Heartland Flyer Funding Drama Returns As Texas Refuses To Pay Again

New year, same old story. Texas doesn't want to pitch in its fair share for the Heartland Flyer. It's either a golden tactic to have anyone pay their part of the rail, or perhaps that golden Texas economy isn't as shiny as they lead the rest of the country to believe. Then again, maybe that massive influx of California the state has received all these years is finally paying off, could Texas be sinking like California?

I know this sounds really familiar, but it's new news. For the second year in a row, the Heartland Flyer is on the chopping block.

One year ago, we were staring down what looked like the end of our shared Amtrak line. Texas didn't want to pay its share of this shared line, and all of the small Texas towns along the route stepped in to save it.

Local governments pooled money together to keep the train alive for one more year.

That year is rolling up on the next, and Texas dropped the sequel to this saga.

Texas Is Saying No Again

The latest update is simple and frustrating. The State of Texas is once again refusing to fund its share of the Heartland Flyer.

That means the train is right back on the same slippery slope we were talking about last year.

Some say it's a surprise, others say they expected it, but history shows Texas lawmakers have been hesitant about this route for years, even though Oklahoma continues paying its portion and the train continues carrying passengers every single day.

But the math hasn’t changed. Without both states funding the route, the line can’t operate long-term. That is just the reality of passenger rail in America.

So now the same question is floating in the air again.

Why This Keeps Happening

The Heartland Flyer runs between OKC and Fort Worth. It’s only about 206 miles, and while the focus is tourism and shopping opportunities for Oklahoma and Texas visitors both ways, the rail is the Sooner State's only connection to the broader national Amtrak network of rails.

Without it, Oklahoma falls off the passenger rail map completely.

A lot more people actually use it to cross the country than you'd think.

Even with the hokey-pokey funding from Texas, ridership has stayed strong. The train consistently carries tens of thousands of passengers a year. It is popular for day trips, weekend travel, and people who simply don’t want to deal with the "warzone highway" that is I-35.

But popularity alone doesn’t pay the bills. Passenger rail almost never pays for itself through tickets. It survives through partnerships and public funding.

Which brings us back to the yearly funding showdown, and the twist in the sequel story of Heartland Flyer: New Moon...

Oklahoma Doesn't Want To Fund It Either.

OK, that may be the TLDR gist of the story, but that's where it ends up.

The short version, the Oklahoma legislators requested funding, but it hasn't been approved. There's enough to get through the calendar year, and the state is exploring other options for funding.

A page literally out of the 'Texas Is Cheap' playbook.

Last year’s rescue came from local Texas communities along the route stepping in when the state wouldn’t. Cities and counties chipped in to cover Texas’s portion and bought the train another year of life.

It was a move that didn't save the line, it just bought a little time. Now the question is whether those same communities can or will do it again, and whether the Oklahoma counterpart communities will do the same.

That is a much bigger ask the second time around.

Even the most socialist leftists agree, emergency funding something once is heroic... But doing it every year starts to feel like patching a leaking roof with duct tape and misplaced optimism.

What This Means For The Future

If both Texas and Oklahoma don’t find a way to fund the route, the Heartland Flyer literally runs off the track.

Even worse, if the Flyer disappears, the long-talked-about expansion into Kansas disappears with it.

That extension has been a dream for years. The plan was to push the line north through Wichita and connect to Newton, Kansas. That would link Oklahoma to even more national routes and make the region far more connected.

Personally, it would make my in-state travel fun and stress-free for once, trying to get home on a holiday weekend.

But that expansion only works if the existing route survives.

You can’t extend a train that no longer exists.

Why This Feels So Familiar

The strange part about this story is how cyclical it has become.

Every year there is tension.
Every year there is a deadline.
Every year there is a scramble.
Every year the train barely survives.

Texas and Oklahoma both politically share a common thought on Amtrak. They see it in the same light as the US Postal Service... "If it can't survive by itself, let it fail." While that's completely understandable for private-sector businesses, Amtrak is a public utility. Sort of. You can read the wiki of it and decide for yourself, but it was created by the government, is funded by the government, and so it is the government.

So… What Now?

Right now, we wait. Again.

The Heartland Flyer is funded through the end of the year. And in that time, there will be negotiations. There will be last-minute conversations. There will probably be hopeful quotes and vague optimism coupled with sound bites like “ongoing discussions.”

Eventually, this will hit every Boomer's Facebook page, and everyone will suddenly become a public transportation expert and argue about whether it deserves to exist.

The Heartland Flyer has become the rail line that refuses to quietly disappear. Every year it gets pushed toward the edge, and every year it somehow finds a way to keep rolling.

There's no telling how the story will end, we'll just have to stay tuned after these messages from our sponsors...