Wikimedia Commons / Tim_kd5urs
The Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee is now vying to connect San Antonio, Austin and Nuevo Leon via high-speed rail.
On Monday, the Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee — the group vying for a high-speed rail line between the Alamo City and the state capital — held its monthly meeting. This time, the gathering took place on Amtrak’s Texas Eagle, which runs once-a-day service between the two cities.
The group, which includes Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, Travis County Judge Andy Brown and San Antonio District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda, departed San Antonio’s Amtrak station shortly before 7 a.m. They arrived in Austin around 9 a.m.
Judges Sakai and Brown launched the 24-member Texas Passenger Rail Committee in March in hopes of revitalizing the decades-old idea of connecting San Antonio and Austin via a train line.
“I enjoyed traveling to Austin by train,” Sakai said at a press conference after the train ride to Austin. “It is a great way to avoid the traffic that typically makes driving on I-35 such a challenge."
In addition to San Antonio- and Austin-area officials, the meeting included Emmanuel Loo, Nuevo Leon's deputy secretary of economic development, and Javier Diaz Gonzalez, the mayor-elect of the Northern Mexican city of Saltillo.
“We need to come up with creative solutions for passengers who are looking for alternatives to using their vehicles to navigate the congested 80-mile stretch,” Sakai said. “I am also interested in investigating options for rail south to Laredo and into Mexico to alleviate pressure on I-35. I want to give our residents another way to access those areas while allowing regional and international visitors a rail option for reaching Bexar County.”
The extended invitation to Mexican government officials is a new twist in the saga of bringing high-speed rail to South and Central Texas. However, it’s not particularly shocking.
Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel Garcia last year sent a letter urging Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Marc. D Williams to connect Monterey and San Antonio via high-speed rail. He urged the state to use funds from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan.
“Expanded service will provide benefits for both the Texas and Nuevo Leon economies by offering a safe and efficient route from the seventh most-populous city in the U.S., to the hub for advanced industry in Mexico,” Garcia wrote in the July 2023 letter.
Indeed, the Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee plans to bring up the idea of generating a rail connecting between Austin, San Antonio and Monterrey during the next session of the Texas Legislature, according to News4SA.
However, obstacles remain.
Union Pacific owns the primary rail line between San Antonio and Austin and is likely unwilling to expand passenger service on existing track unless a new freight bypass is built, as previously reported by the Current.
What’s more, it's unclear whether the notoriously fiscally conservative Texas Lege has any appetite for funding a high-speed rail project.
On the other hand, the Mexican government appears to be going all in with high-speed rail. In July, former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his successor, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, plans to build three passenger rail lines from Mexico City to the U.S.-Mexico border.
That proposed project comes after Mexico spent $8.5 billion on a high-speed rail network in the Yucatan peninsula. However, high-volume ridership has yet to materialize.
The Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee meets on the third Monday of every month.
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