Shades of hope and doubt swirled around Dallas City Hall this week when city officials unveiled a study that fortified the long-discussed high-speed rail project as a billion-dollar economic engine for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The report, commissioned by the Dallas City Council last year, estimates the Dallas-to-Houston bullet train would bring an average annual gain in gross domestic product of $5 billion and more than 28,000 new jobs to the region from 2029 to 2050. More than $3.5 billion — and 20,000 jobs — would be concentrated in Dallas, with increased economic output and personal incomes also seeing gains.
The estimates are based on an assumed 4.3 million annual riders.
But Dallas leaders have expressed doubt the region would realize the purported benefits after the U.S. Department of Transportation terminated a $63.9 million grant for the project, which is led by private entity Texas Central. The DOT, under President Donald Trump’s istration, cited ballooning project costs as a risk for taxpayers.
Kleinheinz Capital Partners, the private backer behind the project, sees Amtrak’s removal and the change in funding as positives.
“Kleinheinz Capital Partners is proud to be the private sector sponsor for the project and the Department of Transportation’s decision to remove Amtrak creates a viable path forward by eliminating barriers that were bogging down the project which was greenlit during the first Trump istration,” the company said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.
Kleinheinz agrees with the Trump istration that the project should be privately funded, but the private investor’s outlook is likely to face more skepticism. Major infrastructure projects are often funded through a mix of public and private dollars.
“If that happens, it would be a first in world history that a transit system was fully ed just on private funding,” council member Paul Ridley said during an economic development committee meeting Monday.
Texas Central announced plans more than a decade ago for a rail line to shuttle engers from Dallas to Houston in about 90 minutes, compared to the 3 ½-hour car trip on Interstate 45. Texas Central planned to model the bullet train after partner Japan Central Railways’ Shinkansen system.
The project has faced many delays and leadership changes since, and uncertainty about the final costs remains. Company representatives confirmed during a legislative hearing last month that Texas Central bought out its top Japanese investor in the project in January and the rail line is now backed by Texas investor John Kleinheinz.
The North Texas region is expected to grow from 8 million residents to 12 million by 2050. The North Central Texas Council of Governments has released several reports that highlight the region does not have the infrastructure to that type of growth.
“We’re not going to be able to build enough highway or roadway to accommodate this massive growth that’s coming,” council member Omar Narvaez said.
The bullet train’s estimated benefits extend beyond direct job and revenue creation, according to the report by the Boston Consulting Group. Less roadway congestion, lower transportation costs and reduced emissions would also be net positives to the region.
Council member Gay Donnell Willis said though there’s not much city officials could do at the moment to move the project forward, it was important that they didn’t take it off their radar.
“It’s a long game, and istration priorities can change,” Willis said. “We have to keep the ember alive so we don’t have to start cold whenever the opportunity arises.”
A mix of NorthPark and Grand Central Station
High-speed rail was also envisioned as an ingredient to revitalize and spur development in the southern half of downtown Dallas, and the neighborhoods that were sliced away from the urban core by highways.
A big component of that vision was a transportation hub in the Cedars, which ed a federally required environmental check. The economic impact study released earlier this week said the hub could boost existing property values by 6% within a half-mile of the station, stimulating “15 million square feet of new development and yield[ing] more than $125 million in additional tax revenue.”
Last year, a group of council and city officials visited Japan to learn more about the development around what a transit hub could look like.
Officials rode the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya, said Narvaez, who has chaired the council’s transportation and infrastructure committee. The trip was an hour and a half long, with distances that mirrored the ground between Dallas and Houston.
Council member Gay Donnell Willis described the station at Nagoya as a mix of Dallas’ NorthPark mall and New York’s Grand Central Station. “How they wove it all together to make it work was important to see, but also because we know that we would very much want to incorporate a housing element to it,” Willis said.
Ground-level bus terminals and floors of retail, office spaces and community amenities were layered atop each other. A park on the 15th floor could make one forget they were up that high, Willis recalled, as the design offered a street-level experience. A Marriott hotel sat on top of the station.
“By seeing the way that another large city is undertaking something like this, or has undertaken something like this, it not only revealed ways that the city could incorporate more of our needs into one location and project, but also illustrated how we would do some things differently,” she said.
Dallas-Fort Worth line lacks
While many city officials the line to Houston, the connection to Fort Worth and Arlington has not garnered the same enthusiasm. North Central Texas Council of Governments, which has advocated for transportation decisions from a regional perspective, has pitched the Dallas-Forth Worth line as a tangential connection that could offer riders more connectivity options in North Texas.
City leaders have continued to question if the plans benefit the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington at Dallas’ expense. They’ve long hoped for a below-ground rail line in Dallas as in the other two cities, though planners have said it’s not a viable option.
Council member Chad West said the study indicated the line would instead have an adverse impact downtown, especially if the city were to pursue the “Eastern alignment” — also known as Alignment 2B — that lets rail lines slice through the southwest corner of downtown Dallas, where prominent real estate firm Hunt Realty owns the more than 20-acre Reunion property, which includes the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Reunion Tower.
The plan has been a point of contention between the firm and transportation planners for more than a year. Hunt has said the project would kill a proposed $5 billion mixed-use development.
Based on information from the developer, consultants conducting the study surmised the impact would boil down to a more than $1 billion lower average GDP growth and fewer jobs.
The other option, a “Western alignment,” could add $600 million in average annual incremental GDP growth and an additional 3,400 jobs, according to the report.
“The NCTCOG has always stressed that without a Houston-to-Dallas train, Dallas to Fort Worth doesn’t make sense and is not viable,” West said. “Dallas to Houston doesn’t currently have a realistic path and we have now spent $1 million on a study that confirms 2B harms downtown, so it doesn’t make sense for the City of Dallas to invest any more money or intellectual capital on this idea.”
West proposed prioritizing expedited DART trains with a direct route between D-FW International Airport and downtown Dallas. More attention can be given to expanding the streetcar line and moving riders through downtown and Oak Cliff and even over to Deep Ellum and Fair Park.
“I think it’s a waste of time to do that when we have so many other needs in the city,” West said.
The report is expected to head to the full City Council for discussion, though a date has not been set.
