A Bullet for TexasA private company, Texas Central Partners (TCP), has announced plans to bring the

A Bullet for TexasA private company, Texas Central Partners (TCP), has announced plans to bring the first high-speed rail system to the U.S., with a bullet train connecting Dallas and Houston. Work has already begun on a high-speed rail system in California, linking San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Anaheim, but because it will cover a much greater distance (1288 km or 800 mi.) than the proposed Texas system, it’s original completion date in 2022 has been pushed back until 2025, 3 years after the expected operational date of the Texas train. Part of the delay in the California project is due to the need to drill through earthquake-prone mountains, whereas the Texas train will be across the central plains region of the state.Currently, the 50,000 Texans traveling more than once a week between the two cities have the choice of a 5 hour drive or a 1 hour flight (not counting the time taken in getting to the airport, through security checks, and to the proper gate). The Japanese train design chosen for the project has been in use between Tokyo and Osaka for more than 50 years, giving it high ranking for safety. In that time period, no crash or fatality has occurred and the company cites a time delay average of less than 1 minute per year. The train would travel at approximately 322 km per hour (200 miles per hour) and would carry 400 passengers at a time across the 385 km (239 mi) distance. The expected travel time would be 90 minutes, with a train leaving every 30 minutes during peak travel times.Regardless of the convenience their rail system will bring, opponents of the California high speed rail system cite that although when completed, the electric train will produce less pollution than the current highway traffic, the construction itself will be done using diesel-powered heavy equipment and make a bad air quality situation (1 in 7 children have been diagnosed with asthma) much worse.In Texas, Houston alone has 9 out of 10 people (solo drivers plus carpool participants) taking private vehicles to work every day and according to a 2015 report by the American Lung Association, the city ranks 6th out of the top 10 U.S. cities with the worst ozone pollution. (I can personally attest that we had to move out of the Houston area when I developed asthma resulting from air pollution.) So, given the continuing growth of both cities, pulling more cars off of the highways would be a big environmental plus.In addition to the expectations of reducing air pollution, the proposed high-speed rail system will be elevated when entering urban areas and environmentally sensitive areas such as wetlands, in order to mitigate noise (which TCP says will already be less than current sound levels near highways). Environmental impact studies, led by the Federal Railroad Administration, are still ongoing.Currently, officials in both Dallas and Houston have embraced the project, however, rural entities opposing construction of the Texas rail system seem more concerned about the probability of eminent domain being used to confiscate land (which is largely agricultural).CWImagehttp://bit.ly/1Uyxz9rSourceshttp://bit.ly/1Uyxz9rhttp://www.hsr.ca.gov/http://bit.ly/1RMNYnZhttp://www.railway-technology.com/projects/california/http://time.com/3840001/most-polluted-cities-2015/http://bit.ly/1tyYTuyhttp://www.texascentralhighspeedrail.com/page4/index.htmlhttp://bit.ly/1Uf5OELhttp://bit.ly/260V1U6http://bit.ly/1ZUx0Hp -- source link

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