Updates to our sister sites

By Faith Chatham - July 7, 2007
DFW REGIONAL CONCERNED CITIZENS publishes several related sites. In addition to our main page where readers can sign up to receive action alerts, we also publish several other sites.

ABOUT AIR AND WATER focuses on the environment. We post articles about gas drilling, pipelines, and water contamination, air quality, TXU buyout and other environmental issues. In the sidebar, we have links to sources for solar street lights, real time air quality readings including Current Ozone
Levels for the DFW Region, Hourly Air Pollutant and Water Pollutant Data, Airborne Particles (Smoke, soot, dust), Air Pollulant Watch List, and Air Quality Alert Data. There are links to websites of environmental groups where readers can get involved, Environmental Advocacy Groups in the NCTCOG region, and Water Conservation Districts Websites, If you know of websites which should be listed, please send the link to us at dfwrcc@gmail.com.

Most of the information on About Air and Water is activist-oriented. However we do post stories about events and entertainment including an article on the UTA Planetarium and links to games. We include links to interesting environmental sites. Resource links range from suppliers who allow you to rent solar panels to household tips for living green.

Articles are archived monthly. Visitors can read and print archived artices and search for them by keyword (or label/tags)


TEXAS RAIL is one of our newer blogs. We post content about rail relocation, schedules for the Fort Worth T, Trinity Rail Express, DART and links to Amtrak, schedules of meetings pertaining to rail services in Texas. We concentrate on the 16 County NCTCOG region but post content about rail in all areas of the state of Texas.

This site contains activist information but also contains lots of entertainment links of interest to rail enthusiasts. Content on the site is archived monthly. Archived posts can be read and printed. The site can be searched to topic, tag/label.

Our newest site is People Profit Power - Healthcare & Insurance or PPPHI. This site focuses on healthcare and insurance. In the sidebar we post links to social service resources in the NCTCOG region, helpful insurance informational links and other resources. On this site we focus on access to healthcare, insurance and governmental policy.

NEW TEXAS LAWS is an informational site. Many of the activists in the DFWRCC network have followed numerous bills through the 80th Texas Legislature. NEW TEXAS LAWS is a site where we can check on the language of a bill once it has been signed into law or became law without the governor's signature.

Grassroots News U Can Use is our oldest site. However, we only began listing it on search engines last month. For about a year it was used to post articles on the Trans Texas Corridor and candidates campaign diaries. Usually these posts were linked to articles in other blogs. Last month we began using Grassroots as a companion site to DFW REGIONAL CONCERNED CITIZENS. Content on DFWRCC focuses mainly on ethics and highway transportation. Grassroots News U Can Use contains content which amplifies transportation/ethics in government activism.

The Arlington Texan is a hometown portal for several of the founders of DFW RCC. It is an entertainment portal which allows us to post information to assist citizens of Arlington, Texas in learning of meetings and resources and information for participating in the environmental/ governmental process in Arlington. The media market is very fragmented in the DFW Metroplex. No one newspaper or television station reaches a majority of the citizens of Arlington. The "shelf life" of television broadcasts and newspaper stories is very short. The Arlington Texan is our attempt to keep some important content available longer to the citizens of Arlington. In the near future we will be adding new columnists on this site.

HUMAN IN TEXAS is DFW RCC co-founder Steve Blair's site. Steve is an environmentalist and policy analyst who has written on environmental and governmental issues for many years. Steve has collaborated on much of the research which has been posted on various sites by Faith Chatham during the past 2 years. He is one of several people who function as a "think tank" within the DFW RCC community.

Still hope for transit expansion

Sales tax funding plan derailed in Legislature,
but regional coalition is set to try again in 2009
By MARICE RICHTER - The Dallas Morning News - Friday, June 8, 2007

Area transportation advocates are disappointed by the failure of legislation that could have expanded rail transit in North Texas, but they aren't giving up hope.
Instead, meetings and discussions have already begun to regroup and develop a new strategy to target the Texas Legislature in 2009.
"I wish we didn't have to wait two years," said Mark Enoch, chairman of the DART board. "But I think we will get it next time. For a first effort, we did very well. We got the bills out of two committees and onto the floor."
A coalition of more than 100 local entities – including city councils, county commissioner courts and chambers of commerce – endorsed a plan that would have allowed local-option elections on raising the state sales tax cap by up to 1 cent to pay for transit expansion.
Efforts by Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson, and Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, to push this plan through as legislation died on the House floor near the end of the session.
Some Tarrant County officials said they may try to explore other funding options for new passenger rail lines. However, most area transportation leaders said research has shown that sales tax remains the best way to finance an estimated $3.5 billion to $5 billion in rail improvements needed in North Texas.
...
As local leaders begin regrouping, a top priority will be to counter opposition to the local-option sales tax plan. They said opponents succeeded in derailing the plan in the last session.
...
Opponents have argued that higher sales tax in North Texas would hinder the region's competitive edge in business. Detractors also suggested that cities that want to join a rail authority could redirect funds from their economic development and crime control districts rather than raise sales taxes beyond 8.25 percent.
The local-option plan would have allowed cities to raise the sales tax up to 9.25 percent. It also would have allowed cities that are already part of a transit authority such as Dallas Area Rapid Transit to raise their sales tax by 1 cent to create economic development or crime control districts, officials said.
Since Grapevine voters recently agreed to join the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known as "The T," there are only a few small cities left in North Texas that can still ask voters to raise their sales tax rate to join a transit authority.
A recent survey of area cities found that most have economic development and crime control tax dollars tied up in long term bond-indebtedness that will take 15 years or more to repay.
"It would take too long for all those cities pay off that debt and then hold elections to pull out of their other districts," Mr. Humann said. "By comparison, we can accomplish a lot more a lot quicker if we can get the plan we have approved by the Legislature in two years."
In the meantime, transit agencies can spend their time on right-of-way acquisitions and seeking federal grants to help defray costs, officials said.
Tarrant County transportation officials said they may look at the possibility of creating tax-increment-financing districts or using property taxes to jump-start some new rail corridors or add more stations to a line being developed between southwest Fort Worth and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. "Sales tax is still the best option for financing regional rail," said Vic Suhm, executive director of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition. "But we'll consider any other forms of financing to open up some new corridors."

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Flattened by freight carriers, fleeced by slick operators and dumbfounded by the audacity of the Rail Roads

By Faith Chatham - Texas Rail - June 9, 2007
The railroads and regional and Arlington city officials have been meeting, discussing plans and seeking funding to relocate the Union Pacific tracks which run through the heart of Arlington and Grand Praire. Toxic chemicals carried on those tracks pose risk to large populations, but that does not seem to be the major consideration for relocation of the tracks. There is now much community support for commuter rail. Arlington, one of the three cities in this 16 county NCTCOG region, with a population which places it in the top 50 most populous cities in the nation, combined with neighboring Grand Prairie, are the largest cities in Texas not to have mass transit. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have no transportation alternative except private automobilies which contribute to air pollution.

Failure of the region to meet EPA clean air standards by the year 2010 may lead to Federal funding sanctions. Increased gas drilling has also skewed previous air pollution forecasts even further into the negative column. Cities of Arlington and Fort Worth rushed to permit gas drilling without accounting for increased carbon dioxide emmissions from generators on gas drilling units. This is cited by the EPA as reasons for rejecting the regions Clean Air Plan.

The dialogue about relocating the Union Pacific tracks irritates me. For decades cries of concerned citizens over shipment of dangerous chemicals on freight trains through major population centers have been ignored. Now, as the freight lines want to improve their bottom lines and reap the profits from shipment of tonnage from China through Texas to Kansas City and Canada, there is a big push to get the taxpayers to underwrite relocation of rail lines. Despite how the rail roads, regional planners and groups like NASCO attempt to sell it, I doubt that protection of civilian population groups or promotion of passenger rail is prompting these inititives. The rail carriers want the tax payers to pay to upgrade rail infrastructure owned and controlled by private rail corporations.

Gee... does this seem familar? Private rail promoters acquire massive segments of American real estate to build railroads and provide passenger and freight services to the American people. Rail road promoters get rich, decided that oil and gas is more lucrative than running rail roads and hauling freight is less bothersome than providing passenger service. Passenger rail is discontinued by most carriers. Eventually public transit authorities develop passenger rail and the US government leases use of the tracks from private rail roads to provide AMTRAK passenger rail service to American citizens. Oil and gas makes land developers rich. Citizens sit for hours while freight trains have priority to the tracks over passenger trains. The energy sector gets richer and richer and citizens pay higher and higher electric, residential gas and automobile gasoline rates.

Somehow it is insulting to think that the public is being expected to pay for upgrading rail road infrastructure for freight shipments! Then comes the push to get the public sector to pay for relocating the UNION PACIFIC tracks which run between UTA and the new Cowboy Stadium in Arlington!

It makes absolutely no sense to me to relocate the Union and Pacific tracks that run through the heart of Arlington. What better location could there be for PASSENGER rail tracks? They run a few blocks north of the University of Texas at Arlington and a few block south of the new Cowboys Stadium.

Why is it that lawmakers and RTC members rush to convert highway transporation project to PRIVATE PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP while ignoring rail which has been a private partnership from its inception?

Why are public dollars tapped for improving privately owned and rail road controlled rail lines? One of the biggest obstacles to effective passenger rail in Texas (AMTRAK) has been the control of privately owned tracks. Freight carriers grant right of way to freight trains while AMTRAK passengers sit for hours, unable to estimate reasonable arrival or departure times.

BSNF, KCS (de Mexico), and Union Pacific want the benefits but do not intend to fork out the cash to maintain and improve their infrastructure. Most train derailments in the US have been attributed to the railroads refusal to properly maintain their tracks. It's time that the rail industry and elected officials (such as County Judge Glen Whitley and the RTC) face some realities. Ownership comes with responsibility. If the railroads refuse to maintain the tracks and pay for desired infrastructure upgrades, they should GIVE the tracks to the government and allow them to be coverted to passenger lines. If they want straighter routes from Mexico to Oklahoma to ship freight at better profit margins for their companies, they should pay for the right of way and construct their own straighter routes. They should not expect the citizens of Texas to underwrite their schemes to improve their bottom lines through prioritization of the TTC over more critical transportation projects designed to solve Texas's most critical transportation bottlenecks. Moving freight is a commercial enterprize. Freight haulers should pay for upgrades to commercial infrastructure.

Moving people is the governments responsiblity. If private public partnerships are called for, there is an excellent opportunity running right straight through the center of Grand Prairie and Arlington. The Union Pacific track passes within walking distance of Grand Prairie's downtown business district, Arlington's downtown business district, the University of Texas at Arlington, the Cowboy's Stadium and Glory Park. There is not enough money left in the sales tax cap (after citizens underwrote the Cowboy Stadium) for Arlington to underwrite rail as a city initiative. However, there is a great opportunity for a private partner to step up to the plate, negotiate a deal for use of existing Union Pacific tracks and provide passenger rail service to citizens of Grand Prairie and Arlington.

The rail roads should devote the effort they've expended on lobbying to change the Texas Transportation Code and changing the eminent domain law to favor exercise of eminent domain for private gain in their push for the construciton of the Trans Texas Corridor into pursuing existing opportunities to provide transportation solutions in passenger rail.

The rail roads (and regional transportation planner) have focused on getting the laws changed so that the public underwrites improvements to privately owned rail infrastructure. It is time Union Pacific, KCS, BSNF and other rail conglomerates step up to the plate and carry more of the civic repsonsiblity. Hey, maybe Mr. Jones might underwrite some of the expense. After all, passenger rail in Arlington located near his stadium would be a definite plus for transporting fams to all games -- not just a one time trip to the Super Bowl.

Don't count on the Legislature to do what a community can do for itself

By Faith Chatham
One of the best op-ed pieces I've read recently was by O.K. Carter.
Arlington voters dedicated most of the sales tax to building the Dallas Cowboys a new stadium. North Tarrant County voters moved forward independent of the State Legislature on rail initatives. Citizens in Arlington are hearing about plans to run rail through Arlington for the Super Bowl game but Arlington citizens needing to leave their gas guzzling cars parked and commute to work on mass transit see no train in the near future for them to ride. Air Quality continues to be dismal and City and County and NCTCOG leaders have failed to deliver transit solutions other than toll roads and more concrete. Most Arlington citizens favor rail more than buses yet there are no firm plans for either in Arlington except for tourists.

In North Tarrant County rail initatives are moving forward and there are expectations that they will be funded, partially with surplus toll revenue from CDAs. Arlington citizens will soon be paying toll fees to avoid congestion on I-30 and probably HW360. The City of Arlington has only until the end of this month to submit applications for transit and air quality projects to be funded with part of the regions up-front concession payments. Michael Morris of the NCTCOG said that the CDA concession money can be spent on rail in this region. "If Arlington wants rail, and wants part of the concession payments to help fund it, the City must submit applications to the NCTCOG by the end of this month." Morris continued: "The NCTCOG has worked out an agreement with BNSF railroad to bring passengers through the center of Arlington for the Super Bowl game." Other than that one weekendm there are no plans for passenger rail in Arlington at this time. The NCTCOG has been holding workshops for city and county leaders, providing training on submitting grants for funding for transportation and air quality projects in Tarrant, Collin, Denton and Dallas counties. The CDA concession funds can be spent on rail projects.

"If the City of Arlington were to submit a proposal for rail to the NCTCOG," Mike Morris said: "It would be considered but the City must decide on a rail or mass transit solution and submit the application." He continued:
"If they don't by the deadline (the end of June), then we'll (the NCTCOG Staff) will continue to work with them encouraging them to choose passenger rail. We think Arlington needs it."

If Arlington wants a rail solution - other than the one weekend train to the Super Bowl - the initiative must come from the City. Citizens of Arlington, whether they want it or not, will be paying tolls to avoid congestion on HW360 and I-30. The City must move swiftly to insure that some of the surplus toll revenue returns to solve commuter and air quality problems in Arlington. .

Smart rail move may be genius
By O.K. CARTER - Star-Telegram staff writer - Sun, Jun. 03, 2007

Before the Legislature met, the decision by Grapevine's leadership and voters to fund the Cotton Belt passenger rail line merely looked like a reasonably intelligent, environmentally responsible act.

Now that the legislative session has concluded, the quality of that move has to be upgraded.

Maybe genius would be the right word.

Recollect that, during the 2005 session, a delegation from North Texas pitched the idea of a voter-approved supplemental sales tax to fund regional rail and the Legislature gave some support to the idea.

But lawmakers put off a decision, suggesting that a voter-attitudes survey would be necessary.

That survey, conducted by the Rail Transit Initiative (a coalition of area elected officials), between legislative sessions showed considerable support for passenger rail.

The idea of a sales tax not counting against the current cap went to the Legislature again.

Grapevine leaders -- in particular Mayor William D. Tate -- were certainly aware of the possibility of the enabling legislation.

The safe course would have been to wait.

But they didn't wait for the Legislature.

Grapevine voters were instead asked to approve an increase of three-eighths of a cent in the sales tax to fund a rail-only project via the Fort Worth Transportation Authority.

The idea was to extend the 21-mile stretch of Cotton Belt line from Fort Worth through Grapevine to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, ultimately ending up with 40 miles of rail.

It will link Grapevine, Colleyville, North Richland Hills and the Fort Worth Stockyards.

It will also pass by Haltom City, Richland Hills and Southlake.

With proposed extensions, the southernmost stop would be near Texas Christian University at Berry Street in Fort Worth, with other stops in the Medical District, downtown and near Interstate 35W north of 28th Street.

A Colleyville stop may eventually be included.

From Grapevine, the line will go to D/FW Airport and connect with a future DART line. Very cool.

The idea had so much appeal that county voters kicked in $25 million more.

And it appears that the North Central Texas Council of Governments will eventually contribute as much as $60 million.

The rail line should be running by 2012.

What happened with the half-cent regional sales tax idea in the legislative session that just ended?

It received only the most perfunctory hearing and then disappeared.

That leaves Grapevine sitting pretty -- its transportation accessibility and regional identity about to be considerably enhanced -- and cities like Arlington, frankly, feeling pretty glum. And looking for Plan B.

"The short answer is that we don't have a Plan B, though I'm really looking for one," concedes Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck. "Our own surveys show an enormous amount of support in Arlington for rail transit, but our remaining quarter-cent [sales tax availability] simply won't get the job done."

In the end, Arlington -- and maybe a big chunk of the rest of Tarrant County -- will have to look for a workable substitute for rail, probably something like bus rapid transit: buses linked together, possibly with dedicated lanes and traffic-signal control to ensure that there's never a red light.

But that's not as appealing as passenger rail, is it?

Grapevine gets a major boost because economic development is often about velocity.

The city now has a substantial head start in what urban planners term "transit-oriented development."

This will be particularly true of new urbanism style: mixed-use development with quick access to passenger rail. It's potentially a bonanza.

Maybe there's another message in this as well: Don't count on the Legislature to do what a community can do for itself.

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