What happened to the funding?
- The Heartland Flyer began operation in 1999 with funding from both the Oklahoma and Texas departments of transportation.
- In June, the Texas legislature passed a budget that did not include funding for the rail line.
- Oklahoma Democratic State Senator Mark Mann filed a concurrent resolution urging Texas to reconsider funding its portion of the rail line. The resolution received bipartisan support in the Oklahoma Senate, but was not successful in persuading Texas to contribute the funds.
- Last week, the North Central Texas Council of Governments approved the use of 3.5 million dollars of regional toll revenue to fund the rail line for another year.
Senator Mann said without the line, many plans for the future of rail transportation between the two states and beyond won’t be possible.
“We won't have an expansion to Newton, Kansas. In Newton, you can connect to the Northern East-West route, which is Chicago to LA. We won't have an extension to Tulsa and Kansas City. That line is central to everything we want to do in terms of rail transportation going forward,” he said.
The Heartland Flyer had about 82,000 riders last year, and Mann said he and other advocates for rail transportation picture that number increasing as the Dallas-Fort Worth and OKC metro areas continue to grow.
“[The two] statistical areas are really just 60, 70 miles apart. Anybody that’s driven I-35 recently knows it is very congested. So, this is going to be in the future, I think, a very important transportation option to get from downtown Oklahoma City to Dallas-Fort Worth,” he said.
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