Our friends at Texas Rail Advocates (led by our own Chair Emeritus Peter LeCody) reported July 10 that the North Central Texas Council of Governments Regional Transportation Council has come up with funds to keep the Heartland Flyer running for at least one year.
“The North Central Texas Council of Government’s Regional Transportation Council has done what the state of Texas shirked its responsibilities in doing … fund the Heartland Flyer passenger rail service,” TRA said this afternoon in a statement.
The RTC approved a $3.5 million diversion of Regional Toll Revenue funds to cover the gap left behind when the Texas legislature decided recently to reject Texas DOT’s funding request, a two-year request for roughly $7 million—more than reasonable, compared with the $23.7 million the Flyer delivers to Texas and Oklahoma each year.
It’s just a one-time emergency funding action, designed to buy some time to develop a second-year funding program in advance of the Texas legislature’s next session. NTCOG said it will ask the State of Texas to reimburse the COG, while also launching a ridership campaign to pare down the subsidy required.
“It’s a sad state of affairs when the Texas Department of Transportation asked for funds for this critical intercity surface transportation link between Fort Worth, Gainesville and Oklahoma City and state legislators turned TxDOT down,” LeCody declared. “TxDOT partners with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to support this service that last year carried more than 80,000 passengers. It was a case of a handful of politicians at the Capitol with an anti-passenger rail agenda refusing to pass an appropriation that the Texas Transportation Commission asked for in TxDOT’s legislative budget request.”
Texas Rail Advocates noted that Michael Morris, who is the COG’s transportation director, said having the Flyer up and running will be critical when soccer’s World Cup matches take place in the U.S., with many events scheduled for North Texas.
Rail Passengers recently worked alongside Texas Rail Advocates to launch a grassroots advocacy campaign to save the Flyer. Amtrak said that in the absence of some kind of solution or stopgap funding, service would end Oct. 1.
Our Association congratulates TRA, Peter LeCody, and all the hard-working grassroots supporters who swung into action and found a way to notch a significant win for passenger rail in the Lone Star State!
Editor’s Note: As background, Railway Age Contributing Editor David Peter Alan in April wrote the commentary “Heartland Flyer End of the Line?” As an update to it, he tells Railway Age: “It’s good news that the Heartland Flyer is getting a reprieve. Jim Mathews, Peter LeCody, and other advocates are absolutely right when they mention the strong returns that investing in passenger trains can generate, as well as the overall value of those trains to the communities they serve. Still, this is only a reprieve, and we don’t know what will happen next year. The Heartland Flyer case illustrates the fragility of state-supported trains that depend on year-to-year budget cycles in the state capitals. I’ll have more to say about that in a commentary soon.”
