The latest efforts by city leaders in Corinth and Lake Dallas to catch a ride on the A-train have come to an end.

Officials with the Denton County Transportation Authority told both cities last week it would cost each city $20 million to build a station in their community.

Corinth Mayor Paul Ruggiere said that, while it took a little while for the impact of the number to sink in with some residents still hoping for a train station there, he knew right away.

“It’s dead,” Ruggiere said.

Ruggiere said it would take Corinth about 20 years to accumulate that much money through a half-cent sales tax. Plus, the city would be on the hook for about $1.2 million in additional operating costs each year.

Corinth residents balked at the initial proposition election to form DCTA in 2003. City leaders walked away from a second-chance election to join the transportation authority in 2006.

Had the 2006 election taken place and voters had approved it, Corinth would have paid a one-time buy-in payment of $197,038. North Central Texas College pledged $40,000 to help with that payment, if the station were built near its Corinth campus.

But now, any city has to make up the capital costs that would have been funded since 2003, according to transportation authority spokeswoman Dee Leggett. Those cities that formed DCTA in 2003 — Denton, Lewisville and Highland Village — committed to a half-cent sales tax for the transit project.

The transportation authority has collected about $15 million a year in sales tax from those cities since 2005, according to the authority’s budgets.

The $20 million figure for Lake Dallas and Corinth came from adding up what was needed to build and to service another station, including about a mile of extra line, a bridge and some drainage work, Leggett said.

“It’s adding another two-car train, at a cost of about $15 million, that really drove that [$20 million] figure,” Leggett said.

The price surprised Lake Dallas officials, too.

City Manager Earl Berner said the city can’t afford that price right now, but he hasn’t given up on a station in the city in the future.

He and Mayor Tony Marino asked the transportation authority to make sure anything it builds for the A-train right now won’t compromise the long-term future of a parcel they’ve identified for redevelopment.

“We’re like a dog with a bone,” Berner said. “We’re not ready to bury it under 6 feet of road mesh.”

City leaders there are continuing to look at options that could make the corner of Swisher Road and Interstate 35E a stop for travelers, particularly those coming across the new Lewisville Lake toll bridge from Little Elm.

Berner said that Lake Dallas’ proposed site for a rail station has something no other station has on the transportation authority’s line from Carrollton to Denton.

“Our station is the only one in the whole DCTA line that is wholly visible from I-35E,” Berner said.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .