Let's be realistic about seeing rail transit in Johnson County. Forget about raising the money to build it, let's just look at raising the money to maintain and operate it. To run trains in operations as much as Denton County, you're going to have to spend $14 million every year. DCTA in FY 2016 budgeted spending $14 million on rail operations, and nearly $10 million on bus operations. They budgeted collecting $23 million in sales tax revenues, and collecting nearly $5 million in fares.
DCTA only gets 1 cent of the 8,25 cents collected on every dollar spent. To collect $23 million in sales taxes, it requires a population over 753,000.
Johnson County latest population estimating is over 157,000. Therefore sales taxes from Johnson County should be around 21% of what's collected in Denton County. That $23 million should be nearer $5 million. And $5 million isn't even going to finance a good bus system - far less of what is needed to fund a good train.
All the talk about running trains to Johnson County over BNSF or UP tracks is just talk, i.e. hot air.The idea that Fort Worth will pitch in millions of dollars every year to run trains to Cleburne is foolish, because Fort Worth will rather spend that much money on itself. I realize planners are always looking at ways to reduce the number of cars and trucks on our highways for various reasons, so trains always arise from them. But it is just an exercise to them, because the money isn't there to sustain it.