High speed rail to Dallas (Houston, San Antonio: real estate, hotel, buy)

[MobileDave]

Would this bullet train be making stops along the way? I honestly don't know the answer to this question. If it were to get to Dallas in an hour I really don't see a lot of stops along the way and would kind of defeat the purpose IMO.

I think a rail that would pay for itself within no time at all is Houston - SA. Not only would your typical Houstonian use it for business and leisure all the time but the sheer Hispanic populations in both (and growing) would pay for it alone. I cant tell you how many of my Hispanic friends from Houston have family located in SA.

[N. Olikee]

OK...........so it takes about an hour to FLY from Dallas to Intercontinental or Hobby, so what would we be gaining with a Bullet Train?

[MobileDave]

Originally Posted by N. Olikee

OK...........so it takes about an hour to FLY from Dallas to Intercontinental or Hobby, so what would we be gaining with a Bullet Train?

Another option for businesses and people other than the crowded hassle of an airport. Not to mention the security checks and how early you need to arrive.

Houston-Dallas could get $10 billion bullet train | Newswatch | a Chron.com blog

[N. Olikee]

Originally Posted by MobileDave

Another option for businesses and people other than the crowded hassle of an airport. Not to mention the security checks and how early you need to arrive.

Houston-Dallas could get $10 billion bullet train | Newswatch | a Chron.com blog

What in the world would make anyone think there wouldn't be security checks?! If there aren't, then we are brain-dead as a society.

Also, where are you going to / coming from within the two cities. Since they are so spread out, maybe it makes a whole lot more sense fly. I just can't imagine there is a "pressing need" for this.

[MobileDave]

Originally Posted by N. Olikee

What in the world would make anyone think there wouldn't be security checks?! If there aren't, then we are brain-dead as a society.

Also, where are you going to / coming from within the two cities. Since they are so spread out, maybe it makes a whole lot more sense fly. I just can't imagine there is a "pressing need" for this.

I don't know... ask the thousands of people that FLY (or drive) between the two cities every day.

I saw something on the news about how Houston-Dallas has the largest number of supercomputers in the country. People still get up and drive between the two cities every morning or leave on a Monday and come back on a Friday.

Your kind of saying "why do we need another toll road... No one will use it." It's another option to relieve an already crowded transportation system. Both cities are growing at such a rate that not adding one would be almost insane. I can already see some of the congestion ease up on 45N.

Why not a regular train? Because if it didn't get there within an hour or so no one would use it.

[N. Olikee]

My last opinion on this........not that anyone cares.......It just makes a whole lot more sense to build a high speed rail between DFW and SA. Unlike I-45, I-35 bogs down in so many places. To offer an option to THAT, is more meaningful than a 1 hour bullet train between Dallas and Houston.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by N. Olikee

My last opinion on this........not that anyone cares.......It just makes a whole lot more sense to build a high speed rail between DFW and SA. Unlike I-45, I-35 bogs down in so many places. To offer an option to THAT, is more meaningful than a 1 hour bullet train between Dallas and Houston.

Exactly,
we can't talk about this until one is built from Dallas to San Antonio which could actually go all the way to Laredo or Corpus Christi.

In that case, I'd be happy with a line from Houston to Austin.

[savanite]

Originally Posted by N. Olikee

I think you need to "reanalyze". There is considerable growth between Dallas / Ft. Worth / Austin / San Antonio...........more so than between Houston and Dallas. SA IS the second largest city in TX. When I drive from Austin to San Antone, there is hardly any undeveloped land. Just take a look a look at the growth in Buda, Kyle, San Marcos, New Braunfels, etc. on the southern end. Then, there's Georgetown, Temple, Waco, Waxahachie, etc. on the northern side.

Not a whole lot between Houston and Dallas to compare.

San Antonio is only the second largest muni government in Texas, which is really meaningless. What is meaningful are the number of people in the SA metro who want to go to Dallas, or the number of people in metro Dallas that want to go to metro SA. The Dallas-Houston corridor connects a metro of 6-7 million people (Dallas) with another metro of 6-7 million people (Houston).

If you broke up Dallas metro and Houston metro, you'd have enough people for 6 San Antonio metro areas.

The rule of high speed rail is to have as few stops as possible. Ideally, the Dallas train will not stop until it gets to Houston. For the same reason that a Southwest jet out of Dallas Love Field doesn't stop until it gets to Hobby.

It takes an enormous amount of power to accelerate a 5 car train to 250 mph, and an equal amount to decelerate it to a stop. You want to minimize your power consumption, since the energy cost is most of the operational expense.

[highguard]

Originally Posted by crbcrbrgv

Why even bring it up for discussion?

We have Ted Cruz trying to defeat Dave Dewhurst because Dewhurst "isn't conservative enough".

The only way high speed rail can happen is if it's government sponsored.

This is Texas.

Government bad.

Government really, really bad.

God forbid we do anything in this state that makes sense.

[savanite]

Originally Posted by N. Olikee

What in the world would make anyone think there wouldn't be security checks?! If there aren't, then we are brain-dead as a society.

Also, where are you going to / coming from within the two cities. Since they are so spread out, maybe it makes a whole lot more sense fly. I just can't imagine there is a "pressing need" for this.

You need a security check at an airport because it was airplanes that brought down the twin towers. We don't do it on trains because you can't make a train fly into a building.

New York is pretty spread out, from New Jersey to Connecticut, and it still has a lot of travel by train. In the case of Houston, if it's not too spread out to get people to drive to Hobby, then it's not too spread out for a downtown train station.

The advantage of rail is that it is a faster trip from one downtown to another. If you fly, it takes several hours to get from your office On Louisiana and Lamar to your branch office in Downtown Dallas. By train, it's a 15 minute cab ride to a station, 10 minutes to board, and 75 more minutes and you're in Dallas.