March 19, 2010 – 10:51 am
Metro’s lame-duck board gave its staff a half-million-dollar go-ahead yesterday to figure alignments, hold public meetings, and begin environmental studies on an 8.2-mile commuter rail line along U.S. 90A. The hunt for federal funding comes next: “It was the second development this month in efforts to bring commuter rail to the Houston region. The Gulf Coast Rail District recently hired a Houston engineering firm to study a line along U.S. 290 to Hempstead. A key advantage of Metro’s [Fort Bend] plan, [Chairman David] Wolff said, is that it would use trains Metro already owns on tracks that would parallel Union Pacific freight tracks in the same corridor, tying into the existing Main Street light rail line to create a seamless experience for passengers. The commuter line would begin at Fannin South, the southern end of the Main Street line, and continue to the Fort Bend County Line at Beltway 8.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Commuter Rail, Fort Bend County, Light-Rail, Metro Rail, Proposed Developments, Public Transportation
September 2, 2009 – 5:05 pm
Which area freight rail routes might share their tracks with commuter rail lines? Probably not the Union Pacific line along U.S. 90A to Sugar Land. “But two other freight lines have less traffic, and Union Pacific is working with government planners to free them up for commuter trains. One runs out the U.S. 290 corridor and one runs along Texas 3 to Galveston. TxDOT is considering granting $2 million in stimulus funds for two engineering studies on those routes. ‘My goal is to have trains running in three years,’ said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. The engineering studies will design routes that bring suburban commuters to the 610 Loop, but no farther. The freight traffic inside the Loop is still too busy, and although there is an abandoned rail line, it runs right through the Heights — a politically vocal neighborhood. ‘That’s not something I want to take on,’ said Emmett. The compromise is to build some commuter lines now, connect them to light rail or bus lines, and figure out later how to get them inside the Loop, to downtown.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Commuter Rail, Houston Heights, Proposed Developments, Rail, Sugar-Land, Transportation
August 3, 2009 – 12:04 pm
“We may have commuter rail to Galveston and Hempstead as early as 2012,” declares rail watcher Christof Spieler. So who’s gonna make it happen? How about . . . the Gulf Coast Freight Rail District? “The GCFRD just advertised for and received qualifications for firms to do $2 million in engineering studies, to be completed by June 2010, for 90 mph commuter rail lines sharing freight rail tracks along 290 from Hempstead to just inside 610 and from Galveston to just inside 610. This spring, the Texas Legislature expanded GCFRD’s mission to include intercity passenger rail; despite its name, the district has already been empowered to build commuter rail. Waller and Galveston counties are now joining the GCFRD, making the district the only entity short of TxDOT that covers both of those lines.” [Intermodality]
Read more about: Commuter Rail, Proposed Developments, Transportation
