DALLAS — A seven-member panel studying high-speed rail service in north Texas plans to seek federal funding to begin development work on a line between Austin and Fort Worth, with possible extensions to Monterrey, Mexico and Oklahoma City.
The Commission for High-Speed Rail in Dallas/Fort Worth last week voted unanimously to apply for a $3 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration for a route study. The north Texas rail panel was created earlier this year by the Texas Transportation Commission.
The proposed 200-mile line would parallel Interstate 35, with a possible stop in Waco, Texas. The line could later be extended to north to Oklahoma City and south to San Antonio and Laredo, Texas. Eventually, a segment across the international border at Laredo would terminate at the industrial city of Monterrey in northern Mexico.
Extending the proposed intrastate high-speed rail line into Mexico and across the Red River into Oklahoma could help the project qualify for federal funding, said Bill Meadows, chairman of the commission and a former Fort Worth city councilman.
"What began as a fuzzy concept is beginning to take shape and form," Meadows said at the commission's meeting in Dallas.
Meanwhile, the rail commission will use an earlier federal grant to study a bullet train link from Fort Worth to Dallas to connect the Austin-Fort Worth system with a privately financed high-speed line between Houston and Dallas. That 230-mile segment is expected to be completed by Texas Central Railway in 2021.
The cost of the proposed 30-mile high-speed connection between Fort Worth and Dallas, with a stop at the sports and entertainment district in Arlington, is estimated to cost $2.5 billion to $4 billion.
Construction of the San Antonio-Fort Worth high-speed rail line is years away, said Peter LeCody, president of the Dallas-based Texas Rail Advocates group, but the route study is a good start.
"There are plenty of signs that we're finally becoming a multimodal society in Texas," LeCody said, noting that Texas Department of Transportation did not even have a rail division until 2009.
There are no cost estimates yet for the proposed rail segment, he said, except that it will cost billions of dollars. The state may consider several options to help finance the project, LeCody said.
"It could lead to a private enterprise, a public-private partnership, or an all-public venture," he said.
Texas Department of Transportation has an 18-month study under way on the feasibility of a number of high-speed rail corridors in the state, said deputy executive director John Barton.
"The population of Texas is estimated to be doubling between now and the year 2050," Barton said. "We can't build our way out of those challenges with more roads and bridges only."
Ted Houghton, chairman of Texas Transportation Commission, said he was confident the Houston-Dallas proposal will become a reality. There will be a single stop at College Station between the two cities, he said.
The privately financed Houston-to-Dallas rail line that Texas Central Railway intends to build is expected to cost $10 billion. The company is working with Japan Central Railway Co. to use the same bullet train technology as the Japanese company uses on its high-speed line between Tokyo and Osaka.
The Houston-Dallas line will generate enough revenue to cover operating costs from the first day of service, said Robert Eckels, president of the Texas Central Railway and former chairman of the Harris County Toll Road Authority.
"We believe the market will support this project," said Eckels. "We have investors and lenders who believe that as well. We're not seeking state or federal grants or operating subsidies."
