As Oklahoma City metro area officials continue their push to build a $1.8 billion commuter rail system that will cover 39 miles from Edmond to Oklahoma City to Norman, they have begun citing rail systems in other cities across the country as success stories, including in Grapevine, Texas.

But the economic data cited do not necessarily have any connection to commuter rail service. In fact, the Grapevine data may even suggest a downward trend in overall sales in Grapevine since commuter rail was launched.

In a July 16 post on the ONE Transit Facebook page, officials declared, “Communities across the country are seeing the benefits of investing in regional transit. Grapevine, Texas is a prime example.”

An accompanying post stated that Grapevine, Texas, was “a small suburban city when TexRail arrived. Here is what happened after the train came to town.” A post then credits rail service with generating a 23 percent increase in citywide Grapevine sales tax revenue since 2018 and 38 percent revenue growth for businesses within a five-minute walk of the station.

But the 23 percent increase in sales tax collections is below the rate of inflation since January 2018, indicating that the entirety of the increase in sales-tax collections could simply be the result of higher prices, not because of increased commerce.

Similarly, the revenue growth at local businesses is only marginally higher than the roughly 35 percent inflation that has occurred since January 2018.

Byron Schlomach, an economist and researcher, noted that sales-tax growth “will generally reflect inflation.”

“Since it’s a percentage of the prices, it goes up right along with prices,” Schlomach said.

Given the high inflation experienced in recent years, particularly during the Biden administration, one would expect sales-tax collections to have increased for most locales whether near a rail station or not.

“To just talk about sales-tax (revenue) increases is just a meaningless exercise,” Schlomach said.

Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, also believes most of the cited increase in Grapevine sales-tax revenue collections from 2018 to today would be “largely due to inflation.”

He is also skeptical of claims that the Grapevine rail system generated significant new economic activity. Instead, he said rail systems often shuffle where economic activity occurs.

“Starting new rail service tends to move business around as opposed to lead to new business activity,” Feigenbaum said. “So, while some new businesses may have located near the rail line, many moved from other areas in the region. So the actual amount of new/expanded businesses and thus new revenue is very limited.”

And, even if ONE Transit’s claims regarding rail service and economic activity in Grapevine were correct, Feigenbaum said that doesn’t have much bearing on any proposal for the Oklahoma City metro.

“Grapevine (Dallas-Fort Worth) is not similar to OKC,” Feigenbaum said. “The region is much larger with denser employment and population density. For example, one of the selling points of the Grapevine train is access to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which generates a lot more trips than the OKC airport. So even if this development did happen in the DFW region, (it) doesn't mean it will happen in the OKC region.”