There is nothing new about unsolicited plans submitted by citizen-advocates, no matter how competent they may be, getting shot down or ignored by decision-makers.
Historically, urban transit served the built environment. The original horse-drawn omnibus lines and the later streetcar lines were designed to take people further than they could conveniently walk, at a faster pace
One month prior to this writing, it appeared that the proposed Texas Central high-speed rail line between downtown Dallas and a corner of Houston was about to suffer a fatal blow from the Texas Supreme Court. Texas politics favored such a result and, if that weren’t enough, its leader, Carlos F. Aguilar had quit.
The battle over Amtrak’s proposal to run two daily round trips between Mobile and New Orleans is far from over. It is about to heat up again after a two-month lull, but the STB announced on July 11 that the relative calm (at least as far as the public will notice) will last a little longer.
It also seemed hardly possible that an all-Republican Supreme Court in the Lone Star State would allow the entity to keep going, especially since many Republicans sided with the property owner who
There is a Disney fan site called www.disneydining.com that is not affiliated with the Disney organization, but it reports news about what’s happening on and around the Disney properties. On June 27, the site
One of the logistical challenges that seems to be a regular topic of conversation among transit managers and rider-advocates alike is how to transport riders the “first mile” or “last mile” of a journey, the distance between their actual point of origin and where they board the train, and the distance between the station where they exit the train and their final destination.
In the previous article in this series, I looked at the surprising decision by the Supreme Court of Texas in the case of Miles v. Texas Central Railroad & Infrastructure, Inc. and Integrated
I thought it was all over but the waiting: The beleaguered Texas Central high-speed rail (HSR) project, which would have sent fast trains between Dallas and the outskirts of Houston, was dead.
Texas Central, the embattled high-speed rail project in the Lone Star State, appears to have taken a major step toward its own demise, as CEO and President of Texas Central Partners Carlos F. Aguilar stepped down on Sunday, June 12. From a non-legal standpoint, this appears to leave the project adrift after Aguilar had led it through a period of hope and through a sudden downturn in its legal fortunes. Legally, it is unclear that Aguilar’s departure will mean much, in light of an impending ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that would stop the project in its tracks, none of which have yet been built.
