Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:HSR for regional commuting is the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to hang a picture on your wall.

HSR is for long distant communing with infrequent stops.

The TRE already exists. You can Upgrade rails/train, create a
Schedule that runs in game days that skips most stops. And you have a solution at the fraction of the cost.

Well, the HSR connecting FTW-ARL-DAL as a regional service is only its secondary purpose. Its primary purpose is to be a contiguous piece of connective tissue for longer distant trips that travel out of Dallas and Fort Worth someday, which is why it loops over to the cedars for its Dallas stop rather than simply stopping at Union Station--It's preparing the metroplex with a wall outlet for a Houston route to plug into.
Laying the HSR infrastructure along this route now will make things easier in the future for the day that we can connect to a broader network of HSR in Texas. It also helps to boost the Houston route's success since the whole thing wouldn't be dependent on everyone here having to haul it to the cedars to get on board.

Worst comes to worst and that doesn't pan out then we just went overkill on making a better FW-DAL connection while establishing a new rail corridor and connecting the Arlington entertainment district in the process. The HSR would become the de facto express route between the cities to TRE's slower, multi-stop option that would then focus entirely on servicing the neighborhoods in-between. They could maybe even add a stop or two since it will have less pressure as the only FW-DAL rail connection.

IcedCowboyCoffee wrote:

Tivo_Kenevil wrote:HSR for regional commuting is the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to hang a picture on your wall.

HSR is for long distant communing with infrequent stops.

The TRE already exists. You can Upgrade rails/train, create a
Schedule that runs in game days that skips most stops. And you have a solution at the fraction of the cost.

Well, the HSR connecting FTW-ARL-DAL as a regional service is only its secondary purpose. Its primary purpose is to be a contiguous piece of connective tissue for longer distant trips that travel out of Dallas and Fort Worth someday, which is why it loops over to the cedars for its Dallas stop rather than simply stopping at Union Station--It's preparing the metroplex with a wall outlet for a Houston route to plug into.
Laying the HSR infrastructure along this route now will make things easier in the future for the day that we can connect to a broader network of HSR in Texas. It also helps to boost the Houston route's success since the whole thing wouldn't be dependent on everyone here having to haul it to the cedars to get on board.

Worst comes to worst and that doesn't pan out then we just went overkill on making a better FW-DAL connection while establishing a new rail corridor and connecting the Arlington entertainment district in the process. The HSR would become the de facto express route between the cities to TRE's slower, multi-stop option that would then focus entirely on servicing the neighborhoods in-between. They could maybe even add a stop or two since it will have less pressure as the only FW-DAL rail connection.

I have never really understood the drive to spend all this money to force HSR into FW. 80% of the leasable office space and and jobs exist on the east side of the metro. Most of the corp HQ are on the east side, makes much more sense to place the end of the line up near Plano/Frisco than FW. There is no other place to go beyond Plano/Frisco because there is no population center large enough anywhere near North Texas to justify a HSR train stop. Even Plano is probably a stretch, but it makes more sense than FW. When Texas Central started planning the Texas route they refused to consider FW because it just isn't large enough and they refused to pay for it. The rule was you need 4-5M people at the end of the route to justify the route. The only option to build to FW was a local solution which means the business just isn't there which also means this is totally wasted money. As state earlier, the line is already there, upgrade it and move on.

My guess is FW is a stop because they want to then turn south to Austin. Connect the triangle.

In a couple years DFW is about to become the only metropolitan area in the country that encompasses two cities from the list of ten largest cities in the U.S. I'm honestly not sure when the last time a metro area had done that. I think it would be a mistake to not connect HSR in this way to an established urban core in a city with the same size and population of Austin. Especially since they already have a transit authority and system it would connect to, unlike a place like Frisco.
I acknowledge that connecting HSR to Fort Worth would be a boon for Fort Worth more than Fort Worth would be a boon for the HSR, if that makes sense, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather see more gravitational pull happening over there to match the population growth happening there.

I was excited about this whole sale at first and what it could bring to Dallas but as time moves on I think the reality of the massive change in the Texas congressional makeup that would be required to pass gambling ( also legal pot) probably won't happen in my lifetime. Most of the new people moving here are not moving the needle politically so this may just be pie in the sky after all.

MC_ScattCat wrote:My guess is FW is a stop because they want to then turn south to Austin. Connect the triangle.

That was never the Texas Central plan, Austin isn't large enough to justify a link and when it got to that point the solution was to connect a line to Bryan/College Station not directly to Dallas or Fort Worth. Much more cost effective to go straight to the existing line. That way you build a shorter link that allows you to connect to both Dallas and Houston. If Austin isn't large enough to support a station yet, why does anybody think FW is? And they don't build these things based on projections. My fear is that we will end up with HSR to nowhere because the Dallas Houston line won't get built so we will have the most expensive commuter line in the world.

Yes, but you cant tell me amount of air/road/rail traffic between DFW and Austin/San Antonio isn't enough. You add Waco Temple in and that's a lot of people. I don't know what the ultimate plan would be, but the likelihood of this happening is remote, and even if it does it will be a very long time from now.

Dallas to Houston will be the first speed rail line in Texas. If successful, there will be another rail line between Dallas, Austin, & San Antonio. There might be a third line from San Antonio/Austin to Houston. That would be the Texas Triangle of major metros. Ft Worth would be tied in via a line between Dallas & Ft Worth. What's interesting is that the attempt to tie LA to the San Francisco Bay Area via speed rail has been a disaster. Of course, the Texas line wouldn't have to go through mountainous terrain either.

MC_ScattCat wrote:Yes, but you cant tell me amount of air/road/rail traffic between DFW and Austin/San Antonio isn't enough. You add Waco Temple in and that's a lot of people. I don't know what the ultimate plan would be, but the likelihood of this happening is remote, and even if it does it will be a very long time from now.

If you're Texas Central, Why would u want to incur the costs to build and run another station in FW? You can still go south towards San Antonio via the Dallas station.

The FW station is just pointless. There's absolutely no reason to have it other than NTXCOG having no clue about HSR.

A regional transportation agency flirting with HSR is crazy to me.
Then again these are the same dorks that actually submitted plans for Uber Air Taxis as a potential transit solution for our World Cup bid.

So, this is now the high-speed train thread?

TexasStar2 wrote:So, this is now the high-speed train thread?

The HSR discussions will continue until morale improves.

So OKC is maybe getting a tower that’s fifth tallest in the world and twice as tall as BOA plaza. WOW. Just had me thinking that an arena/casino/supertall development would be cool…then I realized oh wait, nvm. This is Dallas

Well it would be tough to put a supertall on the old cowboy stadium site being that it's in the flight path of two major airports.

zblevinz555 wrote:So OKC is maybe getting a tower that’s fifth tallest in the world and twice as tall as BOA plaza. WOW. Just had me thinking that an arena/casino/supertall development would be cool…then I realized oh wait, nvm. This is Dallas

I don’t think most people actually believe the OKC tower will come to fruition. It makes zero sense.