Posted on 08/13/2007 12:32:25 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Could high-speed rail service with a stop in the Hillsboro area be a reality by 2020?
That is the goal set by the Texas High-Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation (THSRTC) following the final planning and design charrette in Fort Worth.
The charrette preceded the 10th annual Transportation Summit held in Irving Tuesday through Friday, August 7-10.
THSRTC board members met in Houston in May at the Continental Airlines headquarters for the first of the charrettes.
Attending were eight international suppliers of high-speed rail for nine different systems in France, Germany, Korea and Spain.
In addition, 14 consulting firms of varying sizes completed questionnaires at the charrette.
All the companies were invited back to the second three-day charrette at the American Airlines Training Center to make presentations.
Gwynn Orr is the City of Hillsboro’s representative on the THSRTC board and has taken an active role in both charrettes.
Hillsboro is proposed to be the first stop on the high-speed rail line once it leaves the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
“This approach to high-speed rail is much different than the first attempt (in the early 1990s). This is a grassroots approach rather than a top-down approach.”
The first attempt proposed connecting Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio with a triangle configuration of rail.
Bills were passed by the Texas Legislature and then supporters attempted to sell the idea along the proposed route, which included Hill County.
The (THSRTC) has come up with what it is calling the Texas “T-Bone.”
A line would run from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Antonio, with a second line “T”ing off in the Temple-Killeen area to Houston, saving hundreds of miles of rail construction.
A third big difference since the early 1990s is the fact that major players in the airline industry are supporting the rail proposals as signified by Continental and American hosting the charrettes.
The corporation has been working along the route to build its support and secure member cities, counties and other organizations.
At the THSRTC’s annual meeting held at the summit, David Dean with Dean International reported that membership talks have been held with representatives from the cities of Bryan, Waco and San Marcos, along with Hill and McLennan counties, among others.
Baylor University has shown an interest in becoming a resource agency, and the Temple-Killeen Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is expected to come on board as a member.
Participation by the MPOs along the route will be critical when the time comes to seek any available federal assistance, which must be funneled through the organizations, Dean pointed out.
According to Orr, the decision was made at last year’s transportation summit to take the rail proposal to the “next level.”
A delegation visited France to see its high-speed rail system last fall.
That is when former Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, who chairs the THSRTC board, and Dean came up with the idea for the planning and design charrettes.
Businesses and organizations involved in rail projects from around the world submitted requests for qualifications during the charrettes on issues ranging from design to finance to safety.
The second charrette featured over 25 hours of presentations during the three-day period covering equipment, operations, finance and engineering.
High-speed rail has been discussed as a component of Governor Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor.
Orr said that the major difference is that the THSRTC proposal would only need 80 to 120 feet of right-of-way for dual tracks.
The group is also looking at elevating the tracks to eliminate the controversial issue of slicing through tracts of property as the rail line crosses the countryside.
A majority of the high-speed rail service around the world is steel wheels to steel rail or “steel to steel,” as it is known in the industry.
A few countries are using powerful electromagnets to develop high-speed trains, called maglev trains. Maglev is short for magnetic levitation.
“We posed the questions to the various companies whether the 2020 goal of having rail service was feasible,” Orr said. “The majority said that the project could be done.”
The THSRTC board will be looking at both technologies as it sorts through the reams of paper received at the latest charrette.
A post-charrette planning session is expected to be scheduled in September, followed by meetings the first part of October in Washington, D.C. with the group’s Congressional caucus.
Later in October, another delegation will be back in Europe to follow up on information gathered at the charrettes.
For more information on the corporation, go to www.thsrtc.com.
While the 35W Bridge was falling into disrepair, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in Minneapolis building a useless light rail line out to the airport.
I like pretty trains as much as the next guy, but we have to get our priorities straight.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Texas’ bridges are in pretty good shape, and don’t require as much maintenance.
This actually seems like a good idea, especially if it can be configured to run freight as well.
A bump in honor of Willie Green
Texas is pretty good when it comes to road and bridge maintenance, so that really isn’t my concern. The question is going to be if they can really overcome the right of way obstacles it ran into last time. Farmers were a large part of killing the last one since they didn’t want to drive a lot of miles out of the way to get to a crossing so they could transport crops and livestock.
Just exactly whose dream is this? Not mine....
The Trinity River power structure in Dallas is doing what it can to make sure that the interstate bridges over the Trinity are replaced with those fancy foreign designed ones.
We would have had efficient high speed rail service and local bus service everywhere in the US 40 years ago but for the evil Big 3 automakers and Big Oil.
“Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!”
— Lyle Lanley, Monorail Salesman to Springfield and Shelbyville
Yeah, I noticed that - but that’s for cosmetic reasons, not safety.
Of course, a lot of the power brokers’ support for “The Trinity Corridor” seems to have washed away with that HUGE flood of the Trinity a year or so ago.
Actually they are merely geting the alternate infrastructure ready so they can REALLY turn off the gas pumps forcing people to use alyternate transportation.
You forgot the envirowhackos. They would have blocked it.
Actually, there’s been a need for this sort of corridor in Texas since Amtrak’s decline in the 60s. There’s demand for more transport between DFW and other cities that needs to be filled. This would help, especially since the TTC is in trouble.
In Massachusetts the greenies have held up the expansion of commuter rail into the South Shore for 10 years with auto commuters having to put up with long commutes because a few crossings would ‘ruin the character of our towns’.
Isn’t that thing awful loud?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I hear those things are awfully loud...
Exactly what I was thinking of...
Count me in. We desperately need high speed intercity rail here in Texas. Gasoline is eventually going to become too expensive for use in private automobiles, and even if they build TTC-35, the Texas of 2020 will have double the number of drivers it has today. Air travel as we know it is already in trouble, and will probably disappear within the next decade or two due to security and profitability concerns.
At bullet-train speeds, downtown Houston is less than ninety minutes from downtown Dallas. Austin is equally close. San Antonio is two hours away; El Paso, four and one half (instead of nine hours by car or express bus). And that’s using 1960’s technology. If we had trains like the current TGV (c. 160 mph average speed), the in-development German ICE-3 (c. 220 mph) or the proposed Japanese Linear Chuo Shinkansen Maglev (>300 mph), intercity transit times would shrink even more profoundly. If rail commuting at 180 miles per hour were available, a person could conceivably live in Austin and commute to a job in Dallas, or vice versa, with a total commute time of <3 hours per day. I know people who already spend more time than this commuting by car every day.
What I can’t figure out is why the airlines would be behind the idea. What’s in it for them?
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