farmerJohnny said:
I will be impacted by this high speed rail, as it goes within a mile or so of my property.
I grew up in Europe and I know what mass transit means, but it just does not work here in Texas. No matter what, people will need private transportation to/from train stations. It just doesn't make sense to take a train from College Station to Dallas or Houston, when you would need someone to drive you to the train station (or park there and pay parking), then rent a car once you arrive in Dallas. All that waiting and extra $$ makes it a lot cheaper to just drive your own car.
Even so, lets say it does make sense, and lets assume that it will be feasible, my biggest issue is why are they trying to take more land? There are already so many railroad tracks and rights of way between Houston and Dallas, why do we need to take and divide land even further? Build it along an existing railroad, as you would not need to forcefully take people's land.
While I don't disagree with your stance on the train, I am not sure all your assertions about whether it will work in Houston and Dallas may be correct for the younger generations.
The rise of Uber/Lyft/etc have radically changed how people in cities - including the big ones in Texas - are traveling. If the airports - and the cab and limo companies - continue to try to lock out Uber &co from airport drop-offs and pick-ups as they have in many places, it may backfire on them.
A model like the Ground Shuttle shouldn't have worked initially and many people doubted it when it launched in BCS. Uber and Lyft are the next version of that. I know I have taken hour+ Uber trips with others at business conferences where I didn't need a car at the conference. This was cheaper than each of us using the local version of "Ground Shuttle". At our destination, we either walked, Ubered or took a cab.
The problem with all the projections - both pro and con - is that this is new model for the States. Nobody has done this. Amtrak doesn't fit as it was much too slow. The arguments based on the other railroads doesn't work because they are focused on competing not to carry passengers but with the pipelines. That is where they are making all their profits and as pipelines are blocked, they railroads are doubling down on carrying chemicals that need to be transported.
Some on both sides point to the availability of airlines like SWA for cheap trips between Houston and Dallas. The problem there is that it often ignores the fact that IAH and DFW are 15 miles from city centers. People point to Love and Hobby as the competition for the train where folks don't rent cars at their destination. For Hobby that is definitely not a good option for about half of Houston. It can take 2 hours to get to Hobby at times.
People are also conflating or confusing financing (money to build it) with funding (operation budgets). Most of the time it is hard to follow the argument they are trying to make as they using the terms and related numbers interchangeably. And the powers on both sides are using the confusion to whip up their supporters.
So many unknowns on this project make it hard to figure out what will happen.
