Galveston moving ahead with rail plan

Expects to work with Metro

Alex Wukman, Jan 16, 11.

The nearly one-year-old Galveston County Transit District Board of Directors received updates from transportation consultants Barry Goodman and Carl Sharp of The Goodman Corporation on the Houston Mobility Corridor Alternatives Analysis plan for a Houston-Galveston passenger rail line. Goodman told the board that he has been speaking with the Galveston Rail District as well as Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority about the ways the proposed rail line will interface with freight traffic and Metro’s services, reports the Guidry News Service:

“We’re not going to do this without partners,” Goodman said, adding that he has been meeting with George Greanias, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. “The president of METRO has spoken a lot about partnering with this group so that METRO can play a strategic role in how this rail interfaces with METRO when it gets into town.”

He said also that he is working with the Galveston County Rail District on ways to work with Union Pacific on methods of interfacing with passenger rail.

Goodman said a scope of services budget for Phase II of the analysis would be presented to the board for approval at a later meeting.

The Galveston-Houston commuter rail proposal has faced financial difficulty recently. The $650 million price tag has faced problems due to the on-going economic downturn, reported the Houston Chronicle.