Will the U.S. ever adopt the concept of bullet trains?
That hasn’t exactly come to fruition in California despite multiple-comma checks poured in, only to come up short thus far.
With the goal posts pushed back year after year, even the current trend of NFL power kickers couldn’t force this one between the uprights.
That said, California’s false promises aren’t stopping Texas from dreaming big. After all, ‘everything is bigger in Texas’, right?
A new report confirmed a high-speed train is ‘on track’ despite some hurdles to clear and people to please.
As a state known for less bureaucracy (even with never-ending highway construction projects), we at Travel Off Path are stoked to be one of the first to report the exciting news of Texas’s lofty vision that’s set to become a reality.
Though travelers will have to wait a while, Texas travelers can look forward to zooming from Dallas to Houston (and vice versa) in 90 minutes or less.
Can we get a “yeehaw!”?
New Texas Train Is The Next Southwest Airlines
We’re all so infatuated with our phones nowadays (whether it be AI serving as a god in our pocket or shamelessly doom-scrolling mind-numbing videos) that most of us aren’t even impressed with being able to hop aboard a metal bird and shoot through the sky like it’s nothing.
Southwest Airlines is an American favorite, some might say an American treasure, given how they’ve always been innovators, for better or worse.
I mean, aren’t we glad about their new assigned seating policy?
Regardless, you may not know that Southwest originated right here in Texas with the purpose of connecting one of America’s largest states with ease.
Of course, you can fly almost anywhere worthwhile in North America or the Caribbean now with them, but back when they started, it might as well have been named Texas Airlines.
The Dallas to Houston High Speed Rail Project outlined by Dallas City Hall will essentially be the new ‘Southwest’ on rails, significantly cutting 4-hour road trips and ridding you of airport hassles.
With no traffic to worry about and an estimated 90 minutes travel time, this bold endeavor seems like a win-win, so what’s the holdup?
Lots — and it seems everyone is involved and disagreeing on the vision. Don’t fret, though, there’s an insightful new update to unpack with positive news.
The Latest Update
Other outlets reporting on this train’s progress seem to be using fear-mongering tactics for clicks.
By doing so, many of them missed a key detail.
Yes, it’s true that there have been setbacks. What major project hasn’t hit speed bumps along the way?
The good news comes in the form of 2 words: “on track”.
Quite literally, this means a plan is set in motion to have this bullet train — you guessed it — on the tracks as soon as feasible.
Others are focusing on the negative, while we’re thrilled to see how this will change the state of Texas travel, in addition to equally exciting news that Fort Worth is transforming into an urban island along the Trinity River as San Antonio 2.0.
Honestly, that makes the train even more enticing since Fort Worth is set to be in the cards too for this game-changing 240-mile line.
Even with a rocky start and the current administration pulling nearly $64 million in grants last year, private investors are making up for it, so the train still has the green light to push forward to the next steps.
Where Exactly Will This Train Go?
The full route is still in the works, but we do have some important developments where it will not go:
- Dallas’ Central Business District
- Uptown
- Victory Park vicinity
- Any city park interfering with Dallas-to-Fort Worth’s corridor
The latest update shows Houston hasn’t entered the chat just yet, so there’s no immediate timetable to guesstimate when shovels will hit the dirt.
Not that we’re engineers by any means, but our Spidey Sense tells us this will likely be located in the ‘burbs end to end when it’s all said and done, just as California’s latest LA-Vegas revelations show their bullet train concept won’t reach Los Angeles’s city limits.
According to Dallas City Hall, the entire timeline could take 17 years. However, everyone involved is already well into the planning stages, as many approvals took place during the dark days of the pandemic, so it’s not as much of a wait time as one might think, as long as this project keeps chuggin’ along.
Amtrak has been involved in planning discussions since as early as 2016, which could put the project approximately 7 years from completion if Dallas City Hall’s initial timeline holds strong.
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