Texas’ high-speed rail dreams rise as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office and state Republican lawmakers say they intend to clear roadblocks for rail to return to Austin next month is becoming foggy.
Over the past two years, Texas’ high-speed rail ambitions have shown signs of taking off. Amtrak is back and taking the lead on a long-considered high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston. North Texas transportation planners promoted the idea of extending the line to Fort Worth and Arlington. Excess federal transportation spending and increased congestion on Texas highways under President Joe Biden’s administration have some local leaders calling for even more traditional passenger rail between the state’s major cities. I started to insist.
It remains to be seen what direction these efforts will take under the second Trump administration. Rail advocates and experts say President Trump has given few clues about how he will tackle high-speed rail in his second term after the Biden administration supported federal funding for rail expansion. .
But in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, anti-rail efforts are likely to continue when lawmakers convene in January.
Some rail supporters still see hope. One example of this is the endless traffic congestion on Texas’ roads despite its strong economic growth. That, combined with an expected $20 billion budget surplus, could make the state Legislature more willing to consider rail options, said Peter Lucodi, president of Texas Rail Advocates.
“This could be the tipping point where Congress wakes up and starts smelling car exhaust,” Lukodi said.
Some lawmakers are trying to lay the groundwork for high-speed rail expansion across the state. A bill introduced by state Rep. John Boushie, an Austin Democrat, would direct the Texas Department of Transportation to resume construction of high-speed rail along the busy Interstate 35 corridor between Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. It was. State officials would need to enter into comprehensive development agreements with private companies to build, maintain and operate the line, which would have to reach speeds of at least 110 miles per hour.
Bucy said there are no immediate plans for such a train, and it’s unclear who will run it.
Bucy’s other bill would allow more of the state’s transportation dollars to be spent not only on high-speed rail, but also on other forms of transportation, such as traditional passenger rail, bike lanes, and sidewalks. The Texas Constitution requires TxDOT to spend most of its budget on highway construction and expansion. If Busey’s bill passes, Texas voters will decide whether to amend the state’s constitution to allow a greater percentage of that money to go toward non-highway transportation.
“We have to be able to mobilize people,” Busey said in an interview. “We need to give people other options.”
Questions remain about the future of the long-sought Texas Central High-Speed Railroad, which would connect Dallas and Houston. The project, first proposed in 2009, would transport passengers at top speeds of more than 200 miles per hour, turning commutes that currently take 3.5 hours by car to 90 minutes by train.
The line will use the same technology used in Japan’s famous high-speed rail network, which connects Japan’s major employment centres. The 16-car train can accommodate more than 1,300 passengers at a time.
Amtrak revived the project last year following the departure of leadership from Texas Central, which had struggled to acquire the land needed to build the line. Amtrak officials said the line between Dallas and Houston meets many of the ideal conditions for high-speed rail. That means the line will connect two of the country’s largest metropolitan areas and be flat enough for trains to reach the speeds needed for high-speed rail. Movement is relatively fast.
High-speed rail proposals have long faced difficulties in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, where Republicans are hostile to passenger rail and have particularly sought to block the Texas Central project. Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, who once spearheaded the Texas Central proposal, are attempting to block state tax dollars from paying for high-speed rail and seize land needed to build high-speed rail through prominent lands. trying to prevent it.
In 2017, the state Legislature approved a law barring Texas Central from receiving state funding for high-speed rail construction.
“If the Texas Central Line can be built without state or federal funds and without private property, I’m OK with that,” said Republican state Sen. Robert Nichols, chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee. ” he said. “But the answer is, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ … It’s a different story if it’s an investment that pays big dividends. It’s not a profitable investment. It’s a big cost hole, a bottomless pit.”
This opposition is likely to continue next year. Republican lawmakers have introduced proposals that would further strengthen obstacles to high-speed rail. A bill introduced by state Rep. Cody Harris, a Palestine Republican, would prohibit state lawmakers from diverting funds to pay for costs associated with high-speed rail operated by private companies.
Another bill, introduced by state Rep. Brian Harrison, a Waxahachie Republican, would overturn a 2022 Texas Supreme Court ruling that allowed Central Texas to seize land needed to build the Dallas-Houston line. . The ruling sounded a wake-up call for East Texas landowners on the proposed line. path.
“I am committed to protecting the private property rights of my constituents from having their land taken forcibly for this wasteful profiteering project,” Harrison said in a statement.
It’s unclear how these Republican proposals will affect the development of the Texas Central Line, or any other high-speed rail line, now that Amtrak has taken control of the project. do not have.
Railroad advocates and experts say it’s hard to imagine how the Texas Central Line could be built without state funding. The projected cost of the Dallas-to-Houston line is more than $30 billion, up from a previous estimate of $12 billion, and the funding must come from federal and private sources.
“This project needs tens of billions of dollars, and we don’t seem to be getting close to that,” said Eric Goldwyn, program director at New York University’s Marron Institute for Urban Management.
Andy Byford, Amtrak’s senior vice president for high-speed rail development, said in November that officials were still considering exactly how to pay for the project, which has not received federal approval. Ta.
Byford told reporters earlier this year that Texas Central has acquired about 30% of the land needed to build the line, but acquiring the remaining land through prominent land is a last resort. he claimed.
Officials planning a high-speed rail line connecting Dallas, Arlington and Fort Worth hope to use private funding to make it happen. Michael Morris, director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said private rail operators like Brightline, which owns the line from Orlando to Miami and is pushing for a high-speed line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Interest accrues upon federal approval.
Such projects reduce highway congestion and improve safety, Morris said, while promoting economic development by building housing, offices and restaurants near each city’s train stations.
Separately, Morris said he plans to lobby the state Legislature to create a new state agency solely focused on high-speed rail efforts.
Another mystery is how President Trump will approach passenger rail in his second term.
During his first term, Trump canceled more than $900 million in federal funding to build California’s struggling Los Angeles-San Francisco high-speed rail line, money that Biden would later reinstate. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswami, who President Trump tapped to co-lead efforts with Tesla CEO Elon Musk to cut government spending and ease federal regulations, this week called it a “wasteful vanity project.” called for an end to federal support for the California line.
Trump struck a different tone on the campaign trail, openly questioning why the U.S. doesn’t have its own high-speed rail system.
“You can drive incredibly fast and comfortably without any problems, and we don’t have anything like that in this country,” President Trump said in a conversation with Musk hosted by social media site X. , “It’s not even close.” “And it makes no sense and no sense for us not to do that.”
Beyond high-speed rail, state and local officials are looking for ways to ease congestion on Texas’ increasingly congested highways and give Texans another way to get around the state.
TxDOT is considering ways to use federal funds to enhance passenger rail service on the existing Amtrak route from Houston to San Antonio. State transportation planners are also considering ways to revive Amtrak’s traditional route between Houston and Dallas in an effort separate from the high-speed project.
With strong growth along Interstate 35, officials in Travis and Bexar counties have resumed efforts to increase the number of passenger rail lines between the Austin and San Antonio areas.
Goldwyn said building more passenger rail lines of all types is not enough to alleviate overall congestion, and state and local officials are also making cities more walkable, bikeable and public transit. He added that efforts to make it easier should be supported.
Passenger rail is “one of the tools we have available to solve that problem, but we need to do a lot of other things,” he said.
