The Tunnel of Love: Dallas City Council Asks Federal Government to Help Fund DART Light-Rail System Under Airport
By David Wethe, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Mar. 11–The city of Dallas is once again turning to Capitol Hill for help with Dallas Love Field — less than a year after enlisting the aid of Congress to solve Wright Amendment squabbles.
The new request involves a proposed $160 million tunnel under the airport for a DART light-rail station. The City Council wants the federal government to reconsider a 2004 Federal Transit Administration decision that denied funding for the tunnel project.
A light-rail station in the terminal would put Love Field on par with other larger airports such as Chicago O’Hare and Washington National. DART’s expansion plan calls for a light-rail station at D/FW to open in 2013.
The tunnel would also have broader implications for the Metroplex, connecting the two downtowns and the two airport terminals. A passenger starting in downtown Fort Worth could ride to a station between terminals A and B at D/FW, then change trains and ride to Love Field.
Even without the tunnel, riders could take the train from D/FW to a station right across the street from Love Field, then ride to the terminal.
The tunnel request comes at a time when the city’s new aviation director, Dan Weber, has been on the job for only two months. It’s a job that has almost fully been consumed by plans to refurbish the 77-year-old airport’s aging terminal at a cost of up to $200 million.
The renovations are courtesy of the Wright Amendment compromise reached last summer by the cities of Fort Worth and Dallas, D/FW and Southwest and American airlines.
The compromise calls for a DART station just off the airport grounds with a people-mover to shuttle travelers to and from the airport. The DART station would be directly across the street from Southwest’s headquarters, home to 2,000 employees.
Exactly what the people-mover system would look like has not been determined. It could be a series of buses, or it could resemble the Skylink automated trains at D/FW.
Another option could replicate an underground tunnel at Chicago O’Hare that connects terminals via moving walkways, said Ron Ricks, senior vice president of law, airports and public affairs at Southwest.
“That’s just one alternative,” Ricks said. “There are a lot of ways to skin the cat.”
Support unclear
It’s not clear how much support the tunnel will gather outside the Dallas City Council. DART leaders favor the outside station. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said a change might delay or imperil funding for DART’s expansion. Southwest and American both said they don’t have a preference.
The issue of where to put a Love Field DART station surfaced several years ago, when the transit authority first examined whether one of its future light-rail lines should tunnel under the Dallas airport.
The agency generally liked the idea, said Gary Thomas, executive director for DART, but decided it would be too expensive after weighing the costs and projected rider levels. That decision came in November 2004, as DART was asking the federal government for $700 million to help expand its network of rails.
At that time, DART worried that its request for an extra $160 million would capsize its entire $700 million project and delay expansion for years. The FTA approved the $700 million request, known as the Full Funding Grant Agreement.
New questions
The issue re-emerged last week when the Dallas City Council was talking about condemning land for the planned train station across from Love Field. Council members started to once again question why they weren’t putting a train stop directly in the airport terminal.
Councilwoman Pauline Medrano said it’s an important question to raise, considering all the changes happening at Love Field from the Wright Amendment compromise.
The law, originally passed in 1979, limited flights from Love Field to cities in Texas and its four bordering states (other states were later added to the list). Now, because of the compromise, airlines can sell one-stop tickets to anywhere in the country from Love Field. And in less than eight years, all the flight restrictions will be removed, making it possible to fly directly to anywhere in the U.S. from Love.
“Obviously, things have changed,” Medrano said. “I think it’s a very legitimate thing to consider.”
Most of the council members are in Washington, D.C., for a National League of Cities meeting that ends Wednesday. They plan to talk with locally based legislators and other key lawmakers about the tunnel, Medrano said last week before leaving for her trip.
“All we’re saying is please consider taking this back to the FTA and reworking the numbers,” Medrano said.
Hutchison, the Republican from Dallas who helped shepherd the Wright Amendment compromise, may not be much help this time.
“I have talked with the Federal Transit Administration and they have already looked at the costs of the suggested alterations,” Hutchison said via e-mail. “It is my understanding that a change would adversely affect the Full Funding Grant Agreement with DART and would also create the potential for delay or even cancellation of the funding.”
On Wednesday, Dallas Mayor Laura Miller said via e-mail that she understands Hutchison’s concern.
“The City of Dallas is simply exploring whether moving the Love Field station … can be done without adversely affecting the entire corridor project — especially in light of the fact that the residential neighborhood is adamantly opposed to the current location,” she said. “We have assured DART officials that we will not put the corridor project in jeopardy, but common sense tells you that light rail should be connected to your airports.”
More riders
Chad Edwards, principal transportation planner for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said the most recent comparison of a DART light-rail station inside the terminal versus one off the airport grounds was an environmental impact statement from October 2003.
That study projected that by 2025, a station at the airport terminal would add 13,500 daily riders to the DART system and that a station outside the terminal would add 11,600 riders. The study projects a total ridership of about 200,000 for DART in 2025.
Edwards said it’s important to note that Love Field will have light-rail service, but he agreed that the system could be a little more “seamless” with a station inside the Love Field terminal.
Medrano agreed.
“Why would anybody want to go on light rail only to have to get off the train, then get on the people-mover system, as opposed to getting on one time and getting off one time?” Medrano said.
Business travelers
The concept of a rail station in the airport terminal is especially being pitched with the business traveler in mind. Weber, the new airport director, said he believed that most of Love’s passengers are headed to downtown Dallas.
“People don’t fly into Dallas to visit Love Field,” said Weber, who has spent four years running Abilene’s airport and before that operated the airport for Brownsville/South Padre Island. “They fly into Dallas to do business and visit friends.”
But business travelers will use light rail only if they find it quick and easy to use, said Caleb Tiller, spokesman for the National Business Travel Association.
“If it means that it’s fairly time-consuming or doesn’t get you to the right area of town, then they’re less likely to use it,” Tiller said.
In addition, business travelers are always concerned about the costs to build airport infrastructure, he said.
‘Never a major factor’
Michael Boyd, a travel-industry consultant at the Boyd Group in Colorado, said no matter where the light-rail station goes, it won’t boost passenger traffic at Love Field.
“It’s not going to increase the attractiveness of Love Field by any means,” he said. “Love Field is never going to be a major factor beyond what it is today. You’ve built way too much freeway capacity into D/FW, and D/FW is now a single terminal airport effectively.”
And Southwest Airlines, which serves 90 percent of travelers at Love Field, can’t get too carried away with its expansion plans at Love, Boyd said.
“Southwest is where Southwest is going to be,” he said. “It’s not like Southwest is going to make an intergalactic space port. They want to put more people on … existing flights.”
Adding baggage
The biggest concern DART officials would have to deal with, Boyd said, is juggling regular commuters and airline passengers, who are lugging more baggage.
Thomas conceded that is a challenge but noted that airline passengers would make up only 1 percent of DART’s ridership.
And ultimately, it doesn’t make much sense to spend the money on a tunnel, Thomas said, because Love Field won’t be growing much. The Wright Amendment compromise shrunk the number of available gates from 32 to 20 so that traffic wouldn’t grow too much larger than it is today. Boyd expects the airport to grow 1 percent to 3 percent a year from here on out.
Love Field experienced a huge dip after 9-11, but its 6.9 million travelers in 2006 is only 1 percent larger than its total 10 years ago.
But that hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of its newest leader.
“This is a very exciting time,” Weber said. “I can’t think of a place I’d rather be right now. Love Field’s going to be transformed. I’m just honored to be a part of it.”
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David Wethe, 817-685-3803 dwethe@star-telegram.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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