DALLAS – The company that is planning to build a 240-mile high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston with no government subsidies has dropped eminent domain lawsuits against 17 landowners along the route.
A state court trial had been scheduled for July in Houston to determine if Texas Central Rail met the state's definition as a railway company with the power to survey private land and then obtain it through Texas eminent domain laws.
Texas Central CEO Carlos Aquilar said last week that the company has reached option agreements with more than 3,000 landowners covering 30% of the land parcels needed for the project's right-of-way in the 10 mostly rural counties along the route. About 50% of the parcels needed for the line in Waller and Grimes counties, whose residents have been the most vocal opponents of the $12 billion project, are covered by the option agreements.
"This is a significant step in the progress of the high-speed train and it reflects the positive dialogue we have had with landowners along the route," Aguilar said. "Texans see the many benefits of a system that will provide a safe, reliable and productive alternative to the state's transportation demands."
Texas Central attorneys filed 38 lawsuits in late 2016 against landowners who would not allow company surveyors onto their properties along the route through the Brazos Valley, with 23 of the lawsuits brought in Harris County. Settlements have been reached in 21 of the cases and the others are being withdrawn.
Dropping of the eminent domain lawsuits is an attempt at a reasonable conversation with the recalcitrant landowners still holding out, said Tim Keith, president of Texas Central Partners.
"We're stepping back and going back to conversations, and taking some of the heat out of our process," Keith said.
Bullet trains in the U.S. were one of the infrastructure investment opportunities for Japanese companies discussed over the weekend by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump.
Magnetic levitation trains using technology developed in Japan could cut the travel time between Washington and New York to one hour rather than the today's three-hour journey, Abe said on Friday.
In an earlier meeting with U.S. airline executives, Trump bemoaned the nation's lack of high-speed rail connections.
"You go to China, you go to Japan, they have fast trains all over the place," Trump said during his meeting with executives from Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines. "I don't want to compete with your business, but we don't have one fast train."
The Texas bullet train has been included in the lists of projects that could be funded with Trump's plan to boost private investments in infrastructure, Texas Central said.
"The Texas project is pleased to be considered among the nation's infrastructure priorities," Texas Central Railway said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the new administration, moving ahead with the project's free-market approach."
Texas Central said it will not use state or federal grants to build the high-speed rail system, but may seek low-interest loans and loan guarantees from the Federal Railroad Administration's Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program and the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
The railroad company withdrew the lawsuits because it knew it would lose them, said Grimes County Judge Ben Leman, chairman of the anti-rail group Texans Against High-Speed Rail. He predicted that the eminent domain dispute would now move to the Texas Legislature.
"The decision to withdraw these court cases is a clear indicator that Texas Central understands they will not get a ruling in one of these cases designating them as a railroad with eminent domain authority," Leman said. "This forces them to go to the state legislature for a legislative fix. We will see them at the Capitol."
