You might remember Austin’s light rail boondoggle, which is now scaled back, behind schedule, and very possibly illegal. (For the current status on that project, see here.)
Now more Austin elites, in the form of the Travis County Commissioner’s Court (an organization so far in the shadow of the Austin City Council that I didn’t previously have a tag for them) has funded the study of a high speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio, the price tag for which would be a staggering $13.5 Billion.
A high-speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio would cost about $13.5 billion to build, according to a recent feasibility study commissioned by Travis County Commissioners Court.
The study conducted by HNTB Corporation assessed the potential of a high-speed rail route between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Amtrak station in San Antonio along State Highway 130 and Interstate 10.
Running from an airport in one city to an Amtrak station in another? Who the hell is this line for, tourists who want to save money traveling to San Antonio? It certainly doesn’t seem geared for the benefit of actual Travis County residents, especially now that the theoretical Project Connect light rail link to Bergstrom has been cancelled.
Also, if you’re going 130 to I-10 to San Antonio, you’re missing the bigger I-35 cities like Kyle, San Marcos and New Braunfels in favor of smaller cities Lockhart and Seguin. I guess the plan is to keep it high speed because almost no one will want to visit the smaller bergs on the train line.
The proposed route would run at about 125 miles per hour with a travel time of about an hour between the two cities.
Sure it would. Pretty much no U.S. “high speed rail” services hit their theoretical maximum because they stop too often and the track’s not straight enough to maintain top speed for long.
Travis County approved $125,000 to fund the feasibility study in October 2025.
The proposed 89-mile route presents challenges because of the many cross-street overpasses and an existing right-of-way that has minimal space to accommodate the rail route. These challenges contribute to the $13.5 billion price tag by requiring much of the route to be elevated.
The high-speed rail would also cost $190 million to operate and maintain annually, according to the report.
That works out to some $520,000 a day in ongoing operating costs paid by the taxpayers.
The feasibility study did not include ridership or fare estimates for the proposed high-speed rail line.
Acela serves just under 9,000 passengers a day. Even if the proposed Austin-San Antonio leg got that many (it won’t; even a thousand a day is probably too many), that results in a cost of over $4,000 per passenger per day over the first year in fixed costs alone. At 1,000 riders, it’s more like $36,000 a passenger per day the first year. For that price you could buy every rider their own Honda Civic, and save the taxpayer gobs of money over the other 364 days of the year (and 15-20 years more to boot). Including the ongoing costs adds a $520 taxpayer subsidy per rider per day.
The actual Austin Amtrak ridership in 2025 was 47,030. Not per day. Not per week. Not per month. That’s the total yearly ridership to all destinations.
Maybe my 1,000 estimate is way too optimistic.
There’s also this: “A separate TxDOT study found expanded passenger service on existing tracks could cost as little as $800 million.” Even that is too much for how much such a line would actually be used. Intercity passenger rail is a money loser everywhere it’s run, and only sorta, kinda works in the northeast because of a much higher population density. Even there it’s heavily subsidized, and even the fastest train, Amtrak’s Acela, only saves just over an hour over a car trip between D.C. and New York City.
Leftists everywhere love rail because it’s an endless source of graft in the planning and building stages, and a superior means of surveilling and controlling the population. How are you supposed to inflict socialism on the peasants if they can just climb in their car and drive away?
All this is a boondoggle in search of a problem, as low cost mass transit between Austin and San Antonio already exists in the form of buses, with fares starting at as little as $11. But that’s not a desirable form of transportation for liberal elites, because riding a bus doesn’t show how smugly superior they are over ordinary people. Plus they have to rub shoulders with both the peasants they disdain and the illegal aliens they’ve inflicted on them.
This proposed train project makes zero economic sense, benefits very few Austinites, costs taxpayers dearly, will be an endless source of graft, and, like California’s Train to Nowhere, will never actually be built.
For all those reasons, expect Austin Democrats to keep pushing for it.
Tags: Austin, Bergstrom Airport, Democrats, high speed rail, Kim Roberts, railroads, San Antonio, Texas, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Scorecard, The Texan News, transportation, Travis County, Travis County Commissioner's Court, waste
So, it will take an hour to go between the train station and the airport. Google maps says it will take 1 hour 20 minutes to drive it.
If you take the train, you have to get to it, which will require an uber or cab, and when you get to the other end you’ll need a ride to get to your destination. I really don’t see the use case fpr this train.
“I really don’t see the use case for this train.”
Missing the point: “This proposed train project makes zero economic sense, benefits very few Austinites, costs taxpayers dearly, will be an endless source of graft, and, like California’s Train to Nowhere, will never actually be built.
“For all those reasons, expect Austin Democrats to keep pushing for it.”
As the envisioned socialist Utopia is revealed to be unattainable, True Believers must redouble their efforts to Keep Hope Alive because Hope (even a false hope) is required to bring about Change.
Socialism is a train ride to nowhere but socialists cannot abandon their faith in it. If you do not share their faith, you are a heretic who deserves to be put to the flames.
Light rail always loses money because it has very high capital costs and is utilized–when it is at all–only during the morning and evening commute hours, five days a week. But depreciation, interest, and maintenance costs run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In business, the first and last question that is always asked is, “Will this project make money?” Of course it is. It’s their money. Politicians are under no such constraint, so they never ask the question.
What is this otaku obsession democrats have with trains?
1 You only get one choice of destination.
2 Everyone moves in the same direction.
3 You’ll get there when you get there. What…you expected speed?
4 You’re trapped in here with everyone and you’ll like it!
5 Tiny carbon footprint for you. Metric crap ton carbon footprint for it.
6 Be occasionally prepared to literally move in reverse.
7 The train reserves the right to throw you off it.
Using the existing track is silly.
I live in New Braunfels and have lived in San Marcos in the oughts. I am familiar with the rail tracks running thru both cities. The two tracks in New Braunfels run right in the middle of the city and trains have to go very slow because of curves in a built-up area. I get blocked all the time by trains as I drive about.
The bus transport to and from the airport is cheap and runs often. I ran into a problem when my flight was late. The bus from the airport didn’t get to downtown until after buses had shut down for the night. I was able to share an Uber ride with a fellow passenger in the same situation.
The paid vehicle transport to and from the airport, when multiple passengers travel in a van to and from the airport, probably has fuel per passenger mile consumption that compares favorably with other forms of transport.
Due to car problems, I have used the bus system more in recent months. Bus in Austin has many advantages over Austin’s rail system: more routes, cheaper, and the time isn’t that different.
Regarding rail versus road: while Europe has more passenger rail, in the US a higher percentage of freight travels by rail than in most countries in Europe. I doubt these differences are going to change much. Europe’s higher population density gives it an advantage for passenger rail. The greater distances in the US give it an advantage for freight rail.
List of countries by rail usage
Freight modal share for rail
Rank Country Modal share (%) Data year
1 Canada 68[90] 2009
2 Latvia 61[91] 2012
3 Australia 60[19] 2016
4 Russia 59[90] 2010
5 Estonia 47[91] 2012
6 Switzerland 46[92] 2012
7 United States 44[90] 2008
8 Austria 41[91] 2012
9 Sweden 40[91] 2012
10 Lithuania 38[91] 2012
11 India 33[93] 2016
12 Finland 27[91] 2012
13 Brazil 26.9[94] 2024
14 Romania 24[91] 2012
15 Germany 23[91] 2012
16 Czech Republic 22[91] 2012
17 Hungary 21[91] 2012
18 Slovakia 20[91] 2012
19 Poland 18[91] 2012
20 Belgium 18[91] 2012
21 China 15[95] 2019
22 France 15[91] 2012
23 Italy 14[91] 2012
24 United Kingdom 12[91] 2012
25 Bulgaria 9[91] 2012
26 Japan 6.2[90] 2010
27 Netherlands 5[91] –
28 Ireland 0.7[96] 2007
It’s a loser even in the northeast and sucks up tax payer dollars in the form of money allocated by state legislators to make that up. Which takes money away from road maintenance and other infrastructure projects. It may well do that in the counties through which it passes if this fluster cluck is ever built.
“Intercity passenger rail is a money loser everywhere it’s run, and only sorta, kinda works in the northeast because of a much higher population density. “
Assuming they wanted a real solution (which they don’t – they just want the graft) they should call the Boring Company and stick the whole thing underground. Almost certain cheaper and avoids all the rights of way issues