Courtesy Picture / Lone Star Rail District.jpg
This artist’s rendering from the unique Lone Star Rail District envisions what a practice line between San Antonio and Austin may seem like.
As renewed curiosity in connecting San Antonio and Austin continues to develop, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro mentioned Tuesday that his workplace secured $1 million in federal funding to increase rail service within the area.
The funding comes from federal Hall Identification and Improvement awards to the Texas Division of Transportation, which is an element of a bigger $2.5 million grant to construct new rail strains and increase current ones in Texas.
“Because the federal authorities allocates Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act funding to states and native communities, I’ve been working throughout the aisle to carry that cash residence to Texas,” Castro mentioned in an announcement. “The funding introduced immediately will create good-paying jobs, develop our economic system and assist extra San Antonians get the place they should go.”
Particularly, the $1 million will assist discover and plan a rail service from San Antonio to Houston, and from Houston to the Dallas-Fort Value Metroplex.
The funding secured by Castro’s workplace comes mere days after Bexar County Decide Peter Sakai and Travis County Decide Andy Brown expressed curiosity in higher connecting the San Antonio-Austin mega-region.
How nice wouldn’t it be to take a practice to see the @Spurs as an alternative of driving on I-35?
Nice panel with @JudgePeterSakai on the first annual 2023 Catalyst Summit by Austin Space Analysis Group to speak about the way forward for our Tremendous-Area! pic.twitter.com/ugkZKPpjuZ
— Andy Brown (@TravisCoJudge) December 5, 2023
“Andy and I are working collectively in order that we will get Travis County and Bexar County to get all of the followers to observe the San Antonio Spurs with out going by way of IH-35,” Sakai mentioned in a video assertion posted on social media platform X.
Renewed consideration on connecting the Alamo Metropolis and the state’s capital metropolis by way of rail additionally comes after grassroots organizations, together with RESTART Lone Star Rail District and San Antonians for Rail Transit started lobbying native politicians to re-examine the thought this summer time.
The primary iteration of the Lone Star Rail District fizzled out in 2016 after Union Pacific, which owns the freight tracks between San Antonio and Austin, pulled out of the deal. Regardless of $25 million being spent on the undertaking between 2003 and 2016, not a single line went into service.
As Categorical-Information Metropolis Editor and former Present Editor-in-Chief Greg Jefferson put it on the time, the one factor the Lone Star Rail District was good at was “to maintain a pair folks employed and consultants flush with billable hours.”
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