It seems too good to be true. Dallas won a $23 million grant to start a streetcar system from downtown to Oak Cliff. That’s a lot less than the $48 million the city applied for in the streetcar grant, but the outlook is positive.

"We just have to figure out what that will get us," says Jason Roberts, who is part of a group of Oak Cliff neighbors who started the push for streetcars more than three years ago.

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Cost estimates in the federal TIGER grant application were high, he says. And construction costs have dropped about 30 percent since then.

"Even though we’re getting less than we asked for, we may be getting more than we think with it," he says.

The streetcar line will start at Harwood and Main, with stops at the convention center hotel, Trinity River Park, Union Station and Methodist Dallas Medical Center. Construction must begin within two years.