(The following article by Brad Rollins was posted on the San Marcos Daily Record website on March 22.)
SAN MARCOS, Texas — Commuter rail and freight trains could share the same tracks here – at least for a while.
A passenger rail between Austin and San Antonio isn’t necessarily contingent on Union Pacific rerouting pass-through freight traffic to the east and away from the population centers of the Interstate 35 corridor, an engineering consultant working with the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District said Monday.
Some version of the commuter system could conceivably coexist with freight traffic, particularly in the project’s early stages.
“It depends on how much service we provide. We’re trying to work out a system in which we might be able to provide some initial service before that traffic is moved,” said Peter F. Hackley, a Carter-Burgess associate. “It would be a phasing in system in which most of the trains are commuter traffic.”
The assessment was delivered to a focus group during a San Marcos meeting Monday night. The rail has been a glimmer in the eye of transportation planners for years, who think the line will ease highway congestion and spur mixed-use development centered around stations in cities along the corridor.
The commuter rail district was chartered in 2002 and is now in the first stage of a rigid application process ending, proponents hope, in the federal government agreeing to help fund a 110-mile line between Georgetown and San Antonio.
The commuter rail is estimated to cost $2 million to 20 million per track mile to upgrade crossings and build infrastructure, according to district estimates.
This week’s meeting is one of nine district officials are hosting up and down the corridor to stir interest and get input.
The trains would operate 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with trains running every hour during peak times and every 90 minutes the rest of the time.
As conceived, the line would feature 14 stations with stops in Georgetown, Round Rock, Pflugerville, Austin (4), Buda/Kyle, San Marcos, New Braunfels and San Antonio (4).
The district is considering two possible locations for a station in San Marcos: the existing San Marcos Transit Center between downtown and the interstate and a new location on Aquarena Springs Drive near Texas State University’s Bobcat Stadium.
The location of a station is critical because the stops should spur development that will help pay for the project, another consultant working on the project said.
“We can’t overemphasize the importance of development around the stations,” said Rodney W. Kelly of Dallas-based Parsons. “The idea is to spread the cost between public and private entities so taxpayers don’t have to bear all the cost.”
More than a few residents mentioned the difficulties of convincing new markets to accept public transportation, especially on a regional basis. The rail district’s board chair had a practical answer for that.
“Three dollars a gallon will go a long way to changing that attitude,” chair Sid Convington said.