A-Train line construction in Denton to start on February 10

by Morgan Walker of North Texas Daily

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The route will include five stops with two in Denton and three in the Highland Village and Lewisville areas.

The middle lanes of Loop 288 between Colorado Boulevard and Brinker Road will be closed starting Wednesday for three months as part of the A-Train’s construction.

The construction will take place at the Denton Branch Rail Trail crossing, roughly between the two streets. Once completed, the train will run almost parallel with Interstate Highway 35E, crossing Loop 288.

The A-Train construction in Lewisville is expected to be finished by the end of this year while the Denton portion will be complete by summer 2011, said Dee Leggett, marketing vice president of the Denton County Transportation Authority.

“We felt that when we set the 2011 time frame that it was an attainable goal, so we don’t anticipate missing that date,” Leggett said.

The train was implemented by the DCTA and will connect Denton to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit at Trinity Mills Road in Carrollton.

The route will include five stops with two in Denton and three in the Highland Village and Lewisville areas.

The $314 million project is locally funded, which allows DCTA to speed up the project, whereas federal funding would be “onerous,” Leggett added.

However, the agency still continues to follow the rules regarding the federal environmental process.

The project was designed to the federal environmental standards so that DCTA would not impact the environment in a negative way.

“Even though we decided to go with a local funding source, we still wanted to make sure that we are preserving the community standards that the National Environmental Policy Act preserves,” Leggett said.

The Regional Toll Revenue Funding Initiative provides 80 percent of the project money.

For the remainder of the money, DCTA receives a 5 cent dedicated sales-and-use tax from the cities of Lewisville, Denton and Highland Village.

All of the designs for the A-train have been accepted by Denton.

“We’ve been able to resolve all of the issues regarding the right of way and the relocation of utilities so we can make sure we’re not impacting the city’s water supply,” Leggett said.

Leggett added that the A-Train will operate using diesel gas which allows DCTA to be able to afford the project.

With diesel gas, the project costs $15 million per mile whereas electrification would cost $50 million per mile.

Light rail typically operates in urban areas where the stops are closer together.

“Because our stops are so far apart, you don’t really see the advantages of electrified rail like you do in the city areas,” Leggett said.

Heavy construction on the A-Train in the Denton section will begin in the late spring or early summer but right now the DCTA is focusing on work in the Corinth area.

Over the last few years, many students have complained about the traffic on Loop 288, particularly when it was being widened.

“Since we first moved here, 288’s been horrible and I used to take back roads to avoid it as much as possible,” said Edgar Castillo, a kinesiology graduate student.

Castillo has lived at The Ridge apartments on Colorado Boulevard for three years and said he drives to school every day.

Rachel Emard, a hospitality management sophomore, who also lives at The Ridge, said she rides her bike to work because she doesn’t have a car right now.

“Biking makes things a little difficult on 288 because people like to drive fast,” she said.

She said she would like to use to A-Train once it’s finished to help her get to Dallas.

“My mom lives in Dallas, so it’d probably be easier to ride the train to go see her than to have her come pick me up,” Emard said.

More information can be found at www.mya-train.com.

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