Mobility Matters (Fall 2011/Winter 2012)

Mobility Matters - Images of a freight truck traveling on a highway, downtown Fort Worth, a TRE locomotive, downtown Dallas skyline and highway traffic; Celebrating 35 Years of Regional Transportation Excellence, 1974 - 2009
Fall 2011/Winter 2012 — Quarterly newsletter of the Metropolitan Planning Organization
Mobility Matters is a quarterly newsletter about the transportation planning activities and air quality
programs of the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Regional Transportation
Council — together serving as the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Dallas-Fort Worth
area since 1974. Contact us at mobilitymatters@nctcog.org.

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A-train Opens New Frontier for Denton County Commuters Passengers gather on the platform, preparing to exchange the brutal summer heat for the air-conditioned comfort of a train. They climb aboard the silver cars at Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Trinity Mills Station. Until recently, the only passenger cars on these tracks were the iconic yellow DART trains, transporting passengers between Carrollton and Pleasant Grove along the 28-mile Green Line. Now, passengers arriving from the south on the Green Line, which opened to Carrollton last year, may continue to the end of the line on those trains or hop aboard the A-train, Dallas-Fort Worth’s newest passenger rail service. <More>
	Keeping Transportation on a Path to Tomorrow A Message from Michael Morris, Transportation Director The way we deliver transportation projects is rapidly changing as we confront the shortage of necessary funding and an explosive growth rate that has seen Dallas-Fort Worth add 3 million people since 1980. Add to this the public’s expectation that government do more with less, and it becomes clear that we must find innovative ways to confront our mobility and related air quality problems. Three examples illustrate how innovation is working: Mobility 2035, AirCheckTexas Drive a Clean Machine and the Cotton Belt Innovative Finance Initiative. <More>
	Harmon, County Eye Long-Awaited Opening of Chisholm Trail Parkway to Fort Worth Regional Transportation Council Member Profile Roger Harmon, Johnson County Judge Talk to Roger Harmon about the drive from Cleburne to Tarrant County, and chances are you’ll hear about the preponderance of lights – he counts more than 30 – along State Highway 174. The drive from Cleburne to downtown Fort Worth takes about 45 minutes. By 2014, it could be nearly cut in half. <More>
	Web Exclusives Aim to Keep Transportation Content Fresh The NCTCOG Transportation Department has introduced Web-only content to its annual publication, Progress North Texas 2011, in an effort to keep the conversation about transportation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area moving forward. Read what Kent Penney, director of aviation for the city of Fort Worth has to say about how surface transportation affects airports. <More>
	Public-Private Partnership Moving Rail Improvements Forward One of the nation’s busiest at-grade rail intersections is about to be improved, thanks to cooperation between the public sector and businesses that use it every day to move goods throughout the US. Ray LaHood, US secretary of transportation, recently visited Fort Worth to finalize an agreement to fund improvements to Tower 55, which serves up to 100 freight and passenger trains a day. This activity causes long traffic tie-ups and safety concerns. <More>
	Refocused AirCheckTexas Remains Key to Region's Air Quality Plan AirCheckTexas Drive a Clean Machine continues to improve the air quality – and the lives of those who receive vouchers. FWTAexas Legislsture reduced the program’s funding by 88 percent earlier this year as it grappled with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Despite the funding setback, AirCheckTexas remains an important contributor to the region’s air-quality improvement efforts. The repair of 25,000 vehicles and replacement of 25,000 more have led to the reduction of approximately 1.1 tons per day of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. <More>
	New Fact Sheets Helping Public Understand Transportation The NCTCOG Transportation Department recently published the first two in a continuing series of fact sheets intended to provide residents easily digestible information about projects and programs important to regional mobility. The first two cover Mobility 2035, the Dallas Fort Worth area’s long-term transportation plan, and the Cotton Belt Innovative Finance Initiative. <More>
Meeting Calendar The Transportation Department uses RSS, or really simple syndication, allowing visitors to the website to subscribe to specific topics and receive notices as new information is posted. To learn how RSS works or to subscribe, visit www.nctcog.org/transrss.