Fickes, Whitley: Texas T-Bone could revolutionize travel
Special to the Star-Telegram
You have to take it as a compliment when people from hundreds or thousands of miles away decide to move where you live. You have to take it as a challenge as well.
Somehow you have to make sure all those people, once they arrive, can get to where they need to go -- and that you can still get to where you need to go, too.
A good transportation system is important to the growth and economic vitality of North Texas. It's no coincidence that Tarrant County strongly supports the early development of high-speed rail.
An important project is coming down the line right now. It is the "Texas T-Bone," a high-speed rail system, and it could revolutionize the way Texans travel and do business. It will link Fort Worth, Dallas, Temple, Austin and San Antonio and Waco, College Station-Bryan, and Houston, by rail. Just imagine.
It's not the return of the iron horse or even your grandfather's train. It's better, and it will be a whole lot faster. Would you believe an hour and a half from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Houston? That's the indicated travel time for a high-speed train running on steel wheels.
But how about D/FW to Houston in 50 minutes? That might be possible using a magnetic levitation train. It is not magic -- powerful magnets allow the train to zip along, more or less floating on the rail. It might sound like Star Wars, but it's not. Tarrant County is a member of the Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corp., an alliance of Texas civic and business leaders working to bring high-speed rail to our state by 2020.
In Europe, high-speed rail is far from a dream. It is a reality there, as it is in China, Japan, and Taiwan. Moreover, high-speed rail has an impressive safety record. High-speed rail and Texas have a tremendous future together.
Let's face it: We're outgrowing our means of growing.
It's not that some of our facilities aren't first-rate from a transportation point of view. In Tarrant County, we have D/FW, the third-busiest airport in the world, and the bustling Fort Worth Alliance Airport.
That's the good news. The bad news is that many roads in Texas, and especially in North Texas, are congested. Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute put the 2005 annual cost of traffic congestion in nine Texas urban areas at about $6.2 billion. The cost is undoubtedly higher now.
High-speed rail is a mold-breaking concept that can help ease congestion on some of the most crowded roads.
Maturing societies -- like maturing people -- get called on all the time to make choices that involve abandoning old patterns and embracing new ones. It's not easy! But it does get a little easier when you consider the stakes: whether to get overrun by happenings outside of your control or, instead, to choose to make things happen.
High-speed rail is one of the most happenin' transportation events of our time. Population projections say Texas is expected to be home to more than 43 million people by 2040. (In 2006, it was home to about 23.5 million.)
Here's an interesting statistic: If we do build out the Texas T-Bone, we will link the cities and suburbs where eight of every 10 of those folks live. That's on a route only 440 miles long.
The Texas T-Bone won't get built in a day, any more than Rome did. A lot of work remains to secure public and private financing.
Tracks can be elevated, as well as double-tracked, and local traffic stoppages will be avoided. The purpose here isn't shutting down anything. On the contrary, it's opening things up. It is an opportunity to do things Texas hasn't done before.
We should get moving right away.
