Negotiations continue between the Denton County Transportation Authority and Dallas Area Rapid Transit over the use of the corridor for the $314 million A-train passenger rail project.

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Ralph Thomley of Osmose Railroad Services Inc. removes railroad spikes Friday from ties on the Lewisville Lake bridge for the Denton County Transportation Authority’s A-train service from Denton to Carrollton.

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The Denton City Council recently approved the transfer of Denton’s piece of the rail corridor north of Swisher Road to DART, which owns the right to reactive rail service on the former Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad line.

“We’re pleased both DART and Denton were able to reach a mutually beneficial agreement,” said Dee Leggett, vice president of communications and planning for DCTA.

Leggett labeled the agreement one of the final steps her agency needed to finish as part of the A-train project, which would link Denton to the DART system in Carrollton. While DCTA was granted entry into the corridor for construction, negotiations for the actual use of the corridor still need to be completed.

“DCTA and DART are still working on some minor issues before both boards will finalize the agreement,” Leggett said.

Issues on the negotiating table include the terms and length of the agreement and what happens at the end of that time frame, Leggett said.

“It’s not any issues I can get specific into without risking the negotiations,” she said.

The agencies, for the most part, have finalized issues of operations, the dispatching of vehicles and other technical details.

The ongoing negotiations will not affect construction of the rail, said DART spokesman Morgan Lyons.

“We’ll just have to resolve a few issues about the operating agreement and don’t foresee any problems with that either,” Lyons said.

Lyons said the right-of-entry agreement and operations agreement are two separate issues. When asked about the possibility of construction being completed before an operating agreement is in place, he said DART officials are “confident we will be able to come to a resolution. We want them to succeed.”

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Old railroad spikes and plates lie in a heap alongside the tracks where workers were replacing ties and rail Friday on the Lewisville Lake bridge. The 21-mile stretch of track is expected to open in summer 2011.

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The agreement between Denton and DART leaders ended months of negotiations. It transfers the corridor to DART but keeps city easements for a hike-and-bike trail, a water pipeline and various other utilities.

Denton acquired the right to use eight miles of the rail corridor, from Swisher Road to downtown, as a public hike-and-bike trail in 1993. The Denton Branch Rail Trail opened in 2001 as part of a rail banking program under the National Trails System Act, which allows former rail corridors to be used as trails until they are needed again for rail service.

DART acquired rights to the Denton corridor from the railroad in a 2001 deed, including the right to reclaim it for rail use in exchange for $10,000. The Dallas transit group gave the city 90 days’ notice in September that it planned to buy back the corridor, but later agreed to delay the transfer after the two sides couldn’t agree on details of the sale or a process for approving it.

Denton leaders said they were waiting on the DART board to approve the agreement before acting. The board endorsed the deal Feb. 9, clearing the way for Tuesday’s City Council vote.

Two residents who spoke at the council meeting raised alarm that DCTA still lacks the right to operate the rail, nearly five years after the route was chosen and as rail construction is under way. Robert Donnelly and Bob Clifton questioned why they bothered to attend multiple public meetings with DCTA officials over the years.

“They’ve gotten $400 million to build something they can’t build,” said Donnelly, who lives near the planned Medpark rail station in southern Denton and worries its development will increase flooding in the area. “They don’t have the right to the track; DART does.”

Clifton, a Denton mayoral candidate and vocal critic of city government, has said for years that DART’s stake in the corridor could be a stumbling block to city and DCTA rail plans. He has also criticized Mayor Mark Burroughs’ leadership on the issue. Burroughs was appointed to the DCTA board in 2007 and was serving as vice chairman in June 2008 when he resigned to become Denton mayor.

Burroughs, who is seeking a second term May 8, said negotiations between the city and DCTA over use of the Denton corridor were well under way when DART officials announced their intent to invoke their rail-reactivation rights here.

“With DART in the mix, it adds that third element, and it changed who the primary party was,” Burroughs said in an interview. “It was the city that asked for a more direct relationship with DART once they raised their preferred approach, the reactivation.”

Burroughs praised the city’s agreement with DART, saying it would protect vital city infrastructure.

“It eliminates the uncertainties in both what DART is getting and how they’re getting it and … the scope of what the city is able to retain,” he said. “Rather than dispute anything, we’re coming to a conclusion that actually gives certainty to both sides.”

Residents in Denton, Lewisville and Highland Village voted in 2003 to create DCTA and fund it through a portion of their sales taxes.

BJ LEWIS can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is blewis@dentonrc.com .

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .