High-Speed Rail
Request for Information
Questions and Responses
Question #1: Will ridership forecast for the High-Speed Rail System be available at
www.nctcog.org/rfp before November 18th?
Response: The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) does not
anticipate ridership data will be available on the website in advance of the submittal
deadline for the Request for Information.
Question #2: Does NCTCOG have targets for trip times?
Response: Anticipate designing curves and tangents to allow for the fastest speeds
possible and that the system may run slower inside of DFW than outside of DFW. With
acceleration and deceleration, NCTCOG is estimating total trip time from Fort Worth to Dallas to
be approximately 17 minutes.
Question #3: Does NCTCOG have a preference on how revenue will be handled and/or how
revenue risk will be assigned?
Response: NCTCOG is looking for firms to provide information in their responses to the
Request for Information regarding the best method to assign risk. Currently, NCTCOG is
assuming there is a significant gap in funding for capital costs. However, NCTCOG is not under
the assumption that there is an operating cost gap.
Question #4: NCTCOG has expressed their interest in innovative and new ideas related to
High-Speed Rail. How much can firms consider their proposal confidential?
Response: If a proposal contains information that the proposer considers proprietary and
does not want disclosed to the public or used for any purpose other than the evaluation of the
offer, all such information must be indicated with the following suggested language:
The information contained on pages _______shall not be duplicated used in whole or in
part, for any purpose other than to evaluate the proposal; provided that if a contract is
awarded to this office as a result of or in connection with the submission of such
information, NCTCOG has the right to duplicate, use or disclose this information to the
extent provided in the contract.
If NCTCOG receives a Texas Public Information Act Request, NCTCOG will notify firms who
have proposals marked with confidential data of the request and provide them an opportunity to
confirm the confidential nature of the material. If a firm does not want their data to be released
as part of a Texas Public Information Act Request NCTCOG will submit a letter to the Texas
Attorney General requesting an opinion on whether the data is confidential or if it must be
released.
Question #5: Is the ridership forecasts for the High-Speed Rail System not intrinsically linked
to the federal funding request?
Response: Yes, these two items are linked together. NCTCOG intends to submit a
request for federal funding prior to knowing the ridership data.
Question #6: Firms will be responding to this Request for Information with conceptual answers
because certain aspects of the scope, ridership data, financing, etc. are not fully known. Does
NCTCOG anticipate they will publish additional Request for Information on this topic once some
of these details are more fully known?
Response: NCTCOG expects firm’s responses to this Request for Information will be
more conceptual in nature. At this time, we cannot commit to additional Requests for
Information because the exact next steps are unknown. We anticipate the responses to this
Request for Information will help to guide decisions regarding future actions.
Question #7: Has NCTCOG identified the type of funding they will be using to fill the gap in
capital costs? If so, do you know the Buy America requirements associated with that funding?
Response: Specific funding sources have not been identified.
Question #8: How will ridership forecast data for the High-Speed Rail system be expressed?
Daily? Hourly? Person trips?
Response: Ridership data will be presented in various ways, in various formats and for
the various segments.
Question #9: Did Texas Central Partners complete some ridership analysis or forecast for
High-Speed rail?
Response: Yes, Texas Central Partners has developed ridership estimates. At this
time ridership from Texas Central Partners are not available.
Question #10: Please disclose the rough number NCTCOG estimates for Construction Cost of
the High Speed Rail project?
Response: The estimate for the Fort Worth to Dallas project is $2.9 billion.
Question #11: What are the budget-estimates for the two alternatives of the DFW CoreExpress services?
Response: The requested cost estimates from the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) process are not currently available.
Question #12: As indicated by NCTCOG’s presentation at the Forum in June of this year, a
preliminary estimate, without stations, is about $3 billion. By assuming the total budget to be,
approximately $4 billion, what is the maximum percentage of local public sector contribution if
there is no federal subsidies?
Response: The information contained in the submittal to this Request for Information
should identify the amount of local public sector funds required to implement the project.
Question #13: What kind of measures is NCTCOG willing to adopt? For example: relying on
Federal subsidy, issuing super-long term municipal bond based on the full trust and credential of
local governments, DOT long-term low interest loan, such as TIFIA and RIEF, additional local
taxation, giving more options and flexibility to private sectors while letting them take more risk,
etc.?
Response: The information contained in the submittal to this Request for Information
should identify the preferred funding mechanisms and associated risk assignment required to
implement the project.
Question #14: The compatibility between Dallas-Fort Worth high-speed rail and Dallas-Houston
high-speed rail for a “one seat ride”, in the respects of industrial standards and equipment, while
it seems that Dallas-Houston may drag longer than expected will Dallas-Fort Worth high-speed
rail go first?
Response: Possibly.
Question #15: Because modern high-speed rail transportation can be categorized into several
classes that include (a) the conventional high-speed rail such as Xing-Gangxian of Japan and
high-speed rail in China, (b) the super-high speed maglev train (magnetic levitation), currently in
test, and (c) the middle-velocity maglev train; will NCTCOG and local governments be willing to
evaluate the best-fit for the region that can also be acceptable and benefit the neighborhood
connections?
Response: Yes.