Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai joined his counterparts in Travis and Dallas counties Friday in expressing their disappointment that a passenger rail expansion plan connecting the major metros was left out of a major funding program.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced Friday it has designated five corridors for rail expansion in Texas after the federal government committed $66 billion for passenger rail developments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021.
The five corridors in Texas are among 69 corridors across 44 states where existing rail routes will be upgraded and new routes built or extended.
In Texas, the study of a Dallas to Houston high-speed rail route has been selected for funding through the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, which will evaluate proposed intercity passenger rail development projects throughout the country.
The program provides $500,000 to study the rail corridor and would make the project eligible for an additional 80%-federal to 20%-state funding match.
No rail route between Dallas and San Antonio was identified for funding.
In a joint statement, the three county judges said the Travis-Bexar county region is one of the fastest growing in the country with 5 million residents swelling to 8 million by 2050, and should not be passed over when it comes to rail projects planned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
“The FRA excluding our super-region is a setback, and we are determined to make this a priority and work as a mega-corridor with our Metropolitan Planning Organizations and stakeholders to make sure we don’t miss the next round of funding,” Sakai said. “We must do more to meet the demands of our time and address the key challenges we face as one of the fastest growing communities in the nation and improve transit with passenger rail in Central Texas.”
The commission’s failure to include the Travis and Bexar county corridor is a “significant missed opportunity to support growth and investment across Central Texas,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said. He said county officials will work closely with the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization to chase the next round of funding.
In Dallas and Fort Worth, home to over 8 million people, Dallas County Judge Lewis Jenkins said that region is growing rapidly and keeping up with the demands of growth require additional investment in infrastructure, including passenger rail.
Rail is critical to connecting the large Texas metro areas and providing alternatives to an already overstressed highway system, Jenkins said.
In a Texas Tribune event in late November, economic development experts said the most pressing issue for the major metros is relying on Interstate 35 to move people and goods as the region grows.
TxDOT plans to begin expanding I-35 through Austin in late 2025 — but widening the highway will ultimately only attract more cars and traffic to the region, said Henry Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor and former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who moderated the panel.
“Maybe we can widen it, maybe we can double-deck it, but all that does is attract more cars as they have seen in California,” Cisneros said. “We’re going to need some kind of mass transit including rail.”
But the Austin-San Antonio region does not have influence at the state-level to support the project, said Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, president and CEO of Greater:SATX.
Cisneros said that Amtrak has proposed a north-south rail project for Texas, but the railroad company believes that the route should be from Dallas to Houston.
“What that means is, if we’re going to have an Austin-San Antonio connection, we need to do it on our own,” he said. “The leadership here is going to have to decide [because] our future as a region depends upon having viable rail.”
In addition to the light rail route from Fort Worth to Houston, the other project studies selected for funding through the corridor program in the state include:
- Intercity passenger rail service between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
- Intercity passenger rail corridor: Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
- New conventional intercity passenger rail service between Houston and San Antonio.
- Interstate 20 corridor intercity passenger rail service connecting Dallas through Louisiana to Meridian, Mississippi.
