TxDOT going after Florida’s high speed rail money
Houston-Dallas is first
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The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is hoping to snag a portion of Florida’s unwanted high-speed rail money, according to a story by KUHF’s Wendy Seigle at Transportation Nation:
TxDOT, which submitted its application to the Federal Railroad Administration this week, is hoping to secure nearly $43 million of the $2.4 billion dollars that’s available. The agency wants to spend $18 million on preliminary engineering and environmental studies for the proposed Dallas-Houston high-speed rail line, which is considered the most economically viable route in the state—not surprising given that, with a combined population of 3.3 million people, they’re two of the most populated cities in the country. “We feel like it’s time to connect those two,” said Jennifer Moczygemba, the rail system director with TxDOT’s Rail Division. There’s not a whole lot going on in between the two cities though, which is why Moczygemba says it would likely operate as an express service with speeds up to 150 miles per hour and few or no stops.
Comments
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:
Careful…
A “non-stop” train will essentially duplicate the Houston/Dallas “corridor” we already have in place, namely Southwest Airlines.
Eliminating for a moment cities like Corsicana and Waxahachie - even Waco (which has been shown on previous maps as a possible intermediate point), what about COLLEGE STATION?!
Investing in new intercity passenger train service is a wonderful idea; I only hope it will be done correctly and that real railroaders will play an integral role in the process.
Garl B. Latham
Dallas
“Here in Dallas, our service to Houston was once quite enviable. ...multiple daily trains - safe, dependable, comfortable - each operating on an approximate four hour carding. Even now, such timing would be competitive with the always difficult and sometimes excruciating drive along Interstate 45. Offer such trains…with the current-day equivalent of traditional on-board amenities such as dining, club-lounge and parlor observation cars, and you probably couldn’t schedule enough daily departures to satisfy the demand!
“Now, of course, we can only busy ourselves studying shiny ‘T-Bone’ brochures and reading the latest government proposals, while those who _would_ patronise the railroads find that Amtrak doesn’t even offer one train at any speed between the two cities.”
Posted on Apr 20, 11 at 10:15 pm
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Ennis Sullivan said:
A NASA grant under the supervision of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, followed by a technology study completed by the City College of New York (CCNY) and a second engineering design/study now being accomplished by the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) will accelerate our ultra-comfort, high speed, wide-bodied (3 aisles), electric drive, grade separated transportation system to commercialization. We believe our technology offers urban drivers sufficient reasons to change their behavior and leave their gasoline powered automobiles, and choose the comfort of FasTran’s cantilevered ride, “flying in the free-air-space”, high over Houston’s congested freeways. FasTran’s deployment will be substantial reduce petroleum consumption, ease on freeway travel and provide the individual commuter with “give-back-time”. Our tag line is, “FasTran, Delivering the Solution”. We firmly believe that slogan. We believe our American Technology delivers the system, a lower cost structure and infrastructure improvements needed to achieve outstanding results.
Are we good for TxDOT? We propose to address Houston’s crowded freeways first. Then, we will focus on route 45 North from Houston to Dallas. Good for Houston?
Our Technology Brief is at http://www.fastran.com
Posted on Apr 12, 11 at 2:57 pm