Desiring Streetcars

Fort Worth lands $24.9 million for streetcar system

Seem like the old is new again.
 
Thursday, Dallas landed a $4.9 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration’s Urban Circulator Grant Program to build out the McKinney Trolley line and connect it — almost — with the DART light rail system in downtown.
 
That same day, the same federal agency announced a grant of $24.9 million to the Streetcar Fort Worth program — so take that, Dallas — to build a “2.5-mile one-way streetcar loop with between 20 and 25 stops and three vehicles to connect a Trinity Railway Express commuter rail station and Intermodal Transportation Center with the central business district.”
 
It’s all part of the incumbent administration’s $293 million investment in interurban rail systems in Chicago; St. Louis, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Cincinnati; along with Dallas and Fort Worth, and, oops, in this regard it should be Fort Worth and Dallas.
 
It’s kind of a harkening back to the olden days. Both North Texas cities had downtown streetcar lines about 100 years ago, and “progress” chewed them up and spit them out. Now, we’re rediscovering their convenience, efficiency, and economic benefits, and we just gotta have what we had and threw away.
 
Welcome back, streetcars. We missed you … apparently.
 
Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He … ah, we got nothing.
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