Tower 55 funding? One can only hope

Written by jrood

Work on railroad crossings and rail lines near downtown Fort Worth, Texas, could begin as soon as spring if the Tower 55 project is awarded federal funding, officials told the Star-Telegram. Officials from Fort Worth-based BNSF and Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific appeared cautiously optimistic that the project will make the cut for federal transit grants. A decision is expected in Washington in the fall.

The project, which could
cost up to $94 million, includes improving or closing several dangerous
crossings in and near the Rock Island/Samuels Avenue neighborhood. Among them
are those frequented by Nash Elementary School students at Gounah Street and
Cold Springs Road. An extra 9,000 feet of north-south railroad track would also
be built to reduce train congestion at Tower 55, which rail officials say is
one of the busiest at-grade rail intersections in the U.S.

"This is something the
railroads couldn’t have come up with on their own. There’s been a lot of
leadership," BNSF spokesman Aaron Hegeman told members of the Tarrant
Regional Transportation Coalition during a meeting in Fort Worth.

Texas has asked for $40
million in so-called TIGER-II federal money. The two railroads have pledged at
least $50 million to cover most of the rest.

This year, North Texas
officials failed to win stimulus funding for the project. Federal officials
told them that Tower 55 was "a great, meritorious project" but fell
just below the cut when $1.5 billion in TIGER I discretionary grants were handed
out, said Tom Shelton, senior planner with the North Central Texas Council of
Governments. "They ran out of money," he said.

After that setback, the
railroads upped their original $32 million contribution to at least $50
million.

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