Bullet train from Houston to Dallas picks up steam

[PDittie]

Had a meeting earlier this week with former Harris County Judge Bob Eckels, who is now the president of Texas Central Railway, the private outfit looking to build a Japanese-styled high speed rail line between H-Town and Big D... and eventually the I-35 and I-10 corridor, completing the Texas triangle. Here's my report.

http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com/2014/03/more-on-texas-central-railway.html

Today there's a presser with Annise Parker, Mike Rawlings, and Betsy Price -- the mayors of Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth -- on high speed rail. There'll be lots more reported on this in the next few days.

[BeyondGeography]

1. The symbolism of Texas moving to high-speed rail would be very powerful, imo

An added bonus for the rest of us.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

[Gothmog]

2. I would love to take this train

[MrTriumph]

3. This is the Trans Texas Corridor one piece at a time.

Look at who is behind this boondoggle.

[Javaman]

4. I will now commence with the holding of the breath.

I'll believe it when I see it.

this has been talked to death for years.

[MisterP]

5. Texas WANTED this in '91

Southwest, the concrete-pourers, McDonald's put up such a stink they (thus further raising costs and feeding the argument that it's a "boondoggle" that'll get stopped 75% of the way through--'cuz we're MURKA!)

there's nothing "Red State, Blue State" about HSR: we can blast the race-baiting corpo shills in the statehouses and think tanks that have kept us from joining the, uh, 20th century on this--but we still want Republicans on the rails!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_States#Texas

but who's laughing now, automakers and regional airlines?!

there's also this for LRT, but people mostly know about it from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (not that I can complain about that)

[PDittie]

7. That Wiki link is

terrific for the long tortured history of the efforts over the past 20+ years to get this done. Some of those were ill-advised (Rick Perry and the TTC) and some were undone by those who did not want to compete.

If this gets done it will have to clear many of the same hurdles and some of the same opposing coalitions.

[Paladin]

6. The sooner the better.

A San Antonio-Austin-Dallas line would be nice as well.