FORT WORTH, Texas — It’s not every day that planners carve out a serious proposal for high-speed rail in Texas. It’s been almost nine years since the last one fizzled, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Perhaps the latest attempt to connect the state’s largest cities by rail can best be described as medium rare.
How else would you describe a rail service known as the Texas T-Bone?
The idea is fundamentally similar to the failed 1993-94 attempt to create the Texas Triangle to serve the Metroplex, Houston and San Antonio.
Only this time, those cities (as well as Austin, Bryan/College Station and Killeen) would be connected by a T-shaped rail line.
The proposal started out under the moniker Brazos Express Corridor, but as support for the idea spread from Texas A&M University to Killeen and Houston, the plan evolved into the T-Bone.
Supporters of the T-Bone say they will take time out of this week’s Texas Transportation Summit in Irving to discuss the plan with colleagues from neighboring cities.
They say the idea originated with Gov. Rick Perry’s conceptual Trans Texas Corridor, which calls for a web of high-speed rails to be built across the state alongside toll roads. But there are differences.
The T-Bone would be for rail use only and would bring the trains all the way into urban areas – the governor’s plan would require local governments to extend their transit systems out to the corridor.
T-Bone supporters say the idea is an improvement over the triangle plan because it requires only 530 miles of track, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars (the triangle plan would have required 790 miles).
Who would be served by the rail line?
— 70 percent of the state’s population.
— 15 universities.
— 10 airports and the Port of Houston.
— 10 toll road and transit authorities.
— Seven military installations.
The old triangle plan would have cost an estimated $5 billion or more. The cost of the T-Bone has not been calculated, but supporters say it would be funded by private investors.
Officials in Bryan/College Station, Houston and parts of Central Texas are already aboard. Next stop in the lobbying effort: Fort Worth, Dallas and San Antonio.