FORT WORTH, Texas — The TEXRail commuter line carried more than 11,000 riders in its first weekend, prompting officials at its parent organization, Trinity Metro, to start talking about expanding the system.
The 27.5-mile system, which opened Jan. 10, connects downtown Fort Worth to DFW International Airport. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports Trinity Metro board chairman Scott Mahaffey would like to see a 1.5-mile expansion to the southeast to reach Fort Worth medical district, and an extension another 2 miles to the south to service Texas Christian University.
A Trinity Metro committee voted this week to recommend that the board immediately initiate expansion plans. Rough estimates place the cost of extending to the medical district at $130, and to TCU at another $70 million.
I rode this line on Thursday, Jan 17. I’d agree many on board (and it was crowded) were there to just try it out or take the kids for a ride. We just happened to be vacationing in the Dallas area and were doing the same thing. Two adults and 5 kids. We’re from Tennessee, so won’t be riding regularly, and a somewhat good chance may never ride again, but not because we don’t want to. Sitting near us were a couple women who were pointing out stuff along the line to each other, sounds like they might be occasional riders, but who knows.
That said, I’d agree it was a nice train, very smooth ride, on time, clean, and somewhat convenient if you happen to be going from near one of its stations to near one of its other stations.
Newark Liberty Airport has a monorail which operates between the Amtrak/NJT station and all three terminals, plus four parking lots on the western edge of the airport. Information on this AirTrain service, including a downloadable PDF map of the monorail, can be found at http://www.newarkairport.com.
MICHAEL – Thanks for the informative post. BOS Logan International now has the Silver Line, sort of a bus rapid transit, in addition to its traditional bus shuttle to the Blue Line.
Brett – It’s changed since then, when I was a college student in New York 1964-1968, the three airports LGA, JFK and EWR were 0-3 for transit access in America’s capital for transit. I can’t even remember how I got to LGA, maybe two subway trains and a not terribly frequent bus route to get to the terminal. By 1966 I’d given up on the New Haven Railroad and discovered Eastern, Northeast and American Airlines.
At the other end of my flights, BOS (decades before the Silver Line), flying into Logan meant a shuttle bus to the Blue Line airport station, the problem being the Blue Line then and now goes from nowhere to nowhere. Blue Line to Green Line to Red Line for me – 4 bus or transit seats – from Logan to meet my father at his office for the ride home.
So counting buses, subways, one airplane and my dad’s car, it was something like nine seats to go 200 miles. Actually I loved it. I never saw it as an inconvenience. I saw it as an adventure. But most people aren’t transit/ train/ airplane fans as I was then and am now.
Fifty years later, my frequent flights to BNA Nashville mean renting a car and taking my life into my hands on Tennessee’s overcrowded freeways and the state’s third-world local roads. The best airports are the ones with transit access.
I rode this line last weekend along with the other 11k people. I would say that 90% were there just to ride for the first time and for something to do. They should wait a few months to see how ridership is once fares are charged before they plan any expansion. Currently they do not offer overnight parking (not that I know of anyway) at the stations so the market is for employees at the airport and not travelers from the Fort Worth area.
This line makes DFW the only airport that has three different rail connections – TEXRail – Terminal B, DART Light Rail – Terminal A and Trinity Rail Express via a bus connection.
Other airports with direct rail connection (no buses or monorails or people movers between the airport and station) are Cleveland, Chicago O’hare, Chicago Midway, Providence, Denver, Portland, South Bend, St Louis, San Francisco, Washington Reagan and Seattle. Miami, JFK, Newark and Phoenix all have people movers to the rail connection. A few other have a bus connection.
CTA opened there O’hare Station in September 1984, I know because I rode it the first day, I was 14. Big deal, stuff like this should of been done decades ago, even LaGuardia has no train station in the largest city for public transportation.
A couple of comments from a Fort Worth resident:
The DART Orange line light rail runs into and terminates at DFW Terminal A.
The TEXRail heavy rail commuter service runs into and terminates at DFW terminal B. In the coming years DART’s Cottonbelt heavy rail commuter line (recently approved) will run from near Jupiter Road and the George Bush Turnpike in Plano, TX to DFW airport and will share the DFW tracks and station with TEXRail. There has been some discussion that DART and TEXRail could collaborate and offer a small number of thru trains from downtown Plano to downtown Fort Worth. Terminals A and B are opposite of each other. There is an awning covered walkway that navigates the spaghetti mess of roads between terminals A and B. The distance between terminals A and B is approximately 250 yards.
Regarding the Medical District and TCU expansions: when planning began for TEXRail many years back, the system was planned to stretch from DFW airport, through downtown Fort Worth, to a point somewhere in Benbrook (southwest Fort Worth). Once planning began in earnest and costs started escalating (along with a four party “spat” between Trintiy Metro, Union Pacific, the TRE, and the Fort Worth & Western), the plan was quickly truncated to terminating at the T&P station in downtown Fort Worth.
I say do the Medical District line first. Shucks, it’s only $130.
Uday Schultz,
Increase in frequency from hourly to half hourly is already planned, scheduled and financed…there’s no need to work on something that is already going to happen. Also, this is service to DFW International Airport, not the same frequency of service is needed as if it was between suburbs and downtown…the expansion to half hourly will be quite enough. Now if they do expand Southeast and South to the medical district and TCU, then they could look at service beyond half hourly, but for now the increase to half hourly service will be more than sufficient for the purposes of this line.
TEXRail station is at DFW Terminal B
O’Hare doesn’t require a bus connection.
At PVD, MBTA station is a long travolator or walk past the rental car counters to the terminal.
Can someone from Texas describe the connection of this service to the terminals at DFW airport?
“Airport” stops on full-size rail, MBTA (Providence Theodore Francis Green ), MARC (Baltimore Thurgood Marshall), Metra (Chicago O’Hare) and Amtrak (Milwaukee General Mitchell) needless to say don’t go to the terminals, but require a bus connection. Going by what I think I read there’s a people mover connection to New Jersey Transit (Newark Liberty).
The so-called “Airport” stop on the Hiawatha is really a well-patronized and much needed south suburban park-ride for Amtrak. I can’t say how many airline passengers use it. Haven’t been there but I suspect the Providence airport is the same thing.
This sort of thing really frustrates me. Instead of spending money on expansion, they should be looking to run service more than once an hour — that’s infinitely more useful than more track. This is supposed to be a transit service, after all…
Before diving head first into an expansion why not wait to see how ridership shakes out over a more reasonable timeline than one week.
Somewhat off-topic, but today’s Milwaukee paper reported average daily ridership of 2400 and peak twice that on the “Hop” streetcar.
Gerald,
I was not aware of the frequency increase. That is good news — but more is necessary. TexRail will not be convenient for people who can’t build their lives around schedules if the median wait time is 15 mins. 20 or 15 min headways are a must for a really effective transit service.
Can one assume that the large ridership on the opening weekend was due to fares not being collected.