Plans for a new TEXRail station in this Fort Worth neighborhood just got a huge boost
The U.S. Department of Transportation this week awarded Trinity Metro a $25 million grant to extend TEXRail into Fort Worth’s Near Southside.
The cash infusion injects new life into Trinity Metro’s efforts to thread passenger rail services deeper into Fort Worth’s urban core. The grant leaves the agency with a $15 million to $20 million funding gap to bridge before it can bring the roughly $167 million project online.
Opened for public use in January 2019, TEXRail shuttles commuters 27 miles between downtown Fort Worth and DFW Airport, making pit stops in the north side, North Richland Hills and Grapevine. The service broke its ridership record in December, providing 103,312 rides.
Trinity Metro had originally intended to stretch the line into Fort Worth’s Near Southside, an active and comparatively dense neighborhood, but budgetary pressures forced planners to bench the initiative. Tides turned in February 2020, when the agency received the federal government’s permission to use some leftover grant money to kick-start the project.
Trinity Metro plans to construct its newest station south of Mistletoe Boulevard, just west of Baylor Scott & White All Saint Medical Center. The stop would extend TEXRail southwest by 2.1 miles, enabling it to more readily service tens of thousands of residents, hospital employees and bar hoppers. Project construction, once set to begin in 2024 and finish in 2026, is now estimated to start this month, according to the grant summary.
The TEXRail extension was one of 109 infrastructure projects nationwide to receive a cash bump from the USDOT’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program.
“With the $1.32 billion in funding we’re announcing today, we’re setting in motion over 100 projects that will make roads safer, help mitigate the impact of climate change, and ensure that people in communities of all sizes can get where they need to go safely and efficiently,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement Jan. 10.
