Dallas, TX

Dallas' Opposition to Elevated Downtown High-Speed Rail Line Won't Delay Environmental Review

Published

1 year ago

August 9, 2024

Dallas' Opposition to Elevated Downtown High-Speed Rail Line Won't Delay Environmental Review

The Dallas City Council’s last-minute opposition to the proposed downtown high-speed rail route to Fort Worth won’t stall the critical federal environmental process that’s already underway.

That’s a big deal. It keeps the current environmental analysis on track to wrap up next March, which, once approved by the feds, will allow the North Central Texas Council of Governments (COG) to begin pursuing funding and more in-depth engineering. The COG delivered the news during a meeting of the 45-member Regional Transportation Council on Thursday afternoon. The project itself is expected to cost $6 billion and shuttle riders between Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth within 30 minutes.

The COG began producing the Environmental Impact Statement last March, which triggers a 12-month deadline. Michael Morris, the transportation director for the COG, said he expects it to cost another $1.6 million to produce 30 percent of the new alignment’s design. Planning for the environmental statement has already cost the agency $12.1 million.

The end product from this analysis generally establishes the alignment for major transportation projects, so when the Dallas City Council passed a resolution in June opposing elevated rail lines through downtown—pending an economic analysis—the COG was concerned that it could delay its planning by a year or longer. It had to design a new route through the most complicated part of the entire 30-mile line: downtown Dallas.

On Thursday, regional transportation planners said they received permission from the federal government to plan for two separate downtown alignments. Each would shuttle trains about seven stories high to the federally approved high-speed rail station in the Cedars, about a mile south of Reunion Tower. The older alignment has the tracks just east of the Hyatt Regency, splitting between the forthcoming $3 billion convention center overhaul through the heart of southwest downtown. The newer alignment misses downtown entirely, running just west of Interstate 35E along Riverfront Boulevard on its way to that Cedars station.

Morris said the alignment that misses downtown would likely result in losing a connection to Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station, where Amtrak, Trinity Railway Express, and DART lines converge. But it wouldn’t require any maneuvering around skyscrapers. (Hunt Realty plans to build a $5 billion mixed use development in the corner that would house the other alignment. It contends its plans cannot coexist with the line.) Morris said the agency designed the first downtown route to include a “lobby” or a people mover that could shuttle riders to and from the Cedars station into the convention center and downtown’s Union Station.

If Dallas chooses the western alignment, the COG would no longer pay for that connection, he said. But Morris said it would still investigate ways to link the high-speed rail station with the convention center. Amtrak, which has taken over the separate Houston-to-Dallas high-speed rail project, has concerns about getting riders into downtown if Dallas picks the western alignment, said COG program director Brendon Wheeler.

“I think you’re gonna have your hands full trying to make that same connection in such an easy and graceful way that the high-speed rail system creates for you,” Morris said during Thursday’s meeting of the Regional Transportation Council.

Morris is no stranger to attaching big-dollar adjacent projects to his preferred plans. The city of Dallas has “paused” its support for the downtown alignment until an economic analysis can be completed, which is expected in October. Then it will establish its preference. But for now, the Council was nervous about sewing a high-speed rail line into its downtown.

“I believe in placemaking, and we certainly wouldn’t put a highway for cars through downtown,” said Councilman Chad West, one of the members of the Regional Transportation Council. “This is very different obviously, but it still creates some challenges when you look at that whole area … that it would cut off. There is no perfect solution, as you point out, and we still must work through that.”

While some Dallas officials have questioned the need for a high-speed rail connection to Fort Worth, the COG believes the federal government envisions this corridor of North Texas as a nexus for rail travel. A separate line from Houston to Dallas is already federally approved, and extending the line to Fort Worth would open up possibilities that could run rail to Central Texas and the western United States.

That’s all a long way away. Amtrak has taken over the Houston project, but still has land to acquire, designs to complete, and funding to secure. The federal plan for a nationwide rail network is still a draft. But the COG is getting its house in order, preparing just in case this all comes to fruition and big buckets of money come available.

Dallas’ job is now to determine whether the tradeoff of connectivity between the Cedars and downtown is worth the risk of how an elevated rail line affects development near the convention center. It made a stand, and it didn’t derail the project.

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Matt Goodman

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Matt Goodman is the online editorial director for D Magazine. He’s written about a surgeon who killed, a man who…

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Dallas, TX

Updated 2026 NFL draft order following Cowboys’ brutal loss to Chargers

Published

11 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

Updated 2026 NFL draft order following Cowboys’ brutal loss to Chargers

The Dallas Cowboys’ late-season struggles continue, extending the team’s losing streak to three games after watching their NFL playoff hopes vanish earlier in the weekend.

On Sunday afternoon, the team once again struggled to get anything going and fell to the Los Angeles Chargers, 34-17, in the team’s home finale.

While the loss was disappointing, the silver lining for Cowboys Nation is that the team’s draft position continues to improve, with the team now sitting in the mid-teens with the No. 13 overall pick.

MORE: 3 frustrating takeaways from Cowboys’ loss to Chargers in Week 16

Dallas also got some help on Saturday night, with the Green Bay Packers falling to the Chicago Bears in overtime, moving the Cowboys’ second first-round pick to No. 21 overall.

The Dallas Cowboys logo is projected on the video board during the NFL Draft at Lambeau Field. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Let’s hope that the team can make good use of the picks in the spring and double-dip on the defensive side of the ball to improve the roster on the defensive side of the ball. The Cowboys will finish off the 2025-26 campaign with divisional games against the Washington Commanders and New York Giants.

If the draft were to be held today, the Giants would hold the No. 1 overall pick.

A full look at the current 2026 NFL Draft order as the Cowboys observe their bye week, via Tankathon

MORE: 3 winners & 2 losers from Cowboys Week 16 loss to Chargers

Updated 2026 NFL Draft order following Week 16

A sign sits beside the 2026 NFL Draft Countdown Clock outside of Acrisure Stadium | Ethan Morrison / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

New York Giants
Las Vegas Raiders
Cleveland Browns
New York Jets
Tennessee Titans
Arizona Cardinals
Washington Commanders
New Orleans Saints
Cincinnati Bengals
Los Angeles Rams (via Falcons)
Miami Dolphins
Kansas City Chiefs
Dallas Cowboys
Minnesota Vikings
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Baltimore Ravens
Detroit Lions
New York Jets (via Colts)
Carolina Panthers
Pittsburgh Steelers
Dallas Cowboys (via Packers)
Houston Texans
Philadelphia Eagles
Cleveland Browns (via Jaguars)
San Francisco 49ers
Buffalo Bills
Los Angeles Chargers
Los Angeles Rams
Chicago Bears
New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks
Denver Broncos

The 2026 NFL Draft will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Thursday, April 23, through Saturday, April 25.

— Sign up for the Cowboys Daily Digest newsletter for more free coverage from Dallas Cowboys on SI —

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Dallas, TX

Dallas Housing Authority failed Roseland on safety

Published

23 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

Dallas Housing Authority failed Roseland on safety

The 2019 murder of 9-year-old Brandoniya Bennett in her Old East Dallas apartment rattled the whole city.

The bubbly girl, a rising fourth grader, was watching TV on a summer day when a bullet struck her. She was killed by a man feuding with a fellow rapper. The shooter had attacked the wrong apartment at Roseland, a cluster of Dallas Housing Authority properties.

Brandoniya’s death was framed as a turning point. City leaders, including Mayor Eric Johnson, vowed that Dallas would tamp down violence. But as revealed by a Dallas Morning News investigation this month, city officials and DHA had already put together a plan that was supposed to improve security at Roseland, a dangerous, high-crime complex. The plan was signed in January 2018, long before Brandoniya’s killing.

Despite this plan, violence continued to terrorize residents at Roseland. The complex is quieter now that it’s undergoing a planned renovation that has led many residents to relocate. City Hall and DHA find themselves at another crossroads, and it’s worth examining what went wrong with the 2018 plan so they can prevent a downward spiral once Roseland fills up again.

As our colleagues Sue Ambrose and Chase Rogers reported, Roseland for years has recorded enough criminal activity to qualify for a designation as a “habitual criminal property,” which should have led to increased police oversight. But former City Manager T.C. Broadnax opted instead for a more cooperative arrangement with DHA. The agreement called for crime reduction plans, meetings between DHA and city and police officials as well as record-keeping.

Neither the city nor DHA hewed closely to the agreement and its accountability measures. A DHA attorney referred to the documentation mentioned in the agreement as more of a wish list. Whatever you want to call it, the agreement was plainly a failure.

Shootings continued. More than one drug house took root. DHA initially resisted city requests for information about its rent roll, lease violations, community rules and a towing policy. The reports and briefings specified in the agreement didn’t happen.

We believe city and DHA officials are genuine about their desire to make Roseland safer. Police investigated crimes in the complex and made arrests. DHA invested in infrastructure and hired a private security firm in 2024 that significantly improved safety at Roseland. However, that firm left the picture in June after it couldn’t come to terms with DHA.

Dallas City Hall wisely recognized the problems at Roseland, but it was too lax with DHA, and the agency was too reluctant to cooperate. If safety deteriorates at Roseland again, the city must be more assertive about deploying its oversight powers.

Many public housing properties across the country have failed because authorities allowed crime to fester. DHA should cooperate with Dallas police to identify and expel bad actors from its properties. The agency’s No. 1 job is to create a safe and dignified environment for the families that depend on its services.

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Dallas, TX

Suspect dead after officer involved shooting in Mesquite

Published

1 day ago

December 20, 2025

Press Room

Suspect dead after officer involved shooting in Mesquite

A woman and the person suspected of killing her are dead after an incident led to an officer-involved shooting near Town East Mall in Mesquite on Saturday.

The Dallas Police Department (DPD) responded to a shooting call in the 9000 block of Markville Drive at about 10:15 a.m. A woman was found shot and taken to a local hospital where she died from her injuries.

DPD determined that the suspect fled the scene.

Around 11:45 a.m., Dallas Police said Northeast Division officers were conducting surveillance and located the suspect in a vehicle near the 18500 block of LBJ Freeway in Mesquite, which is right outside Town East Mall.

Police said when they attempted a traffic stop, the suspect got out of the car armed and shots were fired.

They said no officers were hurt, and the suspect died on scene.

The shooting gave many busy mall shoppers some pause.

“I was just afraid about everybody else here, you know, like, there’s a whole bunch of families out here Christmas shopping, something else could have happened, you know,” said Alexander Evans.

“My friend and her kids are supposed to be meeting me here, so I kind of told her, I was like, ‘It might be best if you don’t.’ Just to be safe,” said Abby Rather.

Mesquite Police are now investigating the officer-involved shooting, since it happened within their city.

Dallas Police said they are still investigating the homicide case.

They also said the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office responded to the OIS scene and will conduct their own investigation.

Dallas Police said The Office of Community Police Oversight also responded.

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