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Old 09-10-2010, 05:57 PM
 
Location: Austin
2,522 posts, read 6,036,816 times
Reputation: 707

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We sorta got into a new thread at the end of the amusement park one, and I think this would be a good actual thread..the gist of it is, evidentally a light rail train from SA to Austin was in the works for 20 years and STILL has not been built...Should there be one? Would it not be infinitely more pleasant for businesspeople to avoid "fighting fumes" on I-35? Wouldn't it be cool to take it for the afternoon and hang out at the riverwalk, and come back when its still light out? Not to mention the environmental impact of less CO on I-35...

Here is the link a CD person posted per the organization that is trying to put it together...

Lone Star Rail District | Home
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Old 09-10-2010, 06:16 PM
 
Location: 78731
629 posts, read 1,653,557 times
Reputation: 347
A little beyond what you posted, but...

A mag-lev would be SO AWESOME. A simple triangular route would be perfect: Houston-DFW-Austin-San Antonio-back to Houston. It would connect the large majority of the state's population.

It would make Texas THE leader in modern regional transportation and be a boon to industry. So WHY NOT.
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Old 09-10-2010, 06:48 PM
 
Location: Austin
2,522 posts, read 6,036,816 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thesonofgray View Post
A little beyond what you posted, but...

A mag-lev would be SO AWESOME. A simple triangular route would be perfect: Houston-DFW-Austin-San Antonio-back to Houston. It would connect the large majority of the state's population.

It would make Texas THE leader in modern regional transportation and be a boon to industry. So WHY NOT.
SOG, are you a good organizer? We should get together and create something on that theme..at least something that gets people talking.

Call it an organization, a group, whatever gets people talkin' about that. Sounds fantastic....could loop around all the 4 metros!...SA and Austin are essentially sister cities, so it would be easy....I think you would have to do it in pieces, like they do with some metro bike trails..where I'm from, they could not get 100% Eminent on property right away, so bought and built what they could..now its 100%, and you would never know that at one time there was trouble getting it off the ground!

Sounds really good, SOG....would make that a new thread, but I think we can safely incorporate it into this one, as the Austin/SA leg would be a part of the same...
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Old 09-11-2010, 07:29 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
13,714 posts, read 31,176,487 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thesonofgray View Post
A little beyond what you posted, but...

A mag-lev would be SO AWESOME. A simple triangular route would be perfect: Houston-DFW-Austin-San Antonio-back to Houston. It would connect the large majority of the state's population.

It would make Texas THE leader in modern regional transportation and be a boon to industry. So WHY NOT.
The reason why not is that conventional high speed rail would cost at least $100M per mile to build. Mag-lev costs more.

Add in all the very sticky land acquisition issues and this becomes an enormously difficult idea to execute.

I always thought high speed rail in Texas (Houston/Dallas/SA especiall) would be a fantastic thing to have. But the costs are staggering.
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Old 09-11-2010, 07:47 AM
 
Location: central Austin
7,228 posts, read 16,103,544 times
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The costs are staggering and Southwest Airlines has (in the past) and would (in the future) put a lot of money into lobbying state officials to make sure that type of rail is never built in Texas.

Just this month, Texas Monthly has a brief bit on SW airlines and this was mentioned and the response was something along the lines of "we prefer that folks fly."

That was their response 20 years ago when high speed rail between Dallas, Houston, SA, was proposed and that is their position now.
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Old 09-11-2010, 09:04 AM
 
Location: Austin
2,522 posts, read 6,036,816 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano View Post
The reason why not is that conventional high speed rail would cost at least $100M per mile to build. Mag-lev costs more.

Add in all the very sticky land acquisition issues and this becomes an enormously difficult idea to execute.

I always thought high speed rail in Texas (Houston/Dallas/SA especiall) would be a fantastic thing to have. But the costs are staggering.
Is building out x-ways any cheaper in the long run? The costs to build out interstates and spurs are staggering as well, and thats not including maintainance costs for resurfacing every few years!
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Old 09-11-2010, 09:14 AM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,481,831 times
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We got Amtrak..but they lease the freight lines so you are at the mercy of freight .
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Old 09-11-2010, 09:18 AM
 
Location: Austin
2,522 posts, read 6,036,816 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
We got Amtrak..but they lease the freight lines so you are at the mercy of freight .
That Leander light rail was also at the mercy of freight....prob part of the reason it never fully got off the ground....prob why we would need our own mag-lev type overhead tracks...why can't Austin have a giant one circling the entire metro? That would be great if we could be the first city to do that!
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Old 09-11-2010, 10:13 AM
 
Location: 78731
629 posts, read 1,653,557 times
Reputation: 347
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano View Post
The reason why not is that conventional high speed rail would cost at least $100M per mile to build. Mag-lev costs more.

Add in all the very sticky land acquisition issues and this becomes an enormously difficult idea to execute.

I always thought high speed rail in Texas (Houston/Dallas/SA especiall) would be a fantastic thing to have. But the costs are staggering.
Ya, I know. They are in the process, though, of developing some cheaper rail sections - maybe $10M instead of $40-60M for the maglev rail only. But no matter what it'd be enormously expensive. So would any high speed rail. (By comparison, SH130 costs about $35M per mile turnkey.)

But...what isn't enormously expensive these days? Our state and country can't sustain its infrastructure with a Wal-Mart mentality forever.

I estimate about a 700 mile triangle between the 4 major metropolitan areas in Texas. At an estimated cost of $120M per mile, that would total $84B. Considering an investment of this magnitude would take place over multiple decades, the only thing missing is the political will.

Speaking of transportation funding, Texas is ass-backwards to begin with. Here's a nice little concise summary: Candor needed on TxDOT funds

Edit: To give a little more perspective, a "triangular" route through Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and DFW would put more than 17M Texans within about 90 minutes of each other. How cool is that?

Last edited by thesonofgray; 09-11-2010 at 10:27 AM..
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Old 09-11-2010, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
16,787 posts, read 49,068,148 times
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The only thing missing are tax payers willing to pay for a service that is NOT in demand. Capital Metro currently can't afford to run what limited system it has here in Austin. If there wasn't enough demand to keep the existing Amtrak route open from Austin to SA, how could it possibly pay for light rail?

If you did take a light rail trip to any of these cities, then what, you'd be there on foot having to depend on the hugely inefficient and inadequate mass transit systems we have in Texas cities, or the excessively expensive taxi's. You could rent a car, but then why not just drive to begin with, it would be a lot cheaper?

These realities are why there is no demand for it.
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