A growing East Texas city is exploring a new transportation method: light rail

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LUFKIN — A rapidly growing East Texas metro area is exploring new ways to ease congestion.

Tyler and the surrounding area are home to about 250,000 people and counting. Fueled by a growing health care industry, nearly 2,000 people are moving to the region that includes Smith County each year.

More people have meant more cars and traffic.

Michael Howell, Tyler’s Metropolitan Planning Organization director, believes traffic will continue to increase, and he’d like to make Tyler more accessible.

“How can you go somewhere and not have it be just you getting into a car? Because there is a finite amount of space, a finite amount of parking,” Howell asked. “There is a lot that could potentially be done, and that's what we want to hear from everybody: If it were there, would you use it? And how would you use it?"

A light rail system in a city like Tyler would be a significant shift, especially in a state known for its oil and gas industry and its historical prioritization of cars over public transit. Just this year, state lawmakers flirted with defunding light rail systems in Dallas and Houston.

Regionally, East Texans travel to Tyler seeking medical care that isn't readily available in the more rural parts of the region. The city has grown up around its health care industry, establishing itself as a hub for retail shopping and quick family getaways.

There are a few hot spots in town where Howell already sees more traffic congestion, and where he expects more to develop in the coming years.

The medical district — which is home to two hospitals, a medical school and junior college — has become more difficult to navigate and find parking in recent years, Howell said. And parking could become a problem downtown, if it continues to grow as it is expected to after the city invested more than $25 million in extensive reconstruction spanning utilities, roadway and sidewalk work and aesthetic improvements.

Residents and visitors alike may appreciate having the option to park in a more remote location and ride into the city, Howell said.

“It's pretty common for growing cities to think about expanding their public transportation options because they are experiencing increased traffic congestion,” said Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute. “And there's increasing worry about people not being able to get around as easily as they used to.”

Effective public transportation can stem traffic congestion in large cities. Seattle, for example, was recently lauded because while the number of people living in the city has grown, the number of cars has not.

But it’s not a silver bullet. Houston, which also has a light rail system, has invested more heavily in freeway systems. Interstate 45 and Interstate 69/US 59 are known as some of the worst congestion hot spots in the country.

“More congestion means, frankly, wasted time for residents,” Freemark said. “It means instead of doing something — working a job, doing things with their kids, getting to school, recreation — they're stuck behind a wheel waiting for traffic to go by. That ultimately has impacts on people's quality of life. Time spent in traffic is not quality time for anybody.”

It’s not entirely feasible for every city to invest in transit options like light rails, Freemark said. There needs to be a population base that can support the cost of investing in light rail infrastructure. And there also needs to be support from the state and federal governments, as well as large rail companies.

Howell sees the possibility of utilizing freight and abandoned lines that already exist in Tyler. Using those could make a lighter financial lift for the city to establish the light rail system. There’s a multi-state coalition pushing for a passenger rail line that would run just north of Tyler and connect Dallas to Atlanta. Maybe the city could tie into that project, Howell suggested.

Regardless of the proposal, the city likely needs buy-in from Union Pacific, which owns many of the lines, and is something that many cities have failed to make happen, Freemark said.

“Tyler is smaller than cities that already have light rail, but planning ahead is smart,” said Mena I. Souliman, a University of Texas at Tyler professor. “A thorough cost-benefit study and comparison to similar cities would be key steps to see if it is realistic here.”

That’s the plan.

The city of Tyler in early 2025 paid $150,000 to Kimley-Horn to conduct a study on a light rail system. Last week the city’s metropolitan planning organization began asking for residential input.

The organization created an online survey space for community members to submit their thoughts. And the city is holding a virtual townhall on Sept. 23 to take that a step further. As of last week, more than 100 people responded to the survey, about 90 of whom left comments on the interactive map, Howell said.

“This is really us trying to prime the community to ask the right questions and say what we would like it to be,” Howell said.

If the community says it wants this system, they can then take the next steps to fully flesh out the proposal.

If residents say this is a waste of time and taxpayer dollars, he will begin looking at other ways to ease congestion in the future.

“You never want to spend a whole lot of money on investing in something like that and have everybody say they’re really not interested,” Howell said.

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