neighborhood.
To really make the bus line successful, and attract people to Fort Worth’s east side neighborhoods, Taylor said it needs to connect to west Arlington and beyond.
“It can’t just go straight down Lancaster,” she said. “It’s got to take us somewhere.”
Though Arlington officials have historically rejected buses — it’s still the largest city in the nation without public transportation though there is now a ride share service — connecting to Arlington is not out of the question, Davis said.
A nine-mile extension to the Arlington entertainment district would cost an additional $70 million, but would likely also qualify for 50% federal funding, he said.
The route would connect downtown Fort Worth to west and downtown Arlington, the UTA campus and the entertainment district. Taking a bus from downtown Fort Worth to a Rangers game would be a little more than 30 minutes and cost about $2, Davis said. On a recent Friday afternoon the drive was about 20 minutes, not including the time to park and walk to the stadium, according to a Google Maps estimate.
Last year the Star-Telegram reported the Rangers and Trinity Metro had met to discuss the possibility of a station near Globe Life Field, but little has moved since.
Davis pointed to the success of similar rapid buses in Cleveland and Houston, arguing that a connection to Arlington and on would make the Metroplex unique.
“This could be a corridor that actually makes money,” he said, later adding that the Lancaster bus rapid transit system is “more important than TEXRail.”
While plans to improve Fort Worth’s transit network have lingered untouched for years, Haase said now is the time to act. As Fort Worth grows, new residents will expect better public transit.
“A lot of those people are millennial age people who are very transit savvy,” Haase said of new Meadowbrook residents. “They will take public transportation if it’s available unlike my generation, pretty much that’s the last resort besides walking.”
