ARLINGTON -- High-speed rail is a touchy subject in much of Texas, where some politicians and landowners are concerned about train tracks cutting across private property.
But local leaders in Dallas-Fort Worth, where traffic congestion is a near-universal concern among many of the region’s roughly 7 million residents, want the world’s biggest passenger rail operators to know that if they’re willing to build the super-fast trains in North Texas they will find a more-than-receptive audience.
“You are not trying to sell yourself to us today. We are trying to sell our region to you,” Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told officials from both French and Chinese railroad companies Monday during a meeting in Arlington. “Regardless of what our national government does, we are reaching out to the congressional delegation to fund high-speed rail.”
Those French and Chinese officials were among several dozen people who attended a high-speed forum hosted by the Texas Commission on High-Speed Rail in the Dallas-Fort Worth Region.
The commission was put together more than two years ago, with former Fort Worth councilman Bill Meadows as its chairman, to explore ways to build a rail system with trains capable of going up to 220 mph.
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