DALLAS -- The best route for a privately built Texas high-speed rail line is one that affects the fewest landowners along the proposed 240-mile system between Dallas and Houston, project sponsors said last week.
Texas Central High Speed Railway, a for-profit company that hopes to have the rail line operational by 2021, said it would prefer to build its system within an existing high-voltage electric transmission utility corridor rather than along BNSF's freight rail system between the two cities.
The Federal Railroad Administration and the Texas Department of Transportation are preparing an environmental impact statement on potential routes for the proposed passenger rail line.
In a letter to the FRA last week, the bullet train sponsor said the utility corridor is "best suited to satisfy the goals of the project to provide reliable, safe, and economically viable high-speed rail service between Dallas and Houston."
The Texas line would use bullet train technology developed by Central Japan Railway Co. The trains would reach a top speed of 220 miles per hour and cut the travel time between Houston and Dallas to 90 minutes from four hours by car.
Texas Central Railway said it would use existing right-of-ways whenever possible to reduce the project's impact on nearby communities and landowners as it examines final route options within the corridor. The company said building the high-speed line in the utility corridor would "reduce the project's impact on communities and landowners."
The proposed utility corridor route would avoid Montgomery County, north of Houston, which would have been crossed if the BNSF freight corridor had been selected.
Montgomery County officials who protested the freight corridor option said they are pleased with the railroad's preference for the utility corridor, but maintain their opposition to the bullet train project.
"I am absolutely ecstatic it is not coming through Montgomery County," said County Judge Craig Doyal. "I still maintain the position we have taken: If it was bad for Montgomery County, it will be bad for counties surrounding us."
County Commissioner Mike Meador said the rail line would provide no benefits to the area or the state.
"I don't see any need for it at all in Texas," he said. "I can't see it being profitable."
State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said he opposes the rail project despite the contention by Robert Eckles, president of Texas Central and a former chief executive of Harris County (Houston), that the high-speed line can be built and operated without taxpayer funding or government subsidies.
"Ours is a different model," Eckels said. "We're trying to build one with no government subsidies and no government grants to get started. We expect this to be a model that will work in some places but it won't work everywhere."
Creighton said he is not convinced the project won't need federal or state funding at some point.
"This is a major project where it is proposed that no taxpayer dollars will be used, even for maintenance and operations," he said. "We've heard those kinds of statements in the past, and it hasn't ended up being very accurate."
Project sponsors have identified two station sites near downtown Dallas but haven't decided between proposals for a downtown Houston terminal and one on the city's northern outskirts.
