Dallas City Council disagreement might undermine the high-speed train project between Houston and Dallas
Dallas, Texas – The high-speed train plan connecting Houston to Dallas might face a big problem after some disagreements among Dallas City Council members about whether the train’s path should go under or over the ground.
A news piece by Amber Gaudet from the Dallas Morning News shared that a meeting on Thursday by the Regional Transportation Council of the North Central Texas Council of Governments had a lot of differing views about what Dallas should focus on for transport this year. They were supposed to okay a bunch of transport projects for different areas, but the high-speed train idea kept stopping them from agreeing to give out over $100 million for six different projects.
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The approval of most of these projects depended on Dallas saying yes to the plans for a high-speed train station at Union Station. However, not everyone was on board with having the train line that goes through downtown Dallas be above ground. Council Member Cara Mendelsohn from District 12 mentioned in the meeting that the high-speed train is really important for economic growth and that they needed more information about the project before they could agree to fund other projects based on this decision.
“This is to force us to do something and I think that we deserve to know the full scope of what the project is,” Mendelsohn said during the meeting, per Gaudet. “The money wouldn’t be going to the city anyway because it’s contingent on this approval, which we’re not going to give until at least another month.”
Mendelsohn had previously brought up the idea of considering a route under the ground. There are worries in Dallas that a train track above ground might not be good for the area around the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center.
The government has already said yes to a plan for a high-speed train station up in the air in the Cedars area, south of Dallas. This plan includes following the path already made by Union Pacific’s tracks, going over the Trinity River, and then coming up to the surface near Hampton Road in West Dallas. In August, city leaders saw an early version of the plan where the train would go south, passing through the convention center area to get to the Cedars station.
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Changing to a route that goes under the ground could make it tough to connect travelers to the station that’s planned to be elevated, and this might put the whole project at risk.
“We are purposely not touching the federally approved Dallas station to make sure we do no harm to Amtrak’s interest to build high-speed rail from Dallas to Houston,” regional transportation director Michael Morris said.
Some city leaders, like councilmember Jesse Moreno from District 2, think the six projects should be looked at again in a March meeting. This suggestion comes with the expectation that more information on the proposed route’s location will be available by then. Yet, councilmember Omar Narvaez from District 6 pushed for the funding to be approved now.
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After a lot of talking, the members agreed to go ahead with the projects. But, they acknowledged that there’s more to talk about regarding the high-speed train. City officials will get more information on the train project before their next gathering on March 14th.Top of Form
