Amtrak partnership sparks new debate over high-speed rail in Texas

There’s a new round of debate over high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston after federal rail company Amtrak announced this week that it will partner with the private group planning the project.

Amtrak and Texas Central could use federal grants and infrastructure money.

The announcement added new support that may help move the long-delayed project forward, but also new opposition over the use of tax money for what was to have been a privately funded project.

The proposed Dallas station location is a large tract of vacant land at Cadiz Street and Riverfront Boulevard. Renderings from the private company Texas Central that are now two years old show a giant structure on the site, with crowds of passengers waiting to make the 90-minute trip to Houston.

“I think it’s something that we want to see. We want to be on the cutting edge,” Dallas City Council Member Carolyn King Arnold said. “We want to see this project off and running as soon as we possibly can. We want to see the dirt turning.”

Arnold represents the Fruitdale neighborhood down existing freight rail tracks from the station location.  Homes have been purchased by Texas Central to make room for a new rail path. 

During the years of delay, new homes have also been constructed in Fruitdale.

“The major disruption right now is that we never know if it is going to happen, so we have been in a state of limbo,” Fruitdale resident Justina Walford said.

The Japanese high-speed rail technology Texas Central has planned to use requires separate above-grade tracks for speed and safety.

The initial cost estimate of $12 billion a decade ago has risen to more than $40 billion now.  A 2018 estimate was revenue service available by 2023. No estimate is made now.

Waller County Judge Trey Duhon is also president of the group Texans Against High-Speed Rail.

“The project never made any sense. The ticket prices would never be high enough to cover the cost,” Duhon said.

Communities between Dallas and Houston that were opposed all along now attack the use of public money.

“We’ve said all along there’s no way this can be done without public money and that’s a different conversation. So, I absolutely think they have to start at the beginning,” Duhon said.

Project boosters welcome public support.

Council member Arnold said the technology advances, construction jobs and large investment will be good for the entire state, but especially for Dallas.

“I think we just have to continue to work together. We call it growing pains. So, I think we’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I’m all on board, so to speak, for this new high-speed rail,” she said.

Fruitdale resident Justina Walford wants the issues resolved, once and for all, without years of additional study.

“I would like to see it either happen or go away. It’s been the state of limbo that our neighborhood has been in,” she said. “We’re just tired of waiting to know.”

There is also a separate plan to extend high-speed rail from Dallas to Fort Worth should the Dallas to Houston line get built.