Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="schlimm"] Why not build a line to Houston that splits off from the DFW-San Antonio at Waco or Austin?   It would not be so much longer in time than a direct line and would save huge amounts of infrastructure capital. [/quote] The notion of a Texas Triangle apparently arose from the first high speed rail proposals in the state.  Texas TGV (1991), Fastrak (1991), and TRHC (Triangle Railroad Holding Company) (2009) proposed systems with legs that had the label Texas Triangle attached to them.  Subsequently, as per Page 4-5 of the Texas Rail Plan, Chapter 4, Passenger Rail, 11 potential high speed rail corridors have been designated by USDOT.  Five were authorized under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and six were authorized under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) in 1998. Two of the USDOT designated corridors are in Texas.  They are the “South Central” and “Gulf Coast”.  The South Central corridor runs from San Antonio to DFW, where it splits into two branches.  One runs to Oklahoma City and Tulsa; the other runs to Texarkana and Little Rock.  The Gulf Coast corridor runs from Houston to Beaumont, New Orleans, and Mobile, with a branch from New Orleans to Atlanta. Dallas to Houston was not included in the original 11 corridors.  However, TXDOT recognized the potential for high speed rail between Texas two largest metropolitan areas, and it is facilitating the development of high speed rail in this corridor, as per Page 4-7 of the Texas Rail Plan.  “…TXDOT was awarded a $15 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration for the Preliminary Engineering and NEPA work for new core express service (high-speed rail) in the DFW-Houston corridor.”  In June 2003, TXDOT ask the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to designate a corridor between Bryan-College Station and Temple as a high speed corridor to connect the DFW-Houston and DFW-San San Antonio corridors.  Proposed as the Brazos Express Corridor, it would have formed the Triangle envisioned in the earlier proposals for high speed rail in Texas.  The FRA rejected TXDOT’s request. There are no plans at this point to build out the Texas Triangle as initially envisioned.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag