Dive Brief:
- Lawmakers in the Texas Senate and House have introduced legislation to thwart a privately financed, $12 billion high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas, according to the Houston Chronicle.
- The lawmakers, who introduced a total of 18 bills, represent rural and suburban districts where opposition to the rail line is strongest. The proposed legislation includes measures that would interfere with eminent domain acquisitions, provide more landowner safeguards, force state agencies to complete a feasibility evaluation and ban the state from ever maintaining or operating a high-speed rail system.
- One of the major points of contention with landowners is the fact that a private company, Texas Central Partners, could seize property via eminent domain for the benefit of a private enterprise.
Dive Insight:
Earlier this month, TCP announced that it had dropped more than a dozen lawsuits against private landowners and would try to renegotiate land use instead. The company said it has already has secured more than 3,000 deals with property owners, giving it access to 30% of the parcels needed for the project.
High-speed rail lines have struggled to come to fruition in the U.S. Landowners along the Minneapolis-Rochester, MN, route of a proposed high-speed line also have rallied together to oppose the project, citing a potential drop in property values and the destruction of farmland.
California's $64 billion bullet train, which will connect southern and northern parts of the state, has been plagued with problems as well. Logistics, alleged land acquisition delays and cost overruns have impeded its progress and, most recently, the Federal Transit Administration delayed a $647 million grant for the electrification of a San Francisco rail system that would have also helped the California high-speed rail in its future operations. The bullet train's financing of the electrification project has also come under legal fire from critics who argue that the system's original bond approvals did not include electrification as part of the scope of work.