A high-speed passenger railway project between Dallas and Houston has been selected to receive federal taxpayer dollars.
The Dallas-Houston rail project has been in development since 2012. It was originally scheduled to be completed in 2020, but disputes over land rights and leadership changes at the company spearheading the effort have delayed the project.
These delays have increased the project’s estimated cost from $12 billion to $30 billion. The project is largely a private endeavor by Texas Central Railway alongside Amtrak.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced 69 picks for the Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) Program in an effort to expand passenger rail projects across the United States.
“There’s no turning back now — America’s high-speed rail revolution is coming,” claimed Ray LaHood, former U.S. Transportation secretary and co-chair of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Coalition, in a press release sent to The Dallas Express.
One of the projects selected for the Corridor ID program was the in-development high-speed rail service between Dallas and Houston.
FRA administrator Amit Bose said this announcement is “another step forward as we advance transformative projects that will carry Americans for decades to come and provide them with convenient, climate-friendly alternatives to congested roads and airports.”
Still, some observers expressed skepticism over the likelihood of the project ever getting completed.
“If there was the slightest possibility that a train a la Japan would be built at any point in the future [it’d] be for this,” posted Josh Zenker on social media. “However, there is a 100% chance all this, and subsequent dollars, will be wasted on corruption and endless red tape lining the pockets of contractors and politicians, leaving the taxpayers with a 10-mile ditch after 20 years.”
Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) also spoke out against the project on social media.
“Will do everything in my power to stop this boondoggle,” he wrote.
The Corridor ID program aims to guide intercity passenger rail development throughout America. The FRA works alongside state and local governments and railroad operators to “develop and build passenger rail projects faster than ever before.”
Other projects selected for the Corridor ID program include rail projects in Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, and Florida.
Along with the Corridor ID program announcement, the Transportation Department also announced that it is awarding $8.2 billion in taxpayer money to 10 passenger rail projects nationwide through the Federal State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program.
