Passenger train service connecting San Antonio to Austin?
AUSTIN, Texas - A newly formed group is trying to revive a plan to bring passenger train service to the I-35 corridor in Central Texas.
According to the RESTART Lone Star Rail District, a rep for the Union Pacific Freight rail company says it is open to consider new proposals for new passenger rail service connecting San Antonio and Austin.
Below is the transcript of FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak's interview with RESTART Lone Star Rail District's Clay Anderson.
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CLAY ANDERSON: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
JOHN KRINJAK: So talk to us a little bit about how we got here under. Understand, there was a long-standing proposal to build passenger train service between Georgetown and San Antonio that eventually got killed in 2016. What's behind the effort to try and bring that back, and what led us to where we are now?
CLAY ANDERSON: Well, there are a lot of reasons why the Lone Star Rail District ended up being a failure. What really put the nail in the coffin? It was that in 2016, the Union Pacific Company, which owns the existing freight rail line between Austin and San Antonio, pulled out of the deal with Lone Star Rail District. But we are saying that we should restart the process of planning for the passenger rail between the two cities. J
JOHN KRINJAK: And why do you feel this is so important? Obviously, we have Amtrak that runs, you know, I think one train a day from Taylor to Austin to San Antonio. How would this be different? Would it be kind of like a commuter rail?
CLAY ANDERSON: Yeah. So I like to see regional rail instead of commuter rail. So a regional rail basically is the same thing as commuter rail, given that it stops in smaller population centers instead of just downtowns like Amtrak does. So that's really the big distinction. We're proposing a lot of stations throughout the metro areas of both San Antonio and Austin. So this would be a train that would get you far distances, both within Austin or San Antonio or from Austin to San Antonio, across the region.
JOHN KRINJAK: And I understand San Marcos and New Braunfels will be two important stops in between. Yes.
CLAY ANDERSON: Kyle and Buda as well, Round Rock and Georgetown.
JOHN KRINJAK: So we've all seen traffic on I-35, especially between Austin and San Antonio. You point to some research that shows a train like this would really help alleviate that congestion. Talk to us about what that research shows.
CLAY ANDERSON: Yeah, So I found this independent researcher who wrote their master's thesis about rail between city pairs and the state of Texas. His research actually found that San Antonio in Austin would have the highest ridership out of any city pair in the state. So he estimated that around 4 million people would ride the train each year, and that would cause a 20% reduction in traffic on I-35. So I really want to be clear and that even if you don't use the train when it gets built, that it will benefit you if you're just driving on I-35 with the reduction in traffic.
JOHN KRINJAK: And talk about the work that your group is doing now. I understand there's a lot of there's a lot of questions as to how this could actually move forward. What are you doing now to kind of take that next step?
CLAY ANDERSON: Yeah, right now we're a coalition building, so we are building a group of other advocacy groups that support sustainability, transportation. We are trying to show that we have a unified voice in central Texas for regional passenger rail.
JOHN KRINJAK: All right, Clay Anderson from the Restart Lone Star Rail District. Thanks for being here.
CLAY ANDERSON: Thank you so much. Thanks.