April 22, 2025 • 26 mins
The saga of high-speed rail in Texas takes another dramatic turn as the Trump administration revokes $60 million in funding previously allocated to Amtrak for the Texas Central project. Despite this setback, we explore why the Dallas-Houston line might actually be closer to reality than ever before.
• Texas high-speed rail initiatives date back to the 1990s when Southwest Airlines played a significant role in derailing early efforts
• Texas Central, the current iteration of the project, would connect Dallas to Houston in 90 minutes using trains capable of 205 mph
• After years of lawsuits, Texas Central gained crucial eminent domain authority by being classified as a utility
• Amtrak briefly took over the project in 2024 before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pulled federal funding
• A private investment firm, Kleinheinz Capital Partners, has stepped in as lead investor just one day after federal funding was withdrawn
• The project could potentially be finalized by year-end with construction taking approximately 80-86 months
• Despite organized opposition groups like "Texans Against High Speed Rail," the project now has all legal frameworks in place
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
My stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
Is high speed rail in Texas deadafter the Trump administration
just revoked over $60 million infunding, or is the project
(00:25):
actually closer to happening nowthan it ever was before?
We'll break down the history ofhigh-speed rail proposals in
Texas, recent news on the topicand where things stand today
coming up on Transit Tangents.
Hey everybody and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
covering a topic that has verymuch been in the news the last
couple weeks.
(00:45):
Here we're going to be mostlyfocusing on Texas Central, which
is the high-speed rail projectthat has had a very big
rollercoaster history over thelast 30 years.
Basically, this is high-speedrail connecting Dallas to
Houston, one of the many, many,many things kind of caught up in
all of the chaos surroundingthe Trump administration, with
(01:07):
some things being on and thenoff and this being legal and
then illegal, and it's been verychaotic, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, chaos is definitely the theme of the year
, and so we do want to say werecognize that there is a lot of
bad stuff happening right nowout there in the country and a
lot of it is being driven byTrump, and we recognize that
this is not the worst thing outthere and the worst issue.
So please don't take it thatway.
But we're trying not to beoverly political on the podcast,
(01:35):
so we're going to keep ittransit-focused for this one and
get into the discussion aboutTexas high-speed rail.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, and you know, while a lot of the headlines
have kind of been surroundingthat, like you know, Texas
Central is now dead after grantfunding for kind of getting
things back on track with Amtrakhas been cut and Amtrak is no
longer part of the process.
We'll get into the details ofthat a little bit later.
I actually do think that thereis a glimmer of hope in that
this project isn't fully dead.
(02:01):
So stick around, We'll kind ofget into some kind of breaking
news.
There was an article I read thatcame out this morning.
We're recording this on Friday,April 18th.
It came out this morning.
That left me slightly moreoptimistic than I was a few days
ago hearing this news.
But to kind of start off, we'regoing to give you an idea.
We're going to go over thehistory of all of the
initiatives for Texas High SpeedRail Amtrak's involvement, how
(02:24):
Sean Duffy, the newTransportation Secretary, has
kind of been reacting to this,as well as the private partner
that is seemingly taking overthe project.
So to kind of kick off thehistory segment here, the
formalized concept of high speedrail in Texas, believe it or
not, started with the creationof the Texas High Speed Rail
Authority, which was formed inthe Texas legislature, believe
(02:45):
it or not, started with thecreation of the Texas high speed
rail authority, which wasformed in the Texas legislature.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
At that time the legislature was a little bit
more balanced betweenRepublicans and Democrats, and
when this was first introducedas the Texas high speed rail
authority, it had bipartisansupport.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Which, again, if you know anything about the Texas
legislature today, they arewildly anti-transit for the most
part, to the point where youknow we've kind of covered it
before.
If you look back at any of ourepisodes speaking with folks
from the Dallas area transitalliance and whatnot, there's a
lot going on there.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And now a complete imbalance of power.
Yes, absolutely, which we'llnot get?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
into in this one.
No, no, no.
But anyway, the Texas HighSpeed Rail Authority was formed
and it actually startedreceiving bids from companies
around the world, from countriesaround the world including in
Spain and France and all theseplaces that had actually been
building high speed rail at thetime to actually complete this
(03:40):
project.
Now, if you know anything aboutthe history of this, weirdly an
airline comes into play here.
I wouldn't even say weirdly.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It just makes sense that an airline would come into
play here.
It does Because, like you hearthis all the time you hear like
one of the biggest lobbyinggroups against high speed rail
in the country are airlines.
And I do believe it because,especially where airlines make
their money on some shortflights, like short distance
flights, those could easily bereplaced with trains Right, and
at the time Southwest Airlineshad a major emphasis.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They still do today in Texas, specifically in the
Texas Triangle, with a lot offlights between Austin, Houston,
Dallas, San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's how it literally started.
On their napkins on the plane,they show you where they
sketched out the initial routeand it was like San Antonio,
dallas, houston, san Antonio.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So Southwest Airlines , being the entirely good faith
actors that they were in this,had a lot of sway in the Texas
legislature at this point andthey used that power to
essentially help to choose whichpartner was going to be
selected to actually go aheadand build this.
And, being the good faithpartner that they are, of course
(04:46):
, they went ahead and chosesomebody who would be entirely
reliable and able to go aheadand build this.
So I actually found an articlethat is going to explain it
better than we will, so I'llactually go ahead and read it.
This is from Fast Company fromabout a year and a half ago,
kind of giving a little bit of ahistory of this.
So, quote they were not realexcited about the project
because at that time, in 1990,the Texas market was a much
(05:09):
bigger part of their financialunderpinnings than it is today,
said Alan Rutter, a researchscientist at the Texas
Transportation Institute whoserved as the Texas High-Speed
Rail Authority's deputyexecutive director in the 1990s.
A Southwest spokesperson saidthe airline doesn't take issue
at all with high-speed railprojects.
Quote Southwest has yet toidentify a rail project that has
not collapsed under its ownfinancial weight without
(05:31):
taxpayer subsidies.
The spokesperson said in astatement Back in 1994, the
French company that won theTexas high-speed rail franchise,
train-a-grand-vitesi,definitely saying that wrong.
You know you are taking Germanand not French, not French
correct yes and Vitessedefinitely saying that wrong.
You know, you are taking Germanand not French.
Not French, correct?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
yes, Failed to meet a financial deadline and shortly
thereafter, with no operator.
The state's high-speed railmovement petered out.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Womp womp Using your sound effect Womp womp.
Yeah, so not the best scenarioto play out there.
And yeah, I mean they don'tcome out right out and say it.
But essentially SouthwestAirlines did what they could to
make sure that this projectwould never get off the ground.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that
if we had had high-speed railfinished in the 90s between
Houston and Dallas, we wouldhave had at least another line
to Austin San Antonio or AustinSan Antonio Dallas.
Yeah, I think Texas would beprobably pretty close in
population and GDP to California.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I think so too, and I can't help but think about how
those cities would havedeveloped differently as well,
the impacts it would have had onthose cities' public transit
systems, especially back then.
I mean, Texas was growing backthen, but it would have beat the
hyper growth that we've seen inthe last decade or so.
It'd be an entirely differentplace.
It's a little sad to thinkabout actually.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
But it could be the future, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Very well, it's never too late to kind of go through
and do this.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, absolutely not.
So all of this happened in the90s.
The project sort of floppedright.
High-speed rail has stillcontinued to be part of the
conversation for a very longtime.
Politics obviously have shiftedin the state of Texas.
We're now a very Republicanstate and the Republicans today
are a little more anti-transit.
However, the latest project,which we now call Texas Central,
(07:21):
was introduced about 12 yearsago and would still follow the
same path Houston to Dallas,with a stop in the Brazos Valley
and then maybe a spur to Austin.
It's on some plans.
Sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, for the initial trend, texas Central it's
mostly just Houston to Dallas.
I don't think there's going tobe any serious discussion about
the others, although we did havea really great conversation on
a previous episode with TravisCounty, which is where Austin is
located, the Travis Countyjudge, andy Brown, who has been
kind of spearheading efforts,meeting with other county
(07:56):
officials, city officials inmultiple cities throughout Texas
about more rail initiatives,including rail between Austin
and San Antonio to Dallas andwhatnot.
So there is a movement there,but Texas Central is much
further along, we'll say, thanthe others.
The exciting thing about TexasCentral too I mean the plans
during this era talked aboutusing Shinkansen trains for real
(08:19):
high-speed rail with speeds upto 205 miles per hour, which is
amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Would essentially connect Dallas to Houston in
about 90 minutes, versus.
If you just kind of look atGoogle Maps at a random time,
the drive time is somewherearound three and a half hours,
Although I'm sure that that,with us having a lot of
experience recently driving backand forth to Dallas, we had a
what should be a what three hourtrip to Dallas Should be about
three hours and it took us five.
(08:48):
Yeah, it was.
It's not not great.
So the your your results mayvary on the highway at three and
a half hours, whereas yourresults in a high speed train is
basically going to be 90minutes every time.
So also.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Texas geography is just set up for a high speed
train.
We don't have seismic activity.
The land, especially in thispart of Texas, is incredibly
flat, and so you can essentiallymake a straight line.
Also, this land between Houstonand Dallas is pretty rural as
well.
So, yes, you're going to havesmall towns that are going to be
impacted, but for the most part, you're going through farmland.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Right, and while you would think that that would not
cause a lot of controversy, itis actually kind of what
hampered a lot of this along theway.
Texas Central, from the start,was just lawsuit after lawsuit
after lawsuit, a lot of it inregards to landowners and
whatnot, kind of along the way.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Texas has very strong property rights laws, and so
eminent domain, especiallyoutside of the larger cities, is
incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yes, To give a little bit of a timeline on Texas
Central, though.
So this is kind of like phasetwo of the Texas high-speed rail
initiatives, the first onebeing what we kind of first
explained, which was killed bySouthwest Airlines.
This is kind of phase two, sothis was really kind of got
started around 2013, 2014, whereyou had these proposals coming
forward and believe it or not, Iactually didn't know this until
(10:03):
when I was pulling the researchtogether on this this was
actually in 2017, listed as apriority under the new, at the
time, trump administrationduring his first term, as one of
the kind of transportationprojects that they wanted to
happen as part of, you know, theinfrastructure bill that
famously never happened, soultimately didn't get done right
(10:24):
then at the time, from 2017 to2020.
There were tons of designs andthen a build contract, and then
something changes and anotherlawsuit, and it was just very
much in limbo.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, and like the lawsuits in Texas, a lot of it
was over the eminent domain.
It took a ruling by a Texasjudge to declare that Texas
Central as a railroad authorityis technically a utility, which
gave them the ability topurchase property instead of
just being a private companypurchasing property.
So a lot of hurdles they had toovercome.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, absolutely.
Unfortunately, even though theyeventually did get that eminent
domain authority after therewas the Texas Supreme Court that
actually went up to in thatcase, it wasn't enough.
At the end of 2022, the CEO ofTexas Central stepped down and
things just went quiet, veryquiet.
Nothing happened for a while,which was pretty interesting for
(11:18):
it to get this new authority.
At that point, they just kindof lose steam.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, but then about that time we did see a little
rumbling of discussion whenAmtrak entered the conversation.
This was in 2023.
They began looking into theproject and by 2024 Amtrak
officially took it over and gavean estimate of about 30 billion
(11:44):
dollars to build this out.
This would have been huge.
It would have been their firstreal high-speed project.
Their higher-speed project isthe Acela in the Northeast, so
this would have been a greatsort of intro for Amtrak to try
high-speed at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Totally, and there was a lot of discussion back and
forth and eventually, inSeptember of 2024, a $64 million
grant was allocated toessentially revive the project
and have Amtrak fully take it on.
Now, obviously, that $64million is not the $30 billion
to build it, but it is, you know, essentially to get operational
again as a business, becauseagain in 2022, it kind of
(12:21):
fizzled out.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And also the $30 billion sounds like a lot, but
like, how much do we spend onhighway maintenance in this
state?
It's insane right, it's insane.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
We won't even blink spending $10 billion on much
smaller segments of highway inTexas On just building an
intersection.
Exactly.
So right, that's.
A good point to point out isthat in Texas, we're willing to
spend that kind of money all thetime.
Actually, I want to look atwhat is the amount that they
spend every year.
All right, so I looked it upand this was from 2022.
(12:52):
Txdot spent $18 billion in 2022alone.
This project is going to takeyears to build and $30 billion
for the upfront investment.
It's not bad at all,considering it would be
connecting the two largestcities in the state of Texas.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So yeah, so it is 2025.
And where does this projectstand now?
Well, it is still a rollercoaster of twists and turns and
changes that we did not expect.
For this year, amtrak didinitiate an RFQ process for
building Texas Central, didinitiate an RFQ process for
(13:27):
building Texas Central.
Rfq, for those who aren'tfamiliar, is a request for
qualifications, request forsorry, I feel like I said
koalifications, koalifications,koalifications, damn it.
Oh, I have an image of a koalawith a hard hat and like a
hammer.
What that means is thatcompanies will sort of submit
(13:48):
their qualifications and sort ofa history of if they've been
able to build these projects,what it would take to do this.
It's not quite a request forproposal stage, which is a
little bit more serious, whereyou're actually ready to give
out a contract.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This is sort of the pre-stage to that Right and
people who make it through thisRFQ process.
Then we'll be able to submit anRFP to be able to actually
build the project we got throughit Chris, we got through it.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Koalas and all.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So in February, when this announcement was made, it
was big news, I mean, at thetime, amtrak making this
announcement, that they'reopening this up.
It's like Amtrak is gettingready to build its own rail
project under the Trumpadministration which, if you've
listened to us, I mean we'vekind of been talking about the
fact that you know, at bestAmtrak is going to just kind of
(14:36):
stay flat over the next fewyears.
They're not going to get any newinvestment, but like we're
optimistic that things weren'tgoing to be cut, I don't know
anymore what the heck is goingon there, but we were saying
that you know, if there wasgoing to be any rail expansion
in the United States, it wasgoing to come from the private
industry.
And here was Amtrak announcingthat they were taking these
steps forward and a largeaccount online that I'm sure
(14:57):
many of you are familiar withYimbyland.
A lot of people love them, alot of people hate them.
People have strong feelingsabout Yimbyland, as we've
learned.
But Yimbyland tweets this outand it goes super viral on
Twitter and everyone's goingcrazy and talking about this and
all of a sudden, the Yimbylandtweet about this, with the kind
(15:19):
of press release from Amtrak,gets a reply from Elon Musk with
.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't know what the name of this emoji is, but it's
kind of the like putting yourwhat don't know what the name of
this emoji is, but it's kind ofthe like putting your what
would you call it Like athinking emoji.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
A thinking emoji a skeptical emoji, skeptical emoji
and people start to lose it.
The discourse Even Yimbyland atthe time posted something along
the lines saying like either AI just made sure that this
project is going to happen, or BI just killed it.
What are the other?
And folks went wild with thisand we basically didn't hear
(15:54):
anything for a little about sixweeks until literally last week
from when we were recording thison.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
April 14th.
Yeah, so then on April 14th,sean Duffy our not BFF Reston
Pete, our not BFF transportationsecretary, put out a press
release, effectively killingTexas Central at least killing
Amtrak's involvement in TexasCentral.
Now Amtrak's already goingthrough a lot.
(16:25):
Right now.
The head of Amtrak has steppeddown, there's all the
discussions about privatizationand everything else that's
happening.
So, like you said, we knew thatthis wasn't necessarily going
to come from Amtrak until theystarted talking about it, but
now it definitely seals the deal.
Sean Duffy, in his pressconference, put out a quote that
said that this was a waste oftaxpayer funds and a distraction
(16:49):
from Amtrak's core mission ofimproving its existing subpar
service.
Wow, that's a lot of faith inour rail network from our
secretary of transportation.
I can't talk today.
Yeah, it's so frustrating.
It is so frustrating becauseAmtrak, by all metrics, is doing
(17:10):
very well and has continued tolook toward expansion and it's
all being cheered.
Amtrak is looking toward aprofitable future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Things are trending in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
There is hope there and the way we get there is by
more funding of Amtrak andinvesting in it.
Of course, they're going tohave subpar service if we're not
investing in it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Right, yes, and when this came out, people were
obviously very disappointed.
A lot of big transit accountsonline and folks who work in the
space and whatnot are all kindof saying Texas Central is dead.
Hilariously, a lot of blame isbeing placed on yimby land
online, which is insane, likeokay, maybe like it put it on
(17:52):
elon musk's radar, but Iguarantee you know it was going
to come up in theadministration's radar right.
Um, just kind of a funny littleanecdote there.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's not like the main point of this, but it is
pretty funny um and see I tookit as elon musk, looking at it
and saying, hmm, maybe I canbuild a Tesla tunnel.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We don't need to talk about Tesla.
Actually, we need to do a.
I would like to go to Vegas andride in the silly little tube,
just to go see it.
We can laugh and point at it.
Anyway, everyone generally issaying this is dead, this is
dead.
This is dead Literally the nextday after April 14th.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Since.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
April 15th, a new plan essentially emerges and we
had this article from the FortWorth report.
I'm going to just read it fromit.
Kleinheinz Capital Partners Inc.
Of Fort Worth, the leadinvestor in Texas Central, said
it was quote proud to havestepped in as the private sector
sponsor of the Texas High SpeedRail and today's announcement
is good news for the overallproject.
(18:51):
We agree with Secretary Duffythat the project should be led
by the private sector sponsor ofthe Texas High Speed Rail and
today's announcement is goodnews for the overall project.
We agree with Secretary Duffythat the project should be led
by the private sector and we'llbe proud to take it forward.
The company said in a statement.
The project is shovel-ready andwill create significant new jobs
and economic growth for Texasas part of President Trump's
efforts to boost the US economy.
So a private partner is nowinvolved again in this project.
(19:14):
So to kind of recap, I mean itwas kind of a public-private-y
thing back in the 90s.
It was then a private industrypush earlier, then it was Amtrak
.
Now we're back to private tokind of complete the roller
coaster.
So far, something tells methere'll be more bumps in this
road.
So pretty interesting that youknow a day apart, this private
(19:35):
partner is there.
That kind of does tell me thatmaybe there was a discussion
ahead of time as they were doingthis, again not surprising at
all to either of us.
I don't think that the Trumpadministration is leaning more
towards a private company to dothis versus doing it via Amtrak.
But if I'm being honest, I waslike pretty skeptical about it.
(19:56):
But an article that came outliterally this morning I noticed
it as I was kind of puttingfinishing touches on this from
Mass Transit Magazine left mefeeling a little bit more
optimistic.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, there were quotes from the Texas Central
rep that said things could getfinalized by the end of the year
, followed by a certain periodof a construction period.
So we're just going to go aheadand read this article.
We're not prepared to say go,but the schedule would look as
follows If we said go, we thinkit'll roughly take six months to
complete the kind offinalization of the planning
effort and that involves lookingat the road, looking at the
(20:29):
utilities and looking at all ofthe disruption that's going to
take place over the 240 milesegment.
And that was from gint.
Who's the representative fromtexas central.
During that time period wewould be working on the
financing, we'd be working onthe application for the surface
transportation board finalpermit and we would anticipate
that we can get that stuff done,let's say by the end of the
(20:49):
year.
The representative added if allof that stuff is approved by
the end of this year, the buildschedule we think will take
between 80 and 86 months.
So essentially in six monthsthey think they can pull
together the financing andfinalize the plans which like
that does sound prettyoptimistic to me.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Now he did say like we're not ready to say go right
now, so like that end of theyear timeline, probably not
there, unless they finally youknow, I would call that not
shovel ready, yeah, yeah I agree, I would say not shovel ready.
Yes, that's a that's a goodpoint.
But I will say, though therehas been so much freaking
planning for this project, likethey should be pretty close now
(21:28):
you were saying earlier likethey do not own all of the land
yet about 30 30%.
Right, but they do have this.
If it's still all happeningunder Texas Central, they do
have eminent domain authority.
So hypothetically, I mean therewill be more lawsuits.
Of course, that's like thestory of every transit project
in the United States at thispoint, which is ridiculous.
But they hypothetically haveall the tools that they need.
Yeah, they have the courtsbacking, yeah.
(21:49):
So they hypothetically have allthe tools that they need.
Yeah, they have the courtsbacking.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, they don't really need the legislature at
this point, unless thelegislature tries to step in and
kill this.
Yeah, they have the financingapparently.
Yeah, they have models to lookat, like Brightline and other
projects in the country that areon time and doing well, so it
seems like all of theingredients may finally be there
.
Right, this seems closer todaythan maybe it seemed at any
(22:16):
other point that we've talkedabout this, or maybe in the last
15 years.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes and no.
I mean, I think that there wasa point, like during the end of
the Biden administration, where,like Amtrak had just gotten the
$64 million grant and whatnot,that if it were going to happen
that way it could happen, and Ido think that had Kamala Harris
won the election, there could bea plan moving forward with
Amtrak here.
Obviously, that is not reality,and what is reality is that
(22:41):
this is now kind of under thisprivate model.
Now I do think that the Trumpadministration is going to want
to point to projects that weredone by the private industry,
that got done in a reasonabletime frame, and I think
Brightline West is one of them,that they're already kind of
queuing up.
Not that they were the ones whogot that started or anything,
it obviously wasn't.
(23:02):
It was, you know, a lot ofmoney passed through the Biden
administration.
But they're going to tap privateindustry on this Exactly and I
think that they're going to wantto see it succeed.
And I think they're going towant to see Brightline West
succeed.
I think that this is anotherone they're going to want to see
succeed so that they can pointto it and say look at this
compared to Californiahigh-speed rail.
As much as I don't want them tojust continue picking on
California high-speed rail we'vedone our fair share of picking
on California high-speed rail,everyone has but I think that
(23:25):
they're going to want to seethis succeed.
So it could be a good thing forthe project, which is a long
way to get there.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, I agree it's a long way to get there.
It's not necessarily the way Iwanted to see this play out, but
if this is the way it happensand it finally actually happens,
fine, all for it.
Yeah, let's just get it done.
That's the biggest thing,because as soon as we can get
Austin or, excuse me, as soon aswe can get Houston to Dallas
done and it looks feasible, thena spur to Austin or, you know,
(23:55):
san Antonio, to Dallas orsomething, is that much more
feasible.
So, totally you know what?
Let's just get it done.
If it's shovel ready I will gobuy the shovel Right, let's just
go start breaking ground.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Let's do it.
And again, I think you know itis really exciting what this
could lead to because, like yousaid, once you see this stretch
under construction, the rest oftexas is going to want a part of
it as well.
I do think it would lead to,you know, options of like
actually completing a texastriangle or texas t-bone.
There's a whole lot ofdifferent opportunities out
there.
There are government officialswho are excited about those
(24:26):
things happening.
Like we mentioned, we've talkedwith uh travis, county judge
andy.
There are other representativesin cities in San Antonio and
Austin and Dallas and elsewherewho want this to happen.
So I think getting this donewill be there.
But actually I haven't shown youthis.
We'll kind of end it on this,but I don't know, because there
are groups that are just beingformed fully to be like Texans
(24:48):
against high speed rail.
I saw this on Twitter the otherday from Urban Cowboy on
Twitter We'll put a link to thetweet here and he just said how
is this even real?
And it is at the statehouseTexans Against High Speed Rail
had a table set up the other day, so pretty wild that these
(25:09):
groups exist.
Yeah, pretty gross.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Why wild that these groups exist?
Yeah, pretty gross.
Why, like what's?
Why do you roll out of bed andsay you know what I want?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
to do?
I want to make sure peoplecan't get around.
Yep, like it's just dumb.
I want people to be forced toonly get around by a car.
I don't want people to havefreedom of choice.
That's.
That's where I think we shouldkind of we can kind of wrap this
one up.
So long long story short.
Texas Central High Speed Railin Texas has had a very rocky
roller coaster ride.
That ride is still continuing.
(25:43):
We'll kind of keep folksupdated on this project and see
ultimately where it goes.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
By the end of it, maybe it is a roller coaster
ride.
Just get a Six Flags straightshot roller coaster.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
That would be fun.
If you haven't liked this videoalready, please consider doing
so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
Also, we definitely want tohear your thoughts on this.
I know people have a lot ofthoughts on this topic.
You might disagree with some ofwhat we said.
Agree, let us know in the showdirectly by checking out our
merch store I'm wearing a funTransit Tangents shirt right now
.
We've got sweatshirts, shirts,all sorts of stuff in there or
(26:16):
support the show directly viaPatreon, where you get access to
some bonus content, episodesearly, things like that.
With all that being said,though, thank you all so much
for watching and enjoy the restof your Transit Tangents Tuesday
.
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
My stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind.
Public transit, it's the rhythmof my life.
Is high speed rail in Texas deadafter the Trump administration
just revoked over $60 million infunding, or is the project
(00:25):
actually closer to happening nowthan it ever was before?
We'll break down the history ofhigh-speed rail proposals in
Texas, recent news on the topicand where things stand today
coming up on Transit Tangents.
Hey everybody and welcome tothis episode of Transit Tangents
.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
covering a topic that has verymuch been in the news the last
couple weeks.
(00:45):
Here we're going to be mostlyfocusing on Texas Central, which
is the high-speed rail projectthat has had a very big
rollercoaster history over thelast 30 years.
Basically, this is high-speedrail connecting Dallas to
Houston, one of the many, many,many things kind of caught up in
all of the chaos surroundingthe Trump administration, with
(01:07):
some things being on and thenoff and this being legal and
then illegal, and it's been verychaotic, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, chaos is definitely the theme of the year
, and so we do want to say werecognize that there is a lot of
bad stuff happening right nowout there in the country and a
lot of it is being driven byTrump, and we recognize that
this is not the worst thing outthere and the worst issue.
So please don't take it thatway.
But we're trying not to beoverly political on the podcast,
(01:35):
so we're going to keep ittransit-focused for this one and
get into the discussion aboutTexas high-speed rail.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, and you know, while a lot of the headlines
have kind of been surroundingthat, like you know, Texas
Central is now dead after grantfunding for kind of getting
things back on track with Amtrakhas been cut and Amtrak is no
longer part of the process.
We'll get into the details ofthat a little bit later.
I actually do think that thereis a glimmer of hope in that
this project isn't fully dead.
(02:01):
So stick around, We'll kind ofget into some kind of breaking
news.
There was an article I read thatcame out this morning.
We're recording this on Friday,April 18th.
It came out this morning.
That left me slightly moreoptimistic than I was a few days
ago hearing this news.
But to kind of start off, we'regoing to give you an idea.
We're going to go over thehistory of all of the
initiatives for Texas High SpeedRail Amtrak's involvement, how
(02:24):
Sean Duffy, the newTransportation Secretary, has
kind of been reacting to this,as well as the private partner
that is seemingly taking overthe project.
So to kind of kick off thehistory segment here, the
formalized concept of high speedrail in Texas, believe it or
not, started with the creationof the Texas High Speed Rail
Authority, which was formed inthe Texas legislature, believe
(02:45):
it or not, started with thecreation of the Texas high speed
rail authority, which wasformed in the Texas legislature.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
At that time the legislature was a little bit
more balanced betweenRepublicans and Democrats, and
when this was first introducedas the Texas high speed rail
authority, it had bipartisansupport.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Which, again, if you know anything about the Texas
legislature today, they arewildly anti-transit for the most
part, to the point where youknow we've kind of covered it
before.
If you look back at any of ourepisodes speaking with folks
from the Dallas area transitalliance and whatnot, there's a
lot going on there.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And now a complete imbalance of power.
Yes, absolutely, which we'llnot get?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
into in this one.
No, no, no.
But anyway, the Texas HighSpeed Rail Authority was formed
and it actually startedreceiving bids from companies
around the world, from countriesaround the world including in
Spain and France and all theseplaces that had actually been
building high speed rail at thetime to actually complete this
(03:40):
project.
Now, if you know anything aboutthe history of this, weirdly an
airline comes into play here.
I wouldn't even say weirdly.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It just makes sense that an airline would come into
play here.
It does Because, like you hearthis all the time you hear like
one of the biggest lobbyinggroups against high speed rail
in the country are airlines.
And I do believe it because,especially where airlines make
their money on some shortflights, like short distance
flights, those could easily bereplaced with trains Right, and
at the time Southwest Airlineshad a major emphasis.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They still do today in Texas, specifically in the
Texas Triangle, with a lot offlights between Austin, Houston,
Dallas, San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's how it literally started.
On their napkins on the plane,they show you where they
sketched out the initial routeand it was like San Antonio,
dallas, houston, san Antonio.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So Southwest Airlines , being the entirely good faith
actors that they were in this,had a lot of sway in the Texas
legislature at this point andthey used that power to
essentially help to choose whichpartner was going to be
selected to actually go aheadand build this.
And, being the good faithpartner that they are, of course
(04:46):
, they went ahead and chosesomebody who would be entirely
reliable and able to go aheadand build this.
So I actually found an articlethat is going to explain it
better than we will, so I'llactually go ahead and read it.
This is from Fast Company fromabout a year and a half ago,
kind of giving a little bit of ahistory of this.
So, quote they were not realexcited about the project
because at that time, in 1990,the Texas market was a much
(05:09):
bigger part of their financialunderpinnings than it is today,
said Alan Rutter, a researchscientist at the Texas
Transportation Institute whoserved as the Texas High-Speed
Rail Authority's deputyexecutive director in the 1990s.
A Southwest spokesperson saidthe airline doesn't take issue
at all with high-speed railprojects.
Quote Southwest has yet toidentify a rail project that has
not collapsed under its ownfinancial weight without
(05:31):
taxpayer subsidies.
The spokesperson said in astatement Back in 1994, the
French company that won theTexas high-speed rail franchise,
train-a-grand-vitesi,definitely saying that wrong.
You know you are taking Germanand not French, not French
correct yes and Vitessedefinitely saying that wrong.
You know, you are taking Germanand not French.
Not French, correct?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
yes, Failed to meet a financial deadline and shortly
thereafter, with no operator.
The state's high-speed railmovement petered out.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Womp womp Using your sound effect Womp womp.
Yeah, so not the best scenarioto play out there.
And yeah, I mean they don'tcome out right out and say it.
But essentially SouthwestAirlines did what they could to
make sure that this projectwould never get off the ground.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that
if we had had high-speed railfinished in the 90s between
Houston and Dallas, we wouldhave had at least another line
to Austin San Antonio or AustinSan Antonio Dallas.
Yeah, I think Texas would beprobably pretty close in
population and GDP to California.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I think so too, and I can't help but think about how
those cities would havedeveloped differently as well,
the impacts it would have had onthose cities' public transit
systems, especially back then.
I mean, Texas was growing backthen, but it would have beat the
hyper growth that we've seen inthe last decade or so.
It'd be an entirely differentplace.
It's a little sad to thinkabout actually.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
But it could be the future, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Very well, it's never too late to kind of go through
and do this.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, absolutely not.
So all of this happened in the90s.
The project sort of floppedright.
High-speed rail has stillcontinued to be part of the
conversation for a very longtime.
Politics obviously have shiftedin the state of Texas.
We're now a very Republicanstate and the Republicans today
are a little more anti-transit.
However, the latest project,which we now call Texas Central,
(07:21):
was introduced about 12 yearsago and would still follow the
same path Houston to Dallas,with a stop in the Brazos Valley
and then maybe a spur to Austin.
It's on some plans.
Sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, for the initial trend, texas Central it's
mostly just Houston to Dallas.
I don't think there's going tobe any serious discussion about
the others, although we did havea really great conversation on
a previous episode with TravisCounty, which is where Austin is
located, the Travis Countyjudge, andy Brown, who has been
kind of spearheading efforts,meeting with other county
(07:56):
officials, city officials inmultiple cities throughout Texas
about more rail initiatives,including rail between Austin
and San Antonio to Dallas andwhatnot.
So there is a movement there,but Texas Central is much
further along, we'll say, thanthe others.
The exciting thing about TexasCentral too I mean the plans
during this era talked aboutusing Shinkansen trains for real
(08:19):
high-speed rail with speeds upto 205 miles per hour, which is
amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Would essentially connect Dallas to Houston in
about 90 minutes, versus.
If you just kind of look atGoogle Maps at a random time,
the drive time is somewherearound three and a half hours,
Although I'm sure that that,with us having a lot of
experience recently driving backand forth to Dallas, we had a
what should be a what three hourtrip to Dallas Should be about
three hours and it took us five.
(08:48):
Yeah, it was.
It's not not great.
So the your your results mayvary on the highway at three and
a half hours, whereas yourresults in a high speed train is
basically going to be 90minutes every time.
So also.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Texas geography is just set up for a high speed
train.
We don't have seismic activity.
The land, especially in thispart of Texas, is incredibly
flat, and so you can essentiallymake a straight line.
Also, this land between Houstonand Dallas is pretty rural as
well.
So, yes, you're going to havesmall towns that are going to be
impacted, but for the most part, you're going through farmland.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Right, and while you would think that that would not
cause a lot of controversy, itis actually kind of what
hampered a lot of this along theway.
Texas Central, from the start,was just lawsuit after lawsuit
after lawsuit, a lot of it inregards to landowners and
whatnot, kind of along the way.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Texas has very strong property rights laws, and so
eminent domain, especiallyoutside of the larger cities, is
incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yes, To give a little bit of a timeline on Texas
Central, though.
So this is kind of like phasetwo of the Texas high-speed rail
initiatives, the first onebeing what we kind of first
explained, which was killed bySouthwest Airlines.
This is kind of phase two, sothis was really kind of got
started around 2013, 2014, whereyou had these proposals coming
forward and believe it or not, Iactually didn't know this until
(10:03):
when I was pulling the researchtogether on this this was
actually in 2017, listed as apriority under the new, at the
time, trump administrationduring his first term, as one of
the kind of transportationprojects that they wanted to
happen as part of, you know, theinfrastructure bill that
famously never happened, soultimately didn't get done right
(10:24):
then at the time, from 2017 to2020.
There were tons of designs andthen a build contract, and then
something changes and anotherlawsuit, and it was just very
much in limbo.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah, and like the lawsuits in Texas, a lot of it
was over the eminent domain.
It took a ruling by a Texasjudge to declare that Texas
Central as a railroad authorityis technically a utility, which
gave them the ability topurchase property instead of
just being a private companypurchasing property.
So a lot of hurdles they had toovercome.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, absolutely.
Unfortunately, even though theyeventually did get that eminent
domain authority after therewas the Texas Supreme Court that
actually went up to in thatcase, it wasn't enough.
At the end of 2022, the CEO ofTexas Central stepped down and
things just went quiet, veryquiet.
Nothing happened for a while,which was pretty interesting for
(11:18):
it to get this new authority.
At that point, they just kindof lose steam.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, but then about that time we did see a little
rumbling of discussion whenAmtrak entered the conversation.
This was in 2023.
They began looking into theproject and by 2024 Amtrak
officially took it over and gavean estimate of about 30 billion
(11:44):
dollars to build this out.
This would have been huge.
It would have been their firstreal high-speed project.
Their higher-speed project isthe Acela in the Northeast, so
this would have been a greatsort of intro for Amtrak to try
high-speed at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Totally, and there was a lot of discussion back and
forth and eventually, inSeptember of 2024, a $64 million
grant was allocated toessentially revive the project
and have Amtrak fully take it on.
Now, obviously, that $64million is not the $30 billion
to build it, but it is, you know, essentially to get operational
again as a business, becauseagain in 2022, it kind of
(12:21):
fizzled out.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And also the $30 billion sounds like a lot, but
like, how much do we spend onhighway maintenance in this
state?
It's insane right, it's insane.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
We won't even blink spending $10 billion on much
smaller segments of highway inTexas On just building an
intersection.
Exactly.
So right, that's.
A good point to point out isthat in Texas, we're willing to
spend that kind of money all thetime.
Actually, I want to look atwhat is the amount that they
spend every year.
All right, so I looked it upand this was from 2022.
(12:52):
Txdot spent $18 billion in 2022alone.
This project is going to takeyears to build and $30 billion
for the upfront investment.
It's not bad at all,considering it would be
connecting the two largestcities in the state of Texas.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So yeah, so it is 2025.
And where does this projectstand now?
Well, it is still a rollercoaster of twists and turns and
changes that we did not expect.
For this year, amtrak didinitiate an RFQ process for
building Texas Central, didinitiate an RFQ process for
(13:27):
building Texas Central.
Rfq, for those who aren'tfamiliar, is a request for
qualifications, request forsorry, I feel like I said
koalifications, koalifications,koalifications, damn it.
Oh, I have an image of a koalawith a hard hat and like a
hammer.
What that means is thatcompanies will sort of submit
(13:48):
their qualifications and sort ofa history of if they've been
able to build these projects,what it would take to do this.
It's not quite a request forproposal stage, which is a
little bit more serious, whereyou're actually ready to give
out a contract.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This is sort of the pre-stage to that Right and
people who make it through thisRFQ process.
Then we'll be able to submit anRFP to be able to actually
build the project we got throughit Chris, we got through it.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Koalas and all.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So in February, when this announcement was made, it
was big news, I mean, at thetime, amtrak making this
announcement, that they'reopening this up.
It's like Amtrak is gettingready to build its own rail
project under the Trumpadministration which, if you've
listened to us, I mean we'vekind of been talking about the
fact that you know, at bestAmtrak is going to just kind of
(14:36):
stay flat over the next fewyears.
They're not going to get any newinvestment, but like we're
optimistic that things weren'tgoing to be cut, I don't know
anymore what the heck is goingon there, but we were saying
that you know, if there wasgoing to be any rail expansion
in the United States, it wasgoing to come from the private
industry.
And here was Amtrak announcingthat they were taking these
steps forward and a largeaccount online that I'm sure
(14:57):
many of you are familiar withYimbyland.
A lot of people love them, alot of people hate them.
People have strong feelingsabout Yimbyland, as we've
learned.
But Yimbyland tweets this outand it goes super viral on
Twitter and everyone's goingcrazy and talking about this and
all of a sudden, the Yimbylandtweet about this, with the kind
(15:19):
of press release from Amtrak,gets a reply from Elon Musk with
.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't know what the name of this emoji is, but it's
kind of the like putting yourwhat don't know what the name of
this emoji is, but it's kind ofthe like putting your what
would you call it Like athinking emoji.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
A thinking emoji a skeptical emoji, skeptical emoji
and people start to lose it.
The discourse Even Yimbyland atthe time posted something along
the lines saying like either AI just made sure that this
project is going to happen, or BI just killed it.
What are the other?
And folks went wild with thisand we basically didn't hear
(15:54):
anything for a little about sixweeks until literally last week
from when we were recording thison.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
April 14th.
Yeah, so then on April 14th,sean Duffy our not BFF Reston
Pete, our not BFF transportationsecretary, put out a press
release, effectively killingTexas Central at least killing
Amtrak's involvement in TexasCentral.
Now Amtrak's already goingthrough a lot.
(16:25):
Right now.
The head of Amtrak has steppeddown, there's all the
discussions about privatizationand everything else that's
happening.
So, like you said, we knew thatthis wasn't necessarily going
to come from Amtrak until theystarted talking about it, but
now it definitely seals the deal.
Sean Duffy, in his pressconference, put out a quote that
said that this was a waste oftaxpayer funds and a distraction
(16:49):
from Amtrak's core mission ofimproving its existing subpar
service.
Wow, that's a lot of faith inour rail network from our
secretary of transportation.
I can't talk today.
Yeah, it's so frustrating.
It is so frustrating becauseAmtrak, by all metrics, is doing
(17:10):
very well and has continued tolook toward expansion and it's
all being cheered.
Amtrak is looking toward aprofitable future.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Things are trending in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
There is hope there and the way we get there is by
more funding of Amtrak andinvesting in it.
Of course, they're going tohave subpar service if we're not
investing in it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Right, yes, and when this came out, people were
obviously very disappointed.
A lot of big transit accountsonline and folks who work in the
space and whatnot are all kindof saying Texas Central is dead.
Hilariously, a lot of blame isbeing placed on yimby land
online, which is insane, likeokay, maybe like it put it on
(17:52):
elon musk's radar, but Iguarantee you know it was going
to come up in theadministration's radar right.
Um, just kind of a funny littleanecdote there.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's not like the main point of this, but it is
pretty funny um and see I tookit as elon musk, looking at it
and saying, hmm, maybe I canbuild a Tesla tunnel.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We don't need to talk about Tesla.
Actually, we need to do a.
I would like to go to Vegas andride in the silly little tube,
just to go see it.
We can laugh and point at it.
Anyway, everyone generally issaying this is dead, this is
dead.
This is dead Literally the nextday after April 14th.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Since.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
April 15th, a new plan essentially emerges and we
had this article from the FortWorth report.
I'm going to just read it fromit.
Kleinheinz Capital Partners Inc.
Of Fort Worth, the leadinvestor in Texas Central, said
it was quote proud to havestepped in as the private sector
sponsor of the Texas High SpeedRail and today's announcement
is good news for the overallproject.
(18:51):
We agree with Secretary Duffythat the project should be led
by the private sector sponsor ofthe Texas High Speed Rail and
today's announcement is goodnews for the overall project.
We agree with Secretary Duffythat the project should be led
by the private sector and we'llbe proud to take it forward.
The company said in a statement.
The project is shovel-ready andwill create significant new jobs
and economic growth for Texasas part of President Trump's
efforts to boost the US economy.
So a private partner is nowinvolved again in this project.
(19:14):
So to kind of recap, I mean itwas kind of a public-private-y
thing back in the 90s.
It was then a private industrypush earlier, then it was Amtrak
.
Now we're back to private tokind of complete the roller
coaster.
So far, something tells methere'll be more bumps in this
road.
So pretty interesting that youknow a day apart, this private
(19:35):
partner is there.
That kind of does tell me thatmaybe there was a discussion
ahead of time as they were doingthis, again not surprising at
all to either of us.
I don't think that the Trumpadministration is leaning more
towards a private company to dothis versus doing it via Amtrak.
But if I'm being honest, I waslike pretty skeptical about it.
(19:56):
But an article that came outliterally this morning I noticed
it as I was kind of puttingfinishing touches on this from
Mass Transit Magazine left mefeeling a little bit more
optimistic.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, there were quotes from the Texas Central
rep that said things could getfinalized by the end of the year
, followed by a certain periodof a construction period.
So we're just going to go aheadand read this article.
We're not prepared to say go,but the schedule would look as
follows If we said go, we thinkit'll roughly take six months to
complete the kind offinalization of the planning
effort and that involves lookingat the road, looking at the
(20:29):
utilities and looking at all ofthe disruption that's going to
take place over the 240 milesegment.
And that was from gint.
Who's the representative fromtexas central.
During that time period wewould be working on the
financing, we'd be working onthe application for the surface
transportation board finalpermit and we would anticipate
that we can get that stuff done,let's say by the end of the
(20:49):
year.
The representative added if allof that stuff is approved by
the end of this year, the buildschedule we think will take
between 80 and 86 months.
So essentially in six monthsthey think they can pull
together the financing andfinalize the plans which like
that does sound prettyoptimistic to me.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Now he did say like we're not ready to say go right
now, so like that end of theyear timeline, probably not
there, unless they finally youknow, I would call that not
shovel ready, yeah, yeah I agree, I would say not shovel ready.
Yes, that's a that's a goodpoint.
But I will say, though therehas been so much freaking
planning for this project, likethey should be pretty close now
(21:28):
you were saying earlier likethey do not own all of the land
yet about 30 30%.
Right, but they do have this.
If it's still all happeningunder Texas Central, they do
have eminent domain authority.
So hypothetically, I mean therewill be more lawsuits.
Of course, that's like thestory of every transit project
in the United States at thispoint, which is ridiculous.
But they hypothetically haveall the tools that they need.
Yeah, they have the courtsbacking, yeah.
(21:49):
So they hypothetically have allthe tools that they need.
Yeah, they have the courtsbacking.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, they don't really need the legislature at
this point, unless thelegislature tries to step in and
kill this.
Yeah, they have the financingapparently.
Yeah, they have models to lookat, like Brightline and other
projects in the country that areon time and doing well, so it
seems like all of theingredients may finally be there
.
Right, this seems closer todaythan maybe it seemed at any
(22:16):
other point that we've talkedabout this, or maybe in the last
15 years.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes and no.
I mean, I think that there wasa point, like during the end of
the Biden administration, where,like Amtrak had just gotten the
$64 million grant and whatnot,that if it were going to happen
that way it could happen, and Ido think that had Kamala Harris
won the election, there could bea plan moving forward with
Amtrak here.
Obviously, that is not reality,and what is reality is that
(22:41):
this is now kind of under thisprivate model.
Now I do think that the Trumpadministration is going to want
to point to projects that weredone by the private industry,
that got done in a reasonabletime frame, and I think
Brightline West is one of them,that they're already kind of
queuing up.
Not that they were the ones whogot that started or anything,
it obviously wasn't.
(23:02):
It was, you know, a lot ofmoney passed through the Biden
administration.
But they're going to tap privateindustry on this Exactly and I
think that they're going to wantto see it succeed.
And I think they're going towant to see Brightline West
succeed.
I think that this is anotherone they're going to want to see
succeed so that they can pointto it and say look at this
compared to Californiahigh-speed rail.
As much as I don't want them tojust continue picking on
California high-speed rail we'vedone our fair share of picking
on California high-speed rail,everyone has but I think that
(23:25):
they're going to want to seethis succeed.
So it could be a good thing forthe project, which is a long
way to get there.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, I agree it's a long way to get there.
It's not necessarily the way Iwanted to see this play out, but
if this is the way it happensand it finally actually happens,
fine, all for it.
Yeah, let's just get it done.
That's the biggest thing,because as soon as we can get
Austin or, excuse me, as soon aswe can get Houston to Dallas
done and it looks feasible, thena spur to Austin or, you know,
(23:55):
san Antonio, to Dallas orsomething, is that much more
feasible.
So, totally you know what?
Let's just get it done.
If it's shovel ready I will gobuy the shovel Right, let's just
go start breaking ground.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Let's do it.
And again, I think you know itis really exciting what this
could lead to because, like yousaid, once you see this stretch
under construction, the rest oftexas is going to want a part of
it as well.
I do think it would lead to,you know, options of like
actually completing a texastriangle or texas t-bone.
There's a whole lot ofdifferent opportunities out
there.
There are government officialswho are excited about those
(24:26):
things happening.
Like we mentioned, we've talkedwith uh travis, county judge
andy.
There are other representativesin cities in San Antonio and
Austin and Dallas and elsewherewho want this to happen.
So I think getting this donewill be there.
But actually I haven't shown youthis.
We'll kind of end it on this,but I don't know, because there
are groups that are just beingformed fully to be like Texans
(24:48):
against high speed rail.
I saw this on Twitter the otherday from Urban Cowboy on
Twitter We'll put a link to thetweet here and he just said how
is this even real?
And it is at the statehouseTexans Against High Speed Rail
had a table set up the other day, so pretty wild that these
(25:09):
groups exist.
Yeah, pretty gross.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Why wild that these groups exist?
Yeah, pretty gross.
Why, like what's?
Why do you roll out of bed andsay you know what I want?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
to do?
I want to make sure peoplecan't get around.
Yep, like it's just dumb.
I want people to be forced toonly get around by a car.
I don't want people to havefreedom of choice.
That's.
That's where I think we shouldkind of we can kind of wrap this
one up.
So long long story short.
Texas Central High Speed Railin Texas has had a very rocky
roller coaster ride.
That ride is still continuing.
(25:43):
We'll kind of keep folksupdated on this project and see
ultimately where it goes.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
By the end of it, maybe it is a roller coaster
ride.
Just get a Six Flags straightshot roller coaster.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
That would be fun.
If you haven't liked this videoalready, please consider doing
so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
Also, we definitely want tohear your thoughts on this.
I know people have a lot ofthoughts on this topic.
You might disagree with some ofwhat we said.
Agree, let us know in the showdirectly by checking out our
merch store I'm wearing a funTransit Tangents shirt right now
.
We've got sweatshirts, shirts,all sorts of stuff in there or
(26:16):
support the show directly viaPatreon, where you get access to
some bonus content, episodesearly, things like that.
With all that being said,though, thank you all so much
for watching and enjoy the restof your Transit Tangents Tuesday
.
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