Texas’ A-train Rail Trail
Trail of the Month: October 2024
Long before the A-train Rail Trail became a bike-ped thoroughfare connecting the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs of Denton and Lewisville, Debbie Pierce remembers picking berries with her family on the dirt path along the railroad tracks when she first moved to the area in 1987. Two decades later, she was excited when the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) completed the first piece of what would become a 19-mile concrete pathway through the corridor—and looked forward to the new recreational activities and commuting options it would offer.
Pierce, now an avid walker who regularly logs miles on the trail before heading to her night job at Walmart, regularly meets up with the Lake Cities Run Walk Group at Corinth City Hall. And while she doesn’t log such high mileage on a daily basis, she has walked as much as 15 miles in a single outing on the rail-trail.
“I was so excited when I found the run-walk group’s Facebook page,” she said. “It’s helped to make the trail an integral part of the community.”
Grace Ward, another longtime resident, has been running for 40 years and is an ardent user of the A-Train Rail Trail. She created the Lake Cities Run Walk Group in 2021 as an effort to get herself and others outside during the COVID pandemic. It has since grown to more than 2,100 members, with dozens of meetups per week—many on the rail-trail. Ward also founded the Heartbeat Connection, a group for biking and inline skating enthusiasts.
“I love that we walk the rail-trail in the winter when it’s snowing, that we walk it in the pouring down rain—we’re out there morning, noon and night,” Ward said. “I can’t imagine the trail not being there; that’s how much of a staple it is for our community.”
Commuter Connections
A distinctive feature of the trail experience is its namesake, the A-train—operated by the Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA)—which the pathway parallels for its entire length in a configuration known as rail-with-trail. This combination allows for a flexible and convenient mix of trail and train commuting.
“We encourage folks who are utilizing the trail, either walking or biking, to hop on at our stations, bring their bikes on board and then ride back to another station,” said Karina Maldonado, a DCTA planning manager. “And with how long the trail is, if you need water or a bathroom break, you can find that at the Downtown Denton Transit Center.”
In addition to the transit center, the A-train has stops at the MedPark Station, Highland Village/Lewisville Lake Station, Old Town Station and Hebron Station. At its southern end, train commuters can even connect to the Green Line light rail, operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), to reach downtown Dallas.
“I’ll often walk to the Highland Village train station, which is about 3 or 4 miles from my house, and then I’ll hop on the A-train and ride down to Carrollton,” Pierce said. “That’s my favorite part about having the trail, just being able to go whatever distance you want to and turn around and come back. Or if you get tired, you can hop on the train to come back. It’s relaxing because you’re not right along the highway or near traffic—it’s pretty much protected.”
To help ensure that the train is an affordable option for local and regional trips, and to increase opportunities to choose transit as part of daily commutes, two sections of the train route—such as its northern end near the University of North Texas—are even designated as “free fare” zones.
According to Maldonado, the A-train stations are also areas of opportunity for future transit-oriented developments. “For example, the Old Town Station will be the home of DCTA’s future administration facility and other mixed uses, like retail and office space,” she said. “The project is intended to be a mobility hub for rail, bus and other transportation modes to connect the east and west sides of Old Town.”
Near its midpoint, the Corinth section of the trail features the newly opened Commons at Agora. Located just across the town’s City Hall, it’s already serving as a gathering space for community activities, events and festivals. Continuing south, the trail takes people over Lewisville Lake, a water source for Dallas and its suburbs, as well as a popular recreational destination.
The southernmost section of the A-train Rail-Trail—picking up from downtown Lewisville and extending to the trail’s end at Hebron Station—is also known as the Lewisville Hike and Bike Trail and has become a community favorite in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Across the entire A-train Rail Trail, trail counters indicate that a whopping 3.2 million trips were taken during a recent yearlong period.
Decades in the Making
The foresight to create a trail through the railroad corridor dates back to 1989, when representatives from the City of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce’s transportation committee met with DART and Union Pacific Railroad officials to discuss the potential purchase of land on the southern end of the line from Dallas to the town of Lake Dallas. After several years of negotiations, the city assumed ownership of the rail line in 1993 and began preparing the corridor for the future trail. TxDOT developed plans for the trail’s construction in 1997, and with funding from the Recreational Trails Program, the project got underway in 2000. Construction was completed a year later.
The A-Train Rail Trail’s northern 9-mile section, which is sometimes referred to as the Denton Branch Rail Trail after the old railroad line on which it was built, was completed in 2011. The A-train itself opened the same year. The trail and train largely run parallel to I-35, connecting residents with schools, neighborhoods and commercial areas.
The last piece to fall into place was the middle section of the trail. Completed in 2019, it stretches from Highland Village and Lewisville Lake to downtown Lewisville.
“In recent years, the City of Lewisville has continued to expand this trail and will eventually connect it to the trail system near DART’s Downtown Carrollton Station,” explained Maldonado. “DCTA has really seen interest in this trail on a national level over the last few months, but this is truly a regional effort by our member cities.”
The Regional Veloweb, envisioned to increase active transportation options throughout North Central Texas, comprises a planned 2,165-mile network of multiuse trails, including the A-train Rail Trail, that will eventually connect 10 counties and more than 100 cities.
Stephen Hidalgo, president of the Denton Area Running Club, has been using the A-train Rail Trail since he first began running in 2016, initially to run anywhere from 8 to 12 miles as he trained for the Cowtown Half Marathon in Fort Worth. He currently lives about a half-mile off the trail in Lake Dallas and especially likes passing by a farm with horses that varies up the scenery on his regular runs.
“It’s my easy, flat route that I use because there aren’t many hills on it,” Hidalgo said. “I enjoy that it’s a concrete surface because that’s what’s easiest to train on as a road runner, and that the community piece of it encourages the walkability, runability and cyclability of every city that it runs through.”
Related Links
Denton County Transportation Authority
Trail Facts
Name: A-Train Rail Trail
Used railroad corridor: DCTA’s A-train commuter line, which spans 21 miles between the Dallas suburbs of Denton and Lewisville, parallels the trail.
Trail website: Denton County Transportation Authority
Length: 19 miles
County: Denton
Start point/end point: E. Hickory Street and Railroad Avenue (Denton) to Hebron Station, 952 Lakeside Cir. (Lewisville)
Surface type: Concrete
Grade: The trail is relatively flat along its entire route, making it a good option for long runs or bike rides.
Uses: Walking, bicycling and inline skating; wheelchair accessible
Difficulty: The trail is concrete-surfaced, relatively flat and suitable for most uses.
Getting there: As the trail runs along the A-train rail line, it’s easily accessible from this commuter route; bikes are allowed on the A-train (see DCTA’s “Bikes and Transit” page for details) and there are bicycle racks at each rail station.
The closest airports are Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, located about 13 miles from the trail’s southern end in Lewisville, and the smaller Dallas Love Field Airport, which is about 18 miles from Lewisville.
Access and parking: Parking is available at each of the five DCTA stations along the trail (from north to south):
- Downtown Denton Transit Center: 604 E. Hickory St. (Denton)
- MedPark Station: 3220 MedPark Drive (Denton)
- Highland Village/Lewisville Lake Station: 2998 N. Stemmons Fwy. (Lewisville)
- Old Town Station: 617 E. Main St. (Lewisville)
- Hebron Station: 952 Lakeside Cir. (Lewisville)
Rentals: Velo Republic Bicycle Co. and Service Station (219 Fort Worth Drive, Denton), located 1 mile from the north end of the trail, offers bicycle rentals and weekly rides, including one from Corinth to Denton. Cadence Cyclery (2501 Lakeside Pkwy., Flower Mound), located 8 miles from the southern end of the trail, offers e-bike rentals and weekly rides as well.
Donate
Everyone deserves access to safe ways to walk, bike, and be active outdoors.
