Downtown post office picked as site for houston-dallas high speed rail

A TxDOT study has identified a possible site for a train station if high-speed rail to Houston becomes a reality. The study comes amid a warning that traffic patterns could change dramatically in the decades to come.

Engineer Sam Lott with Kimley-Horn and Associates lead a study for TxDOT that considered several possible downtown locations. The site they identified as the most appropriate for a high-speed rail stop is the block currently occupied by the Amtrak Station and the main post office.

Lott says you need a location that can also serve other modes of transportation.

"And it's a facility that operates more like an airport terminal than a typical railroad station. That's a facility that's going to need substantial area and connectivity, and those are things we need to be thinking about right now."

High-speed rail has been discussed and studied in Texas for decades. It's far from a done deal at this point, but Lott says planners have to think ahead. He says if Houstonians don't change the way they get around, the city could face massive all-day congestion on both its freeways and surface streets in the next 25 years.

"High-speed rail would not necessarily solve that congestion problem. It's all the other modes that connect to the high-speed rail station that could be part of the solution."

A private company called Texas Central Railway is proposing a high-speed line between Houston and Dallas, and will soon start evironmental studies.

http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/13866...tion-If-High-Speed-Rail-Comes-To-Houston.html