Houston-Dallas 205 mph bullet train starts in 2020, San Antonio to follow

I visited Switzerland last Jan and toured most of the country in 1 day because of the high speed trains, it was awesome. Cool story, I know.

 

with unlimited funds, I'd like to have a fleet of private jets for every person in the USA. It would be so much better than flying commercial!

How many huge (land wise) countries have high speed rail? Sure, high population, small geography countries it makes sense (e.g., Japan, Germany, France, etc). That's why they have the Acela in the NE US. In Texas? I'll need some convincing and a peek at the numbers, thanks.

 

Considering Texas is the size of smaller countries, I think it makes sense. And you're welcome.

 

China

 

http://www.amtrak.com/sunset-limited-train

Only 9.5 hours!

 

It's NOT privately funded. They WANT to privately fund it. There is no money set to pay for it therefore it is not starting in 2020. It's just something someone hopes to be able to do by 2020.

 

All funding needs to go to High Speed Google-car technology.

 

Big boys don't talk like this.

 

He makes a decent point. At least reply to his argument if you are going to insult him personally.

That's not a "rational" response.

This makes way more sense in the north east where more big cities that people want to travel to are closer together. Trains are more a part of that culture there. Can't imagine how they think they are going to make all that money back over this line when people can just drive. You'll be taking a train to cities that don't have very much train transit per sq mile. If you want to get around in Houston, Austin, San Antonio or Dallas, you want a car.

 

Dallas has like 4 major passenger rails. They call them like the A Line (shaped like an A) and the T line (shaped like a T) then there are some others. I just had a map of all of them made the other day.

 

It would be very beneficial for students. Financially, it's going to be difficult to even break even. However, it would add jobs (most would be temporary construction), it would be convenient, and just think if they can eventually get all of these lines throughout the US hooked up, and then you add one to Mexico or Canada...I'd ride.

Mainly though I think it would be great for students in Austin...it may be close to Hou and Dallas, but it sucks driving down 71 and I10 always looking for cops. I would MUCH rather be on a train NOT driving. I think more people would use it than many think...

It costs like $25 roundtrip to Austin (not positive, but I feel like a friend told me that) to Houston on Greyhound... I wouldn't pay any more than 35 for a nice train.

 

You're not getting it. All I said was that the title of the thread is misleading which it is. This is something someone wants to do not something that is happening. I don't think it's nit picky.

I went to UT as well and my family lived in Houston. Everyone I knew past freshman year had their own cars. PPl def carpooled back to Houston on the weekends but it would be hard for me to go back and not be able to drive anywhere. That is definitely a group that would use it though.

 

This. Until construction starts on this thing.

 

That is not going to happen. Ever. A bullet train from Nagoya to Tokyo is over 100 dollars, and that's similar distance wise to Austin and Houston.

 

Still cheaper than southwest.

 

I would gladly pay extra taxes for this rail project. The convenience would be great. Why not cut 1% of our national defense budget and get some real tangible benefits for Americans?

 

Perhaps, but a quick Google search meant I could find flights from Houston to Austin for about 120. And the shinkansen price I mentioned is one-way - I don't actually remember how much a round trip was.

Regardless, I've seen quite a few Houston light rail advocates here basically seem to think that you could use it for a light weekend jaunt to Austin. That's not how this would work. At all. And given the inherent car culture and the ease of using a car in the US ( and Texas in particular), I don't think it's nearly as useful as many think it will be.