DALLAS — Plans for a high-speed rail line connecting Houston and Dallas are moving along after the project received a nearly $64 million grant.
With an estimated cost of $30 billion, the proposed 240-mile high-speed rail line would travel between the two cities in 90 minutes.
The $63.9 million grant awarded to Amtrak last month is part of a $153 million funding rollout from the U.S. Department of Transportation for passenger rail projects around the country that was announced back in July.
The Houston-to-Dallas high-speed rail line has been in the works for years. The Houston Chronicle reports Texas Central Railway led the effort at first by buying land throughout the planned corridor. The newspaper reports the proposed route has 30% of the land needed for the project secured.
Amtrak has since taken over the project and has worked with Texas Central on the project since 2016, when it entered into agreements to provide through-ticketing and other support services for the planned high-speed rail line.
“The main headline is that, under Amtrak’s leadership, we have progressed to the third (and final) step of the FRA Corridor identification program. This will enable us to further progress preliminary engineering, design and environmental work,” Amtrak Senior Vice President for High Speed Rail Andy Byford told Texas Rail Advocates, a Dallas-based nonprofit focused on high-speed rail issues.
In an announcement last year that Texas Central and Amtrak were exploring opportunities to advance the project, Byford touted the proposal.
“If we are going to add more high-speed rail to this country, the Dallas-to-Houston Corridor is a compelling proposition and offers great potential,” he said.
The project was previously awarded $500,000 in December 2023, setting the stage for further grant funding.
Amtrak declined comment when reached by WFAA. We’ll update this story as additional information becomes available.
Also in Dallas, a proposed route to connect the city with Fort Worth by high-speed rail moved forward after the Regional Transportation Council on Aug. 8 approved roughly $1.65 million more to study an alternate route for the proposed train that would skirt downtown Dallas, after the previously proposed route caused controversy.
