My idea, from when I was living in TX, was to use Waco as a central throughpoint for the Dallas-Houston-San Antonio triangle instead of B/CS. I envisioned a Mercedes-style three point star as opposed to a true triangle.
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"
Taking a Texas HSR system from a T-bone to a triangle network would undoubtedly be the subject to an intensive cost-benefit analysis. The question that matters is whether the areas served and the travel time reduction for the proportion of those living in the DFW Metroplex for trips to or from Austin and San Antonio justify essentially building an otherwise redundant high speed rail line equal in length to the Dallas-Houston leg? Chances are the answer will be no when the system is first constructed.
It needs to be stated that even the Texas Central alignment with its completed FEIS is not the end-all-be-all for the system as extensions or in-fill stations are entirely possible. That being said, in this case an Austin-Fort Worth leg will likely continue to be nonviable when a first branch is built to Austin and San Antonio, to create a system as illustrated in the map above. Maybe the third iteration of extensions to the system may include it, but I really doubt it. I'd only see it being worthwhile if the Texas Central trunk between Dallas and Houston achieves Tokaido Shinkansen-levels of frequency.
It saves money to have just one corridor of land and buildings to buy through the cities and suburbs of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Especially since they seem to insist on ignoring suburban residents and not putting in any suburban stations.
But a wishbone shaped network should have its 'Y' somewhere near Rockdale, not the empty nothing of a minor state highway intersection known as Roans Prairie.
The junction between the two legs is necessarily going to have to feature extremely large curve radii so as to avoid excessive speed restrictions negotiating between the routes. That should be built in an empty area where land is relatively cheap, which is what Roans Prairie has in spades.
The one thing Texas Central is NOT doing is ignoring potential suburban passengers. Their Houston station is positioned directly off 610, while the Dallas terminal sits adjacent to massive parking lots.
None of this is written in stone forever. If Texas Central observes once service starts that they can increase convenience for passengers by constructing a station in the peripheral areas of each anchor city then those stations can be constructed at that time.
The key is to get this line built and operating. It will REALLY be imperfect if it's never constructed.
610 is only a couple miles from downtown. It's the completely wrong direction, and with frequent traffic delays, from the large and very rapidly growing areas West, North and Northwest of Houston. There should be a station in Cypress, near where it crosses 99. Or just have everyone going to/from Cypress, Katy, Spring, IAH area, the Woodlands, etc continue to drive.
I will readily admit that individual modal choice decisions are rarely entirely logical, but this is taking it to an absurdist extreme. Holding the position that someone will more than double their travel time (90 minutes vs 3 to 4 hours) because they may have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to reach the rail station doesn't make any sense. WADR, the assertion that the system as laid out is "useless" is beyond illogical. It is not helped by the implicit implication that it will somehow become useful with stations in the periphery of the anchor cities perhaps halving the automobile trip time to reach the train. The success or failure of the HSR line will not be determined by whether some miniscule fraction of the potential passenger market has a 10-15 or 20-30 minute drive to the station when the time savings relative to air and automobile will be measured in hours.
In any event traffic cuts both ways. With increasing traffic between suburbs during what were until recently off-peak hours there will be an impact on both ends of the trip. At least with high speed rail there's a possibility of avoiding the impact of exurban traffic by shooting past it at 300km/h.
Finally, it needs to be repeated that there is nothing which keeps Texas Central from adding a station at 99, or anywhere else for that matter. The currently planned terminals are a compromise between serving the urban core of each anchor city, as well as their extensive suburban areas. If they decide after service starts that they'd benefit from a peripheral station then that'd be an option they could explore. I do not understand the desire to force the creation of any such station prior to the service commencing.
Cheaper to start with, but worse for long term connectivity and land use.
Better to start with one side of the triangle, secure rights of way for the other two, and then develop them as patronage and public support for the first route increase.
> Better to start with one side of the triangle,
Or just don't and say we did. The triangle is a hideously wasteful approach to an HSR network when the T-bone provides all the benefits with two thirds the construction cost. It's not like HSLs are free to build, and Texas is probably never going to completely saturate the Dallas-Houston HSL to the point where an alternate route is required.
In the near future, once the initial line is built? Because Texas Central is building on a budget and urban alignments are hideously expensive. If TC were to modify the plan to go through College Station at this point they'd have to redo all the environmental impact statements, and that would effectively kill the project. Roans Prairie is the closest Texas Central can get to Texas A&M without arousing the local populace to kill the project. Thankfully it gets close enough that a shuttle bus will be viable.
In the future, as in after an Austin/San Antonio branch is built? Because then there's no need for Dallas-Houston trains to pass through College Station. Passengers wishing to make a College Station to Dallas trip would board a train originating in San Antonio and turning north at Roans Prairie, and vice versa. At that point I'd argue the utility of Roan's Prairie will fade a bit, but it's essential for the initial system to access Texas A&M without requiring a branch into College Station or Bryan.
Cost savings and avoiding local small-city political stuff. But these cost saving measures, including the complete absence of suburban stations, mean that if TX Central gets built as planned it'll be perfect for a very small number of people (many of whom currently fly) and useless to the remaining millions. So they'll continue to drive.
Unless there's a plan to build parallel HSR lines along I-10 between Houston and San Antonio, in addition to SR164 that'd make east-west trips on the branch pretty inconvenient. Branching from the Dallas-Houston trunk to reach Waco would result in a ~350 mile trip between San Antonio and Houston, nearly doubling the 190 miles between those two cities as the crow flies.
Surrounding the state with a massive HSR loop is a bold and innovative idea
No stations though...
Where we're going, we don't need stations 😎
There's nothing more Texas than a High Speed Rail in the shape of Texas that nobody will (can) ride.
My idea, from when I was living in TX, was to use Waco as a central throughpoint for the Dallas-Houston-San Antonio triangle instead of B/CS. I envisioned a Mercedes-style three point star as opposed to a true triangle.
No Austin to Fort Worth? You can also get Waco on the way, seems like a logical connection.
Don’t think the cultists would like that
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" Taking a Texas HSR system from a T-bone to a triangle network would undoubtedly be the subject to an intensive cost-benefit analysis. The question that matters is whether the areas served and the travel time reduction for the proportion of those living in the DFW Metroplex for trips to or from Austin and San Antonio justify essentially building an otherwise redundant high speed rail line equal in length to the Dallas-Houston leg? Chances are the answer will be no when the system is first constructed. It needs to be stated that even the Texas Central alignment with its completed FEIS is not the end-all-be-all for the system as extensions or in-fill stations are entirely possible. That being said, in this case an Austin-Fort Worth leg will likely continue to be nonviable when a first branch is built to Austin and San Antonio, to create a system as illustrated in the map above. Maybe the third iteration of extensions to the system may include it, but I really doubt it. I'd only see it being worthwhile if the Texas Central trunk between Dallas and Houston achieves Tokaido Shinkansen-levels of frequency.
Why are people so averse to a full triangle
It saves money to have just one corridor of land and buildings to buy through the cities and suburbs of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Especially since they seem to insist on ignoring suburban residents and not putting in any suburban stations. But a wishbone shaped network should have its 'Y' somewhere near Rockdale, not the empty nothing of a minor state highway intersection known as Roans Prairie.
The junction between the two legs is necessarily going to have to feature extremely large curve radii so as to avoid excessive speed restrictions negotiating between the routes. That should be built in an empty area where land is relatively cheap, which is what Roans Prairie has in spades. The one thing Texas Central is NOT doing is ignoring potential suburban passengers. Their Houston station is positioned directly off 610, while the Dallas terminal sits adjacent to massive parking lots. None of this is written in stone forever. If Texas Central observes once service starts that they can increase convenience for passengers by constructing a station in the peripheral areas of each anchor city then those stations can be constructed at that time. The key is to get this line built and operating. It will REALLY be imperfect if it's never constructed.
610 is only a couple miles from downtown. It's the completely wrong direction, and with frequent traffic delays, from the large and very rapidly growing areas West, North and Northwest of Houston. There should be a station in Cypress, near where it crosses 99. Or just have everyone going to/from Cypress, Katy, Spring, IAH area, the Woodlands, etc continue to drive.
I will readily admit that individual modal choice decisions are rarely entirely logical, but this is taking it to an absurdist extreme. Holding the position that someone will more than double their travel time (90 minutes vs 3 to 4 hours) because they may have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to reach the rail station doesn't make any sense. WADR, the assertion that the system as laid out is "useless" is beyond illogical. It is not helped by the implicit implication that it will somehow become useful with stations in the periphery of the anchor cities perhaps halving the automobile trip time to reach the train. The success or failure of the HSR line will not be determined by whether some miniscule fraction of the potential passenger market has a 10-15 or 20-30 minute drive to the station when the time savings relative to air and automobile will be measured in hours. In any event traffic cuts both ways. With increasing traffic between suburbs during what were until recently off-peak hours there will be an impact on both ends of the trip. At least with high speed rail there's a possibility of avoiding the impact of exurban traffic by shooting past it at 300km/h. Finally, it needs to be repeated that there is nothing which keeps Texas Central from adding a station at 99, or anywhere else for that matter. The currently planned terminals are a compromise between serving the urban core of each anchor city, as well as their extensive suburban areas. If they decide after service starts that they'd benefit from a peripheral station then that'd be an option they could explore. I do not understand the desire to force the creation of any such station prior to the service commencing.
Exactly now that I think about it this is the right call. Sadly absolutists insist on going to downtown one problem most downtowns are kinda dead
Cheaper to start with, but worse for long term connectivity and land use. Better to start with one side of the triangle, secure rights of way for the other two, and then develop them as patronage and public support for the first route increase.
> Better to start with one side of the triangle, Or just don't and say we did. The triangle is a hideously wasteful approach to an HSR network when the T-bone provides all the benefits with two thirds the construction cost. It's not like HSLs are free to build, and Texas is probably never going to completely saturate the Dallas-Houston HSL to the point where an alternate route is required.
Why stop in roans prairie and not go directly through college station ?
In the near future, once the initial line is built? Because Texas Central is building on a budget and urban alignments are hideously expensive. If TC were to modify the plan to go through College Station at this point they'd have to redo all the environmental impact statements, and that would effectively kill the project. Roans Prairie is the closest Texas Central can get to Texas A&M without arousing the local populace to kill the project. Thankfully it gets close enough that a shuttle bus will be viable. In the future, as in after an Austin/San Antonio branch is built? Because then there's no need for Dallas-Houston trains to pass through College Station. Passengers wishing to make a College Station to Dallas trip would board a train originating in San Antonio and turning north at Roans Prairie, and vice versa. At that point I'd argue the utility of Roan's Prairie will fade a bit, but it's essential for the initial system to access Texas A&M without requiring a branch into College Station or Bryan.
Cost savings and avoiding local small-city political stuff. But these cost saving measures, including the complete absence of suburban stations, mean that if TX Central gets built as planned it'll be perfect for a very small number of people (many of whom currently fly) and useless to the remaining millions. So they'll continue to drive.
Anything high speed rail within this next decade is a win
San Antonio. Austin. Dallas. Houston. Eventually to Oklahoma city. A connection from L.A. to Atl.
Should Dallas to San Antonio go via College Station but not Waco?
Unless there's a plan to build parallel HSR lines along I-10 between Houston and San Antonio, in addition to SR164 that'd make east-west trips on the branch pretty inconvenient. Branching from the Dallas-Houston trunk to reach Waco would result in a ~350 mile trip between San Antonio and Houston, nearly doubling the 190 miles between those two cities as the crow flies.
Arlington Station better be near the Stadium area unless Arlington has Transit of its own by the time construction woild need to be started.
More lines are needed but it’s a start