Sick of waiting for trains on West 7th? Fort Worth has a solution in the works
The Fort Worth & Western railroad slices West 7th Street in two, severing Tom Thumb from Montgomery Plaza and, more broadly, downtown from the Cultural District.
Not infrequently, a long strand of train cars, seemingly endless to peeved commuters, will stall traffic along the street for the better part of 15 to 30 minutes.
A train will sometimes venture across at rush hour, clogging West 7th with sedans and pickups for at least half a mile in each direction. The impatient travelers lucky enough to be stuck near the front of the queue may U-turn in hopes of finding another route around the barricade.
Fort Worth has a possible solution in the works.
By year’s end, construction crews plan to install electronic signs at seven intersections near the rail crossing that will provide live updates on the track’s status.
When a train blockades the street, the signals will broadcast warnings to commuters heading in the crossing’s direction — “7th Street Tracks Blocked” and “Expect Delay.”
“That’s something we can do in the near term for everyone to provide some degree of relief for folks trying to navigate that area,” Kelly Porter, the Department of Transportation and Public Work’s assistant director, told a pleasantly surprised audience at the West 7th Neighborhood Alliance’s annual meeting April 14.
The city plans to install train signage at the following intersections:
- University Drive and White Settlement Road
- White Settlement Road and Carroll Street
- Currie and West 7th streets
- University Drive and West Lancaster Avenue
- West Lancaster and Summit avenues
- West 7th Street and Summit Avenue
- West 7th and Henderson streets.
Porter and City Council member Elizabeth Beck, also in attendance, suggested the city has more permanent solutions in the pipeline.
“We are thinking about additional connections across the railroad and the river in the mid-to-long term,” Porter said, without delving into specifics.
This story was originally published April 15, 2025 at 12:23 PM.
