The only way to get more rail is for the Lege to change the state constitution to allow TxDot to use highway dollars. If they would only do that I’d be ecstatic. I’d love to be able to take a high speed train to San Antonio and back, for a Spurs game. The twice a year that I see them here is great, but I’d love more!
This is a really good analysis. The route to better transpiration in Texas is steel wheel on steel rail. It is more fuel efficient, land efficient, has less noise and air pollution and far more comfortable.
Steel wheels on steel rails as a technology also requires a ginormous amount of resources up front. Rail requires an enormous amount of resources to operate. Without beyond ginourmous volumes, rail is not sustainable.
"After TxDOT expanded Houston’s Katy Freeway to 26 lanes, subsequent studies found that travel times during peak periods worsened rather than improved, as increased capacity was quickly absorbed by additional driving."
What an expensive lesson. We could have told TxDOT the same thing without spending hundreds of millions of dollars (I would have accepted a consulting fee, though).
Indeed, and, alas. They didn’t learn the lesson in time to stop the expansion of the highway through Downtown Austin, which will have 22 lanes once construction ends.
Rail feels inevitable as some regions are forced to pick up density due to demographic changes. Its almost a question of will they put it in early and try to plan around it or hastily try to put it in after the car based infrastructure becomes too much. Houston and Austin currently aren't too dense at 3,000-3,500 people a sq mile, but give it another twenty years and they'll both be dense enough for larger rail options and desperately need it.
Maybe there is something more in depth that what I have seen. The only study I know of compares I-10 travel times from 2011 to 2014. It does not look at travel times before the project compared to those today, 2025. 3 years is something but it's not evidence of a pattern.
How do I-10 travel times in let's say 2002 look compared to 2022?
The only way to get more rail is for the Lege to change the state constitution to allow TxDot to use highway dollars. If they would only do that I’d be ecstatic. I’d love to be able to take a high speed train to San Antonio and back, for a Spurs game. The twice a year that I see them here is great, but I’d love more!
The politics are for sure the hard part here!
They are. But we need to try!
This is a really good analysis. The route to better transpiration in Texas is steel wheel on steel rail. It is more fuel efficient, land efficient, has less noise and air pollution and far more comfortable.
Thank you, Jeffrey! I love that steel-on-steel formulation. Here's hoping that more Texans get on board!
Steel wheels on steel rails as a technology also requires a ginormous amount of resources up front. Rail requires an enormous amount of resources to operate. Without beyond ginourmous volumes, rail is not sustainable.
This does not differ from highways except that highways are more expensive to build and maintain.
The last section of the MN 610 freeway cost ~30 million / mile. The cost of Metro Transit’s Southwest Light Rail project is pushing $200 / mile.
If you believe that highways are “more expensive”, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
"After TxDOT expanded Houston’s Katy Freeway to 26 lanes, subsequent studies found that travel times during peak periods worsened rather than improved, as increased capacity was quickly absorbed by additional driving."
What an expensive lesson. We could have told TxDOT the same thing without spending hundreds of millions of dollars (I would have accepted a consulting fee, though).
Indeed, and, alas. They didn’t learn the lesson in time to stop the expansion of the highway through Downtown Austin, which will have 22 lanes once construction ends.
Rail feels inevitable as some regions are forced to pick up density due to demographic changes. Its almost a question of will they put it in early and try to plan around it or hastily try to put it in after the car based infrastructure becomes too much. Houston and Austin currently aren't too dense at 3,000-3,500 people a sq mile, but give it another twenty years and they'll both be dense enough for larger rail options and desperately need it.
Maybe there is something more in depth that what I have seen. The only study I know of compares I-10 travel times from 2011 to 2014. It does not look at travel times before the project compared to those today, 2025. 3 years is something but it's not evidence of a pattern.
How do I-10 travel times in let's say 2002 look compared to 2022?