Dallas - Houston HSR Station

[cspwal]

A tunnel could work (the longest train tunnel in the world is 35 miles long, 5 miles is doable) but it would be insanely hard, and cost double the rest of the project. At $1 billion a mile (an optimistic estimate for a train tunnel in the US) it would cost $10 billion.  Then add all the issues Ross brings up - dodging old oil wells, water wells, securing against flooding - and it would probably cost $100 billion. 
 

TCR studies bringing it along the existing rail line, and the impediments were the impacts on the community of an elevated HSR in historic neighborhoods. 

[Montrose1100]

1 hour ago, cspwal said:

A tunnel could work (the longest train tunnel in the world is 35 miles long, 5 miles is doable) but it would be insanely hard, and cost double the rest of the project. At $1 billion a mile (an optimistic estimate for a train tunnel in the US) it would cost $10 billion.  Then add all the issues Ross brings up - dodging old oil wells, water wells, securing against flooding - and it would probably cost $100 billion. 
 

TCR studies bringing it along the existing rail line, and the impediments were the impacts on the community of an elevated HSR in historic neighborhoods. 

Elevated in the middle of I-10?

[cspwal]

I feel like that was studied as an alternative, but I don't remember the details

[Texasota]

I do hope options for pushing through to Downtown (and beyond!) are explored at some point, but in the sort term I've really come around to this being a pretty good location.

Especially with the I-10 BRT moving forward. I am *very* curious about what they're planing the trip time to be on that - with so few stations and dedicated(ish) lanes, it should be possible to easily keep it under 20 minutes. Maybe even more like 15, though that's probably pushing it. 

[cspwal]

Looking on Google Maps, the trip (Central station -> NW Mall) is 8.4 miles long.  Drive time is usually 12-18 minutes without traffic.

Current transit takes 29 minutes and 1 transfer to take the 161 express to NW transit center and a local bus up to NW Mall.

 

Assuming that the BRT can maintain an average speed of 60 mph, non-stop travel time would be 8 1/2 minutes.  There are 4 intermediate stops shown on the most recent maps of the route; assuming each stop takes 30 seconds, that would be extra 2 minutes for stops.  So a optimistic travel time would be 10 - 15 minutes each way.  The bigger question would be how frequent they would run it.  If it's every 5 minutes that's a lot different than every 20 minutes.

[Texasota]

Since it's being treated as BRT (MetroRapid), I would assume it has to meet Metro's high frequency minimums: every 15 minutes 7 days a week.

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

Here's your every-so-often reminder that Gare Du Nord and KIng's Cross train stations are nowhere near Paris or London's central business districts.

Dallas can put a station downtown because their downtown is on the south edge of the city limits with nothing but a few neighborhoods in the way.

[Houston19514]

2 hours ago, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

Here's your every-so-often reminder that Gare Du Nord and KIng's Cross train stations are nowhere near Paris or London's central business districts.

Dallas can put a station downtown because their downtown is on the south edge of the city limits with nothing but a few neighborhoods in the way.

 

Exactly.  Plus, it's not really downtown.  It is near downtown, but not particularly walkable to much of anything.

[Trae]

7 hours ago, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

Here's your every-so-often reminder that Gare Du Nord and KIng's Cross train stations are nowhere near Paris or London's central business districts.

Dallas can put a station downtown because their downtown is on the south edge of the city limits with nothing but a few neighborhoods in the way.

 

Nah Dallas' downtown is pretty much in the middle of the city geographically. Southern Dallas is larger in area than Northern Dallas.

 

I don't think the Paris or London stations are good comparisons either considering those cities have faster and more efficient train services connecting passengers to the rest of the city network, not to mention connections inside/outside the country. The Houston bus or BRT system won't compare there. Also Garu Du Nord is 2 miles from central Paris and King's Cross is 2 miles from London's CBD. Meanwhile the NW Mall station is 8.5 miles from DT. Now La Defense is 7 miles from Garu Du Nord, but again much quicker connections than what we'll see in Houston with the buses. It's unfortunate seeing people just settle for this location. To me it's second rate to a Hardy Rail Yards/Downtown area station.

 

And Dallas' station may not technically be within their downtown freeway loop but being in the Cedars neighborhood with direct connection to DART rail via a pedestrian walkway is as close as you can get. This would be like Houston's station being in east Washington Ave., Midtown, or East Downtown. In other words, much better location...

[JJxvi]

Hopping in an Uber or Lyft from Northwest Mall to your Downtown destination would probably actually shred the tube trip from Kings Cross to Liverpool Street plus the walk to your building in terms of travel time at most times of day.

[tigereye]

Just an idea: If TCR fails because of funding issues now arising in the COVID impacted economy, how about developing Metro’s long dreamed-of intermodal station at the Northwest Mall site serving Amtrak, Greyhound, and other rail/bus operations, with a Metro transit center and a connection to uptown BRT and eventually MetroRail via BRT. 

[MaxConcrete]

On 2/26/2020 at 7:10 PM, MaxConcrete said:

You'll see that North Texas is enamored of hyperloop. At 3:50 in the video or page 7 in the presentation, the alternatives screening is shown. All the high-ranking options are hyperloop, and two HSR options are ranked low.

North Texas is bidding for the hyperloop test track. (That's not mentioned in the presentation)

 

The North Texas proposal for the Hyperloop certification center was eliminated from contention this week. See item 6.1.

https://www.nctcog.org/nctcg/media/Transportation/Committees/RTC/2020/agenda-packet-aug.pdf?ext=.pdf

 

I expected this result because the North Texas proposal mostly aligned the test tubes on elevated structures along the SH 360 freeway, which of course makes construction much more difficult and also limits accessibility. I'm thinking the winner will have a plan which has the tubes on the ground, or has a clear, unobstructed corridor for easier construction and access.

 

There does not seem to be any information online about which proposals remain in contention.

 

[HouTXRanger]

21 minutes ago, MaxConcrete said:

 

The North Texas proposal for the Hyperloop certification center was eliminated from contention this week. See item 6.1.

https://www.nctcog.org/nctcg/media/Transportation/Committees/RTC/2020/agenda-packet-aug.pdf?ext=.pdf

 

I expected this result because the North Texas proposal mostly aligned the test tubes on elevated structures along the SH 360 freeway, which of course makes construction much more difficult and also limits accessibility. I'm thinking the winner will have a plan which has the tubes on the ground, or has a clear, unobstructed corridor for easier construction and access.

 

There does not seem to be any information online about which proposals remain in contention.

 

Honestly, I'm kinda happy to hear that. I have a very strong suspicion that the hyperloop (and definitely that dumb car tunnel thing) is just another gadgetbahn. We're better off sticking with the Shinkansen, assuming the damn TCR gets built in the end.

[skooljunkie]

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while for work...using 2018 pop estimates by census tract (as well as manually adjusting large suburban tracts that are half ag. uses/half urban), the center of population (green hexagon) for the metro area is Ella at 11th. The blue triangle (TC Jester at 18th) is the pop center after removing Austin County, Chambers County east of the Trinity River, Galveston Island, and Lake Jackson/Freeport.