Denton County, Texas, one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, is getting a $3 million federal investment to expand commuter rail service on the A-Train corridor, a 21-mile line connecting Denton to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit network at Carrollton.
The money, awarded through the Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Formula Grants program, will go toward upgrading the A-Train's Positive Train Control system. PTC is the federally required technology that automatically slows or stops trains to prevent collisions and derailments. Congress mandated it for corridors shared with freight rail after a 2008 crash in Chatsworth, California, killed 25 people. The Denton County Transportation Authority implemented PTC to meet that mandate, but the baseline system imposed constraints on how often and how flexibly trains could run.
The upgrade is designed to loosen those constraints. Tighter headways, more flexible scheduling, and better-timed connections at the Trinity Mills transfer point, where A-Train riders switch to DART's Green Line for downtown Dallas, are all on the table. Eliminating transfer wait times at that junction would be a significant improvement for commuters making the 45-plus-minute trip from Denton to downtown Dallas.
The timing reflects real pressure. Denton County's population has roughly doubled since 2000, crossing 1 million residents in the early 2020s, and growth shows no sign of slowing. I-35E, the highway the A-Train parallels through the county, is chronically congested despite repeated expansion projects. The A-Train carried around 1,500 to 2,000 daily riders before the pandemic and has been rebuilding ridership since. A more frequent, seamlessly connected service would strengthen the case for choosing rail over driving.
[chart: Denton County's population has grown 5x faster than the US]
Federal funding for this kind of improvement has grown more available since the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law boosted transit formula grants by roughly $33.5 billion over five years nationally, giving agencies like DCTA capital to invest beyond basic compliance. Similar federal investments have helped transit systems across the country address years of deferred upgrades, from Port Arthur, Texas modernizing its bus network to large systems rebuilding core infrastructure.
The grant covers design and implementation, meaning DCTA will move from engineering through installation before the project closes out. A more capable PTC system is the foundation for any expanded service schedule the agency hopes to offer as the county keeps growing.
