doubledog said:
AggieCo2023 said:
https://original.newsbreak.com/@jalyn-smoot-1588339/2898655750882-texas-supreme-court-ruling-paves-way-for-30-billion-dollar-dallas-to-houston-bullet-train
Apologies if there already was a thread, but exciting news from the Texas Supreme Court who gave life to this project connecting Dallas and Houston. It also will include a stop in Brazos County which will be helpful for students from each of those cities which is probably 40% of the student body. Hopefully this is completed soon and gives Texans other (quicker) alternatives between the two cities. Should help further our economy as more and more companies are moving their HQ's and production here.
I thought it stopped in Carlos... Grimes county... Am I wrong?
You're not wrong. As usual, the OP is.
First, it's interesting that OP posts this article as if it is recent news. The opinion was issued on June 24, and was discussed here:
https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3298553/replies/62380228 Of course, that was before this bot was registered to troll Texags, so I guess this poster was doing something else at the time.
The Grimes County stop was added, later in the planning, after it became apparent that Texas Central was going to be in for a fight on the eminent domain issue. Common carrier railroads have eminent domain authority, but just because you lay rails doesn't make you a common carrier, and with no stops between Dallas and Houston, Texas Central didn't look like a common carrier. In the end, they relied upon the old interurban electric railway statute -- a real stretch, but the court bought it.
The funny thing is that, despite winning at the Supreme Court, the project was already dead by the time the ruling came down. Texas Central claimed that the line would be built with private money, but they were lying -- their original plan included lots of federally subsidized loans and any other public money they could graft. The plan was to get as much public money as possible to build the line, then profit off the real estate. However, they would have needed SOME private money, and it just never materialized, nor did any money from the state.
The stupidity of liberals on this issue is just astounding. They always want to talk about how other countries have better rail than the US. The fact is, that's not true. What they have is extensive, government subsidized,
passenger rail. What they don't have is very good
freight rail. Europe was in dire straits this summer when water levels on their big rivers (principally the Rhine) got low because they move so much freight by by barge. In contrast, the US has the top freight rail system in the world, and it's all privately owned. In a country with our topography, where we have less population density (and, as a result, our cities have less effective public transport) and great distances to cover, moving heavy freight by rail makes much more sense than trying to move people by rail.
If we ever get self-driving cars (a long ways away in my opinion, but that's another topic), this idea will look really stupid. Hopefully, it will just be a matter of a proposed project that never got off the ground looking stupid in hindsight.
I've ridden high speed rail in Europe and know how convenient it can be, if you are traveling from city center to city center, in cities served by good public transport. That doesn't describe the US, and it's silly that liberal keep trying to pound this square peg into a round hole.
