Houston and Dallas, Texas are the United States fourth and ninth largest cities respectively (fifth if you count Fort Worth), with populations of 2.3 million and 1.3 million (2.2 million with FW)...
Houston and Dallas, Texas are the United States fourth and ninth largest cities respectively (fifth if you count Fort Worth), with populations of 2.3 million and 1.3 million (2.2 million with FW) respectively. They are ~240 miles (~385km) apart along I-45. There is currently zero passenger rail service between them; you're forced to either fly, drive, or take a bus. Amtrak and the Texas Central Railway want to build a 205mph (330km/h) rail line between the cities. This means a <90-minute travel time. The corporations have applied to three different federal grant programs to get it done.
The distance between these high-population city pairs (235 mi proposed route) is perfect for high-speed rail, which absolutely dominates other modes above distances of 100 miles and below about 600 miles. However, for HSR to be truly successful, it has to be fast. That means no shared freight tracks, no ancient infrastructure, no at-grade road crossings, and no diesel engines. A theoretical HSR line between these two cities would have to resemble sections of the Northeast Corridor, which is mostly owned by Amtrak (not freight companies) and currently features the country's highest speed of 150mph.
HSR between the cities could dramatically alleviate traffic on I-45, removing 12.5k cars per day and more than 100k tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Amtrak and Texas Central Railway say that the project would create about 1000 operating and maintenance jobs and thousands more construction jobs. The article doesn't mention how much the route would cost, but Joe Biden's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) allocated $36 billion for competitive rail grants, which is probably where most of the money would come from. In June, Amtrak apparently applied for $8 billion in grants. It's unclear to me if that includes the Dallas–Houston line.
It looks like Andy Byford (formerly of Transport for London) has big dreams for this country. I'm glad we got him. And as for non-HSR rail news in the region:
In addition to current Amtrak service in Texas and planned station improvements, Amtrak submitted grant applications for daily Sunset Limited service and the extension of the Crescent from Mississippi through Louisiana and Texas. Amtrak supports Kansas DOT’s Heartland Flyer Extension Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) application that will connect Wichita and communities across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to the Amtrak network. Amtrak also supports Texas DOT’s applications for the Texas Triangle (Dallas – Fort Worth – Houston – San Antonio) routes.
I'm interested to see how these new infrastructure projects pan out. With Brightline West potentially coming online in 2027 (connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas by high-speed rail), and California HSR inching along (Central Valley service by 2030, with connections to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento coming later), the region is seeing a lot of activity. Back in the northeast, Amtrak's "Gateway Program" plans to double capacity over the Hudson River as well as repair and realign many sections of the Northeast Corridor.
This is all possible because of Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It would be impossible for critical infrastructure like this to be constructed without federal funding, which has been stagnant for decades. While tracks, bridges, and tunnels may not be flashy enough for most news headlines to take notice, this is one of the most impactful laws of our century. I'll remember that when it's time to vote next year.
As a Texan (for now), it's worth noting that the construction jobs would be temporary and the 1,000 operation/maintenance jobs are likely to be offset by the loss of jobs in the small towns along...
Amtrak and Texas Central Railway say that the project would create about 1000 operating and maintenance jobs and thousands more construction jobs.
As a Texan (for now), it's worth noting that the construction jobs would be temporary and the 1,000 operation/maintenance jobs are likely to be offset by the loss of jobs in the small towns along I-45 that cater to the travelers along it. Many a small town has died due to a highway that routed traffic around it instead of the previous road through it, the same will likely occur if this high speed rail line goes through.
That said, I fully support it as someone that has driven that stretch many times over the years, but just saying it's not all roses. It'll be a wonder if it ever actually happens though, as this project has been ongoing for about 15 years, hasn't even broken ground, and is facing all of the right wing political pushback possible as none of the politicians want to piss off their middle-of-nowhere-republican-supporters by backing the plan.
I think it's important to keep in mind that a high speed train is never going to empty out I45 between Houston and Dallas. Imagine there was no traffic at all between Houston and Dallas. If you...
As a Texan (for now), it's worth noting that the construction jobs would be temporary and the 1,000 operation/maintenance jobs are likely to be offset by the loss of jobs in the small towns along I-45 that cater to the travelers along it. Many a small town has died due to a highway that routed traffic around it instead of the previous road through it, the same will likely occur if this high speed rail line goes through.
I think it's important to keep in mind that a high speed train is never going to empty out I45 between Houston and Dallas.
Imagine there was no traffic at all between Houston and Dallas. If you had the choice between taking a train and taking a clear open road, would you take the train? Some might, but the simple convenience of being able to drive your own vehicle, on your own schedule, directly from your home directly to your destination will mean that most people will always choose driving.
This is the core idea of induced demand. Cars are simply so convenient compared to trains and public transit that any road capacity you build will eventually become saturated. Look at NYC, the city with the highest share of transit ridership in the US. Their roads are still clogged with cars. Even though though they have the most extensive subway system in the US, the convenience of cars still governs. As long as available road space still exists, people will choose to drive over taking transit, even in NYC.
So what then is the value of HSR? Well it's greatest value might be in providing a release valve on I45. The I45 road corridor will likely always be saturated. But if a competitive rail option exists, when things start getting crowded on I45, and traffic starts slowing down, more people will move over to the train. Again, the train is always going to have a convenience penalty. You can't go on your own schedule. You need to park or get a ride to the train station, and you need to get picked up or use public transit on the other end.
I see HSR not as a means of replacing I45, but as a more efficient option than continuing to expand I45. I45 will always be saturated. But if an escape valve exists, instead of traffic on I45 growing until the whole thing is bumper to bumper, traffic grows until it reaches a maximal throughput. I45 will always have a lot of cars and trucks on it, but instead of being completely jammed, it can be busy but still free-flowing.
As such, I'm not too worried about the towns along the corridor. If you want to consider this another way, consider cargo transport. From pure energy considerations, cargo trains are way, way more efficient than trucks. If energy was all we worried about, there wouldn't be a single semi trailer traveling between Houston and Dallas; there are plenty of cargo rail lines going between them. But just like traveling in personal automobiles, transporting cargo by truck has the convenience of point-to-point delivery. The existence of cargo trains didn't prevent the rise of intercity truck shipment. And the existence of intercity passenger rail won't prevent people from driving it either. (In fact, passenger train service between Houston and Dallas existed generations before anyone considered building a vehicle highway.) This isn't a question of whether we use cars or trains. Instead, we'll use cars, trains and planes, and individual choices and the market will sort out exactly what the mix of each of these modes is.
Cars offer convenience like you say, but they also come with their own penalties. You have to drive your car, which severely limit what you can do at the same time. You are personally responsible...
Cars offer convenience like you say, but they also come with their own penalties. You have to drive your car, which severely limit what you can do at the same time. You are personally responsible for maintenance, repairs, and fueling. They're quite expensive too, representing thousands of dollars a year in personal costs between everything.
NYC has one of the best public transit systems in the US, but that doesn't mean it's a good one. For decades cities have been designed for cars, to the detriment of the people living there. There are almost always minimum parking requirements, but no, say, minimum shade requirements for sidewalks. Bikes usually have to share the road with cars instead of getting their own, separate lanes. Dedicated bus lanes are rare. Rail networks are rare, and often have to share space with cargo freight. And all of these get a lot less funding than infrastructure for cars do generally.
The US succeeded in the goal it's had for the past decades: cities are good for cars, and not much else. There are always going to be use cases for cars, and people that prefer them, but limiting our vision to what currently exists is short-sighted. Robust public transportation networks are possible, and with the environmental and health benefits they bring they're worth pursuing as good in their own right, and not just an inferior alternative to driving.
I'll add that having a single point of failure on your transportation "network" between two cities (for which there is only one reasonable route, I-45) is a massive risk. Part of I-95 in...
I'll add that having a single point of failure on your transportation "network" between two cities (for which there is only one reasonable route, I-45) is a massive risk. Part of I-95 in Philadelphia, PA collapsed recently due to an explosion and ensuing fire. It physically destroyed half the width of the roadway and severely weakened the other half. If it weren't for SEPTA (the city's transit agency) pulling together resources last-minute to increase service and Amtrak offering inter-city service between Philly and elsewhere, the region would have been in utter chaos until the highway was repaired. And even then, it showed how excessively reliant we are on cars, and how we need even more public transportation.
For a city pair like Dallas and Houston, high-speed rail is the dominant mode from a time-competitiveness perspective, and it's not even that close. But indeed, many people will still choose to drive despite having HSR as an option. Frankly I think one of the biggest (and under-discussed) benefits of projects like this is that it will take people off the road who don't want to drive. And by doing that, you take off some of the worst, angriest, and most aggressive drivers. That's not only an improvement to traffic throughput and safety, but to the quality of the driving experience for everyone else who does have to drive, for some reason like carrying a significant amount of equipment.
I-45 is an important part of our transportation network by now, but it's not a secure, competitive, or efficient network if there's a modal monopoly along most of it.
As someone who grew up in a small town, a community that is only sustainable due to a highway is not necessarily where we should be prioritizing housing and development. Any sort of transportation...
As someone who grew up in a small town, a community that is only sustainable due to a highway is not necessarily where we should be prioritizing housing and development. Any sort of transportation line is going to spur people to live nearby, so we may as well put it near safe, sustainable, efficient, and public transportation like a high-speed rail line, not an interstate (though both is fine).
Amtrak is a federal entity and Texas Central is private, so I don't think the state actually has an enormous influence over this kind of project. The railways would obviously have to meet state regulations, and would have to undergo some amount of state review, but if the funding isn't specifically (or exclusively) coming from Texan voters, perhaps there will be less of a fuss. I think this is why Brightline West has such a fast construction timeline.
No one is prioritizing any of these small towns, they have just grown over time because opportunity was there. These aren't new towns and new towns aren't going to pop up along the rail line as...
No one is prioritizing any of these small towns, they have just grown over time because opportunity was there. These aren't new towns and new towns aren't going to pop up along the rail line as it'll be bypassing every town and there is only one stop along the entire route planned.
The state's politicians have weight that can, and has, been thrown around to stop the purchases of land, fight eminent domain claims, and everything else possible. Brightline West being built while the Texas project barely having bought any land at all is proof enough that there are still massive hurdles to overcome and the Reds here intend to fight it tooth and nail.
There are certainly hurdles. I'm not that pessimistic though. The Texas Supreme Court's 2022 decision affirming the railway's ability to exercise eminent domain is a big step in the right...
There are certainly hurdles. I'm not that pessimistic though. The Texas Supreme Court's 2022 decision affirming the railway's ability to exercise eminent domain is a big step in the right direction. And honestly, while I'm not a Texas resident and definitely lack the perspective of the rural farmers on the other side of the lawsuit, it isn't hard for state-level politicians and bureaucrats to see the economic value of a high-speed rail line (especially if it's being mostly funded by the federal government and privately). They may withhold funding beyond moderate amounts, but I don't think the state has a proper incentive to completely rewrite their rail legislation just to stymie the project.
The ride up to to New York is wonderful. I love to take Amtrak, especially in that area, because you're really hitting one interesting, historical, exciting city after another. Richmond, DC,...
The ride up to to New York is wonderful. I love to take Amtrak, especially in that area, because you're really hitting one interesting, historical, exciting city after another. Richmond, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and then NYC! And wow, that skyline never gets old. Never. I hope you have an opportunity to see a show sometime.
You'd have to get a transfer in DC. Travel time would be about 6.25 hours plus the layover. Not too bad considering you get to move around, there's a bathroom, it's quieter, there's internet, and you don't have to drive the train yourself. I think the views are also better than from the highway. The section between Williamsburg and DC is fairly slow, but you hit 125mph almost right out of DC and the rest is quite interesting and fast, with only occasional slowdowns and definitely no freight delays.
I have, several times, taken trips on the order of NYC to Charleston, SC for a whopping 13.5 hours. Despite the painfully slow sections south of DC, I actually rather enjoyed them. I'm not sure how to describe it, but there's something magical about getting on the train and just whizzing along. The scenery is far more interesting than a blank sea of clouds, certainly. Once you hit speeds above 100mph, it feels high-tech and futuristic in a way that, oddly enough, planes don't. I think it's because the train is so quiet and smooth.
I believe that the Williamsburg station is wheelchair-accessible and I believe all the NEC stops are too. The staff are very good about helping people get figured out with all that. Penn Station is definitely accessible (just make sure you get off at the NY one, not the NJ one, haha). The subways are more hit-and-miss. This map from the MTA highlights the accessible stations in the white boxes. I imagine that Broadway has wheelchair-accessible seating, but I haven't been in many years.
The most common cost estimate I see for this project is $30B, which seems like a reasonable guess based on the cost of other infra projects. The $36B rail grants at a national level probably won't...
Joe Biden's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) allocated $36 billion for competitive rail grants, which is probably where most of the money would come from
The most common cost estimate I see for this project is $30B, which seems like a reasonable guess based on the cost of other infra projects. The $36B rail grants at a national level probably won't make a ton of difference in the scheme of this project. they might get some, but I don't see them giving more than 50% of a grant like that to a single project.
$30 billion sounds plausible. Brightline West's 218-mile track is expected to cost $12 billion. They have the advantage of leasing the median of I-15 rather than acquiring expensive private...
$30 billion sounds plausible. Brightline West's 218-mile track is expected to cost $12 billion. They have the advantage of leasing the median of I-15 rather than acquiring expensive private property along the whole route. I'm not familiar enough with I-45 to say whether they could do the same for some/much of the journey, but if it's straight and wide enough, that could significantly save on costs.
One of the reason California HSR is so much more expensive is because of all the land acquisition and because most of the route is being constructed from the ground up. It's also a far bigger project.
I doubt the federal government would allocate $30 billion to Dallas–Houston HSR right away, but Texas Central is a private company that supposedly has private funding. Like Brightline, this could be in the billions. I don't know how much. I would be surprised if the split between federal/private was much more than 50-50, which would be $15 billion needed for the project. If Brightline could get $3.75 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to connect LA and Vegas, I think Amtrak and Texas Central can get at least that much. That leaves $11.25 billion needed, which could probably be acquired through a state bond measure (like California HSR) or more federal funding. I actually don't find it unreasonable for the federal government to allocate closer to $5–7 billion to a project like this because of how large the cities it connects are. That area of Texas is almost like a mini-Northeast Corridor, and Amtrak recently got $7.3 billion for the NEC. It's not the same, but the northeast also isn't really growing nearly at the rate the South is.
By the time a project like this gets off the ground, considering how early they are in the planning process, Brightline West will probably be operational (2027). I think that project in particular will be the spark that changes the southern perception of rail in this country. Most likely, with some amount of funding secured and construction commencing, the corporations would be able to argue convincingly for whatever is left over, either from the federal government or more private capital investors.
You bring up a good point about the "spark" that could hopefully change the perception of rail travel. I hope it also raises the bar for "acceptable" rail travel. In our area (North Carolina), our...
You bring up a good point about the "spark" that could hopefully change the perception of rail travel. I hope it also raises the bar for "acceptable" rail travel. In our area (North Carolina), our tracks are all shared with freight, so rail experience is horrible to the point that most won't bother with it unless they're okay with multi-hour delays. This Texas project certainly has the right idea of using infrastructure dedicated for its purpose.
You're right, these rail projects are fantastic news, and I can't wait for them to be completed. The southwestern united states has a huge need for rail service to connect some truely massive...
You're right, these rail projects are fantastic news, and I can't wait for them to be completed. The southwestern united states has a huge need for rail service to connect some truely massive megalopoli together.
The LA <-> LV one is a particularly big one for me because it is one that I have had to travel many times because I had family in both areas. It's very common for I-95, the highway that connects them, to be congested on weekends, and being stuck in the middle of a desert. Sadly, though, rail service will mean that there's no stopping at The Mad Greek restaurant. But with how much they've changed in recent years, I'm not sure it's worth stopping there anyways.
I'm glad there's new news about this. They've been talking about this high speed rail for years yet nothing has seemingly been done to move the project forward. It's bad enough to the extent that...
I'm glad there's new news about this. They've been talking about this high speed rail for years yet nothing has seemingly been done to move the project forward. It's bad enough to the extent that if you've heard about it, you might have forgotten about it for lack of information. Hopefully this means the project is actually moving forward and we could see rail being laid soon.
More than halving the travel time for most Texans would do some pretty incredible things for the state.
Our last presidential administration was extremely recalcitrant as far as railroad funding opportunities go, and the one before was a little more interested in cleaning up fallout from the 2008...
Our last presidential administration was extremely recalcitrant as far as railroad funding opportunities go, and the one before was a little more interested in cleaning up fallout from the 2008 recession and fighting some foreign wars, so that's perhaps it's no surprise that high-speed rail is only seeing attention now. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (aka Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) is literally the only reason any of this is on the table.
I think there's also been an increasing amount of environmental pressure to create modal shifts to rail in the last decade, as well as some (small) amount of public understanding that cars are an inefficient and harmful form of transportation as far as urban design goes. That is, we have begun to shift away from the car-oriented development of the 1950s. It's slow going, especially in the South, but even there you can see it in cities like Austin, where there's been more of a push to expand Capital MetroRail. (And Dallas' rail network is actually OK.) RMTransit remarked in a recent video that "the Overton window has shifted." I currently live in a place where public transportation is considered relatively important, so I'm not an unbiased source of information, but I think people are generally getting on board with this whole "trains are good, actually" thing.
Amtrak published an article referencing a survey in which 92% of Americans "say it’s important for the United States to invest in passenger rail safety and service improvements" and 86% "believe in the importance of a strong American passenger rail system." 83% are fans of the rail investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 81% specifically want their state to invest in rail as well as the federal government. Granted, that's just a survey, but it is statistically significant and I think it speaks to people's desire for good things to be built.
Certainly if the choice is between not having it, and having it, I think it's better for such a line to exist, but if the funding is fungible at some level I do wonder about the obsession over...
Certainly if the choice is between not having it, and having it, I think it's better for such a line to exist, but if the funding is fungible at some level I do wonder about the obsession over high speed rail. The same for the proposed line from SF and LA that will probably never exist.
It's much more bang for your buck to improve local public transportation. I mean, what would you even do when you take this high speed rail to Houston or Dallas? Rent a car? It's not like either city has fantastic public transit.
How many people would really commute from Dallas to Houston on a daily basis? Would weekend traffic only be self sustaining?
If there was going to be high speed rail, the northeast is a prime candidate, with several large metros that actually do have business travel between themselves all lined up within a short distance (NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC - you could even go down to Atlanta, although that's a bit of a stretch).
Amtrak is working on high-speed rail initiatives in the Northeast Corridor. It is very slow going because the area is dense. It is also extraordinarily expensive. Often, it's cheaper and easier to...
Amtrak is working on high-speed rail initiatives in the Northeast Corridor. It is very slow going because the area is dense. It is also extraordinarily expensive. Often, it's cheaper and easier to build a HSR line from scratch rather than renovate an existing line that's been around for two centuries. You end up realigning half the line anyway to bypass curves. I wrote some comments about the various improvements to the corridor last month. You can read the NEC Future's Tier 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement for more details on the work planned there. In short, they are doing that. But just because the northeast is getting high-ish speed rail doesn't mean the rest of the country can't.
How many people would really commute from Dallas to Houston on a daily basis? Would weekend traffic only be self sustaining?
This is like asking if the interstate highway system is self-sustaining. No, highways have never even been close to profitable. But yes, this particular route could be "self-sustaining" enough to be financially plausible. Inter-city travel between cities in general is always going to be high for reasons that are axiomatic, and inter-city travel between these two particular areas is obviously high if you look at I-45!
You can create a gravity model of the United States in which cities are weighted according to their population. The bigger the city, the more "gravity" it has, i.e. the more attractive it is for travelers (and the more travelers emanate from it). If you overlay a map of city pairs within, say, 150–350 miles (or as much as 100–600 miles) on the gravity model, you can generate a network of cities that would benefit from a high-speed rail line connecting them. I won't get into the math here, but in general, two large metropolitan areas within about 250 miles are extremely suited for high-speed rail. By "extremely suited" I mean that air and car travel is mathematically inferior on a time-competitiveness graph. If you want to learn more about this concept, CityNerd has a useful video about good locations for high-speed rail in the US. He has another video mostly about extending the northeast corridor that is also interesting, and many more, where he shows a graph that demonstrates this principle visually.
The Regional Plan Association has a relatively approachable report called Where High-Speed Rail Works Best. On page 3, you can see a map of the United States' "megaregions" with city pairs, corridors, and clusters colorfully highlighted for visibility. The Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio triangle is one such region. A more practical map is on page 7. It is very much a legitimate place to put high-speed rail.
It's much more bang for your buck to improve local public transportation. I mean, what would you even do when you take this high speed rail to Houston or Dallas? Rent a car? It's not like either city has fantastic public transit.
This is a legitimate remark, but I suggest the philosophy of "and, not or." Don't give up on either: ask for both. If you don't, you'll get neither.
Both Houston and Dallas already have Amtrak systems which receive moderate use. They also have acceptable transportation systems; not great, but they exist. Dallas in particular has a decent number of rail lines. Funding for a project of this magnitude is all but guaranteed to incentivize expansions and improvements to public transportation systems within cities, as more people traveling without cars will be present in the cities. And yes, ride-hailing is a legitimate way to get around a city as a visitor, as are buses. You can also rent a car.
Transit-oriented development is a concept in which denser housing is built near public transportation, rather than relegating train stations to parking lots, low-density single-family home residential zones, or commercial strip malls. A principle of TOD is mixed-use zoning (Houston doesn't really work this way, but that's not really important to the concept, which can be implemented using different words if needed) in which residences are placed above businesses to create density. Housing and commercial infill is also recommended. By placing housing near public transportation, you shift potential passengers to locations where they can easily use it.
In other words: if you build it, they will come. And these really aren't tiny villages in the deserts, they're the fourth- and fifth (ish)-largest metro areas in the entire country. The Northeast Corridor is great and all, but there's so much to the United States and we really need to support it as a whole.
P.S. the "proposed line" from San Francisco to Los Angeles is under construction right now. The full route has passed environmental review (the biggest hurdle) and they've purchased most of the land they need (the second-biggest hurdle). I'm not going to claim it's coming anytime soon, but funding for a large portion of the project is stable. The initial operating segment in the Central Valley is scheduled to begin service in 2030 (which feels far off, but isn't really). When Brightline completes their western route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 2027, I expect momentum for California High-Speed Rail to increase considerably.
Houston and Dallas, Texas are the United States fourth and ninth largest cities respectively (fifth if you count Fort Worth), with populations of 2.3 million and 1.3 million (2.2 million with FW) respectively. They are ~240 miles (~385km) apart along I-45. There is currently zero passenger rail service between them; you're forced to either fly, drive, or take a bus. Amtrak and the Texas Central Railway want to build a 205mph (330km/h) rail line between the cities. This means a <90-minute travel time. The corporations have applied to three different federal grant programs to get it done.
The distance between these high-population city pairs (235 mi proposed route) is perfect for high-speed rail, which absolutely dominates other modes above distances of 100 miles and below about 600 miles. However, for HSR to be truly successful, it has to be fast. That means no shared freight tracks, no ancient infrastructure, no at-grade road crossings, and no diesel engines. A theoretical HSR line between these two cities would have to resemble sections of the Northeast Corridor, which is mostly owned by Amtrak (not freight companies) and currently features the country's highest speed of 150mph.
HSR between the cities could dramatically alleviate traffic on I-45, removing 12.5k cars per day and more than 100k tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Amtrak and Texas Central Railway say that the project would create about 1000 operating and maintenance jobs and thousands more construction jobs. The article doesn't mention how much the route would cost, but Joe Biden's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) allocated $36 billion for competitive rail grants, which is probably where most of the money would come from. In June, Amtrak apparently applied for $8 billion in grants. It's unclear to me if that includes the Dallas–Houston line.
It looks like Andy Byford (formerly of Transport for London) has big dreams for this country. I'm glad we got him. And as for non-HSR rail news in the region:
I'm interested to see how these new infrastructure projects pan out. With Brightline West potentially coming online in 2027 (connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas by high-speed rail), and California HSR inching along (Central Valley service by 2030, with connections to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento coming later), the region is seeing a lot of activity. Back in the northeast, Amtrak's "Gateway Program" plans to double capacity over the Hudson River as well as repair and realign many sections of the Northeast Corridor.
This is all possible because of Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It would be impossible for critical infrastructure like this to be constructed without federal funding, which has been stagnant for decades. While tracks, bridges, and tunnels may not be flashy enough for most news headlines to take notice, this is one of the most impactful laws of our century. I'll remember that when it's time to vote next year.
As a Texan (for now), it's worth noting that the construction jobs would be temporary and the 1,000 operation/maintenance jobs are likely to be offset by the loss of jobs in the small towns along I-45 that cater to the travelers along it. Many a small town has died due to a highway that routed traffic around it instead of the previous road through it, the same will likely occur if this high speed rail line goes through.
That said, I fully support it as someone that has driven that stretch many times over the years, but just saying it's not all roses. It'll be a wonder if it ever actually happens though, as this project has been ongoing for about 15 years, hasn't even broken ground, and is facing all of the right wing political pushback possible as none of the politicians want to piss off their middle-of-nowhere-republican-supporters by backing the plan.
I think it's important to keep in mind that a high speed train is never going to empty out I45 between Houston and Dallas.
Imagine there was no traffic at all between Houston and Dallas. If you had the choice between taking a train and taking a clear open road, would you take the train? Some might, but the simple convenience of being able to drive your own vehicle, on your own schedule, directly from your home directly to your destination will mean that most people will always choose driving.
This is the core idea of induced demand. Cars are simply so convenient compared to trains and public transit that any road capacity you build will eventually become saturated. Look at NYC, the city with the highest share of transit ridership in the US. Their roads are still clogged with cars. Even though though they have the most extensive subway system in the US, the convenience of cars still governs. As long as available road space still exists, people will choose to drive over taking transit, even in NYC.
So what then is the value of HSR? Well it's greatest value might be in providing a release valve on I45. The I45 road corridor will likely always be saturated. But if a competitive rail option exists, when things start getting crowded on I45, and traffic starts slowing down, more people will move over to the train. Again, the train is always going to have a convenience penalty. You can't go on your own schedule. You need to park or get a ride to the train station, and you need to get picked up or use public transit on the other end.
I see HSR not as a means of replacing I45, but as a more efficient option than continuing to expand I45. I45 will always be saturated. But if an escape valve exists, instead of traffic on I45 growing until the whole thing is bumper to bumper, traffic grows until it reaches a maximal throughput. I45 will always have a lot of cars and trucks on it, but instead of being completely jammed, it can be busy but still free-flowing.
As such, I'm not too worried about the towns along the corridor. If you want to consider this another way, consider cargo transport. From pure energy considerations, cargo trains are way, way more efficient than trucks. If energy was all we worried about, there wouldn't be a single semi trailer traveling between Houston and Dallas; there are plenty of cargo rail lines going between them. But just like traveling in personal automobiles, transporting cargo by truck has the convenience of point-to-point delivery. The existence of cargo trains didn't prevent the rise of intercity truck shipment. And the existence of intercity passenger rail won't prevent people from driving it either. (In fact, passenger train service between Houston and Dallas existed generations before anyone considered building a vehicle highway.) This isn't a question of whether we use cars or trains. Instead, we'll use cars, trains and planes, and individual choices and the market will sort out exactly what the mix of each of these modes is.
Cars offer convenience like you say, but they also come with their own penalties. You have to drive your car, which severely limit what you can do at the same time. You are personally responsible for maintenance, repairs, and fueling. They're quite expensive too, representing thousands of dollars a year in personal costs between everything.
NYC has one of the best public transit systems in the US, but that doesn't mean it's a good one. For decades cities have been designed for cars, to the detriment of the people living there. There are almost always minimum parking requirements, but no, say, minimum shade requirements for sidewalks. Bikes usually have to share the road with cars instead of getting their own, separate lanes. Dedicated bus lanes are rare. Rail networks are rare, and often have to share space with cargo freight. And all of these get a lot less funding than infrastructure for cars do generally.
The US succeeded in the goal it's had for the past decades: cities are good for cars, and not much else. There are always going to be use cases for cars, and people that prefer them, but limiting our vision to what currently exists is short-sighted. Robust public transportation networks are possible, and with the environmental and health benefits they bring they're worth pursuing as good in their own right, and not just an inferior alternative to driving.
I'll add that having a single point of failure on your transportation "network" between two cities (for which there is only one reasonable route, I-45) is a massive risk. Part of I-95 in Philadelphia, PA collapsed recently due to an explosion and ensuing fire. It physically destroyed half the width of the roadway and severely weakened the other half. If it weren't for SEPTA (the city's transit agency) pulling together resources last-minute to increase service and Amtrak offering inter-city service between Philly and elsewhere, the region would have been in utter chaos until the highway was repaired. And even then, it showed how excessively reliant we are on cars, and how we need even more public transportation.
For a city pair like Dallas and Houston, high-speed rail is the dominant mode from a time-competitiveness perspective, and it's not even that close. But indeed, many people will still choose to drive despite having HSR as an option. Frankly I think one of the biggest (and under-discussed) benefits of projects like this is that it will take people off the road who don't want to drive. And by doing that, you take off some of the worst, angriest, and most aggressive drivers. That's not only an improvement to traffic throughput and safety, but to the quality of the driving experience for everyone else who does have to drive, for some reason like carrying a significant amount of equipment.
I-45 is an important part of our transportation network by now, but it's not a secure, competitive, or efficient network if there's a modal monopoly along most of it.
As someone who grew up in a small town, a community that is only sustainable due to a highway is not necessarily where we should be prioritizing housing and development. Any sort of transportation line is going to spur people to live nearby, so we may as well put it near safe, sustainable, efficient, and public transportation like a high-speed rail line, not an interstate (though both is fine).
Amtrak is a federal entity and Texas Central is private, so I don't think the state actually has an enormous influence over this kind of project. The railways would obviously have to meet state regulations, and would have to undergo some amount of state review, but if the funding isn't specifically (or exclusively) coming from Texan voters, perhaps there will be less of a fuss. I think this is why Brightline West has such a fast construction timeline.
No one is prioritizing any of these small towns, they have just grown over time because opportunity was there. These aren't new towns and new towns aren't going to pop up along the rail line as it'll be bypassing every town and there is only one stop along the entire route planned.
The state's politicians have weight that can, and has, been thrown around to stop the purchases of land, fight eminent domain claims, and everything else possible. Brightline West being built while the Texas project barely having bought any land at all is proof enough that there are still massive hurdles to overcome and the Reds here intend to fight it tooth and nail.
There are certainly hurdles. I'm not that pessimistic though. The Texas Supreme Court's 2022 decision affirming the railway's ability to exercise eminent domain is a big step in the right direction. And honestly, while I'm not a Texas resident and definitely lack the perspective of the rural farmers on the other side of the lawsuit, it isn't hard for state-level politicians and bureaucrats to see the economic value of a high-speed rail line (especially if it's being mostly funded by the federal government and privately). They may withhold funding beyond moderate amounts, but I don't think the state has a proper incentive to completely rewrite their rail legislation just to stymie the project.
The ride up to to New York is wonderful. I love to take Amtrak, especially in that area, because you're really hitting one interesting, historical, exciting city after another. Richmond, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and then NYC! And wow, that skyline never gets old. Never. I hope you have an opportunity to see a show sometime.
You'd have to get a transfer in DC. Travel time would be about 6.25 hours plus the layover. Not too bad considering you get to move around, there's a bathroom, it's quieter, there's internet, and you don't have to drive the train yourself. I think the views are also better than from the highway. The section between Williamsburg and DC is fairly slow, but you hit 125mph almost right out of DC and the rest is quite interesting and fast, with only occasional slowdowns and definitely no freight delays.
I have, several times, taken trips on the order of NYC to Charleston, SC for a whopping 13.5 hours. Despite the painfully slow sections south of DC, I actually rather enjoyed them. I'm not sure how to describe it, but there's something magical about getting on the train and just whizzing along. The scenery is far more interesting than a blank sea of clouds, certainly. Once you hit speeds above 100mph, it feels high-tech and futuristic in a way that, oddly enough, planes don't. I think it's because the train is so quiet and smooth.
I believe that the Williamsburg station is wheelchair-accessible and I believe all the NEC stops are too. The staff are very good about helping people get figured out with all that. Penn Station is definitely accessible (just make sure you get off at the NY one, not the NJ one, haha). The subways are more hit-and-miss. This map from the MTA highlights the accessible stations in the white boxes. I imagine that Broadway has wheelchair-accessible seating, but I haven't been in many years.
The most common cost estimate I see for this project is $30B, which seems like a reasonable guess based on the cost of other infra projects. The $36B rail grants at a national level probably won't make a ton of difference in the scheme of this project. they might get some, but I don't see them giving more than 50% of a grant like that to a single project.
$30 billion sounds plausible. Brightline West's 218-mile track is expected to cost $12 billion. They have the advantage of leasing the median of I-15 rather than acquiring expensive private property along the whole route. I'm not familiar enough with I-45 to say whether they could do the same for some/much of the journey, but if it's straight and wide enough, that could significantly save on costs.
One of the reason California HSR is so much more expensive is because of all the land acquisition and because most of the route is being constructed from the ground up. It's also a far bigger project.
I doubt the federal government would allocate $30 billion to Dallas–Houston HSR right away, but Texas Central is a private company that supposedly has private funding. Like Brightline, this could be in the billions. I don't know how much. I would be surprised if the split between federal/private was much more than 50-50, which would be $15 billion needed for the project. If Brightline could get $3.75 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to connect LA and Vegas, I think Amtrak and Texas Central can get at least that much. That leaves $11.25 billion needed, which could probably be acquired through a state bond measure (like California HSR) or more federal funding. I actually don't find it unreasonable for the federal government to allocate closer to $5–7 billion to a project like this because of how large the cities it connects are. That area of Texas is almost like a mini-Northeast Corridor, and Amtrak recently got $7.3 billion for the NEC. It's not the same, but the northeast also isn't really growing nearly at the rate the South is.
By the time a project like this gets off the ground, considering how early they are in the planning process, Brightline West will probably be operational (2027). I think that project in particular will be the spark that changes the southern perception of rail in this country. Most likely, with some amount of funding secured and construction commencing, the corporations would be able to argue convincingly for whatever is left over, either from the federal government or more private capital investors.
You bring up a good point about the "spark" that could hopefully change the perception of rail travel. I hope it also raises the bar for "acceptable" rail travel. In our area (North Carolina), our tracks are all shared with freight, so rail experience is horrible to the point that most won't bother with it unless they're okay with multi-hour delays. This Texas project certainly has the right idea of using infrastructure dedicated for its purpose.
You're right, these rail projects are fantastic news, and I can't wait for them to be completed. The southwestern united states has a huge need for rail service to connect some truely massive megalopoli together.
The LA <-> LV one is a particularly big one for me because it is one that I have had to travel many times because I had family in both areas. It's very common for I-95, the highway that connects them, to be congested on weekends, and being stuck in the middle of a desert. Sadly, though, rail service will mean that there's no stopping at The Mad Greek restaurant. But with how much they've changed in recent years, I'm not sure it's worth stopping there anyways.
I'm glad there's new news about this. They've been talking about this high speed rail for years yet nothing has seemingly been done to move the project forward. It's bad enough to the extent that if you've heard about it, you might have forgotten about it for lack of information. Hopefully this means the project is actually moving forward and we could see rail being laid soon.
More than halving the travel time for most Texans would do some pretty incredible things for the state.
Our last presidential administration was extremely recalcitrant as far as railroad funding opportunities go, and the one before was a little more interested in cleaning up fallout from the 2008 recession and fighting some foreign wars, so that's perhaps it's no surprise that high-speed rail is only seeing attention now. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (aka Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) is literally the only reason any of this is on the table.
I think there's also been an increasing amount of environmental pressure to create modal shifts to rail in the last decade, as well as some (small) amount of public understanding that cars are an inefficient and harmful form of transportation as far as urban design goes. That is, we have begun to shift away from the car-oriented development of the 1950s. It's slow going, especially in the South, but even there you can see it in cities like Austin, where there's been more of a push to expand Capital MetroRail. (And Dallas' rail network is actually OK.) RMTransit remarked in a recent video that "the Overton window has shifted." I currently live in a place where public transportation is considered relatively important, so I'm not an unbiased source of information, but I think people are generally getting on board with this whole "trains are good, actually" thing.
Amtrak published an article referencing a survey in which 92% of Americans "say it’s important for the United States to invest in passenger rail safety and service improvements" and 86% "believe in the importance of a strong American passenger rail system." 83% are fans of the rail investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 81% specifically want their state to invest in rail as well as the federal government. Granted, that's just a survey, but it is statistically significant and I think it speaks to people's desire for good things to be built.
Certainly if the choice is between not having it, and having it, I think it's better for such a line to exist, but if the funding is fungible at some level I do wonder about the obsession over high speed rail. The same for the proposed line from SF and LA that will probably never exist.
It's much more bang for your buck to improve local public transportation. I mean, what would you even do when you take this high speed rail to Houston or Dallas? Rent a car? It's not like either city has fantastic public transit.
How many people would really commute from Dallas to Houston on a daily basis? Would weekend traffic only be self sustaining?
If there was going to be high speed rail, the northeast is a prime candidate, with several large metros that actually do have business travel between themselves all lined up within a short distance (NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC - you could even go down to Atlanta, although that's a bit of a stretch).
Amtrak is working on high-speed rail initiatives in the Northeast Corridor. It is very slow going because the area is dense. It is also extraordinarily expensive. Often, it's cheaper and easier to build a HSR line from scratch rather than renovate an existing line that's been around for two centuries. You end up realigning half the line anyway to bypass curves. I wrote some comments about the various improvements to the corridor last month. You can read the NEC Future's Tier 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement for more details on the work planned there. In short, they are doing that. But just because the northeast is getting high-ish speed rail doesn't mean the rest of the country can't.
This is like asking if the interstate highway system is self-sustaining. No, highways have never even been close to profitable. But yes, this particular route could be "self-sustaining" enough to be financially plausible. Inter-city travel between cities in general is always going to be high for reasons that are axiomatic, and inter-city travel between these two particular areas is obviously high if you look at I-45!
You can create a gravity model of the United States in which cities are weighted according to their population. The bigger the city, the more "gravity" it has, i.e. the more attractive it is for travelers (and the more travelers emanate from it). If you overlay a map of city pairs within, say, 150–350 miles (or as much as 100–600 miles) on the gravity model, you can generate a network of cities that would benefit from a high-speed rail line connecting them. I won't get into the math here, but in general, two large metropolitan areas within about 250 miles are extremely suited for high-speed rail. By "extremely suited" I mean that air and car travel is mathematically inferior on a time-competitiveness graph. If you want to learn more about this concept, CityNerd has a useful video about good locations for high-speed rail in the US. He has another video mostly about extending the northeast corridor that is also interesting, and many more, where he shows a graph that demonstrates this principle visually.
The Regional Plan Association has a relatively approachable report called Where High-Speed Rail Works Best. On page 3, you can see a map of the United States' "megaregions" with city pairs, corridors, and clusters colorfully highlighted for visibility. The Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio triangle is one such region. A more practical map is on page 7. It is very much a legitimate place to put high-speed rail.
This is a legitimate remark, but I suggest the philosophy of "and, not or." Don't give up on either: ask for both. If you don't, you'll get neither.
Both Houston and Dallas already have Amtrak systems which receive moderate use. They also have acceptable transportation systems; not great, but they exist. Dallas in particular has a decent number of rail lines. Funding for a project of this magnitude is all but guaranteed to incentivize expansions and improvements to public transportation systems within cities, as more people traveling without cars will be present in the cities. And yes, ride-hailing is a legitimate way to get around a city as a visitor, as are buses. You can also rent a car.
Transit-oriented development is a concept in which denser housing is built near public transportation, rather than relegating train stations to parking lots, low-density single-family home residential zones, or commercial strip malls. A principle of TOD is mixed-use zoning (Houston doesn't really work this way, but that's not really important to the concept, which can be implemented using different words if needed) in which residences are placed above businesses to create density. Housing and commercial infill is also recommended. By placing housing near public transportation, you shift potential passengers to locations where they can easily use it.
In other words: if you build it, they will come. And these really aren't tiny villages in the deserts, they're the fourth- and fifth (ish)-largest metro areas in the entire country. The Northeast Corridor is great and all, but there's so much to the United States and we really need to support it as a whole.
P.S. the "proposed line" from San Francisco to Los Angeles is under construction right now. The full route has passed environmental review (the biggest hurdle) and they've purchased most of the land they need (the second-biggest hurdle). I'm not going to claim it's coming anytime soon, but funding for a large portion of the project is stable. The initial operating segment in the Central Valley is scheduled to begin service in 2030 (which feels far off, but isn't really). When Brightline completes their western route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 2027, I expect momentum for California High-Speed Rail to increase considerably.