Councilman Joe Krier is a supporter of the idea of the Lone Star Rail project.
San Antonio is expected to allocate its first round of funding for the Lone Star Rail District line when the City Council votes Thursday to approve an annual budget that includes $500,000 for the fledgling project.
If the council approves the funding, San Antonio would be the third city to set aside money for a proposed passenger rail line — known as LSTAR — that would run between the Alamo City and Georgetown. Austin and San Marcos signed funding agreements in 2013.
“It would be symbolic if the south end of the corridor is on board,” said Joe Black, rail director for the district, which is run by a board of representatives from city and county agencies involved in the project. “The north end communities have stepped up to do their part, and it would be a really nice way to end the year to say that the two large cities that are part of this project have signed on.”
The LSTAR line is designed to get passengers from downtown San Antonio to downtown Austin in a minimum of an hour and 15 minutes.
t would run alongside I-35 and make 19 stops between the metro areas, five of which are planned between downtown San Antonio and north Loop 1604.
Union Pacific owns the tracks for the proposed route, which it uses to carry freight.
In 2010, the district and UP agreed to study the possibility of relocating the freight line east of I-35, a $1.6 billion endeavor. But the two have yet to finalize an agreement to move the line, Black said.
District 9 City Councilman Joe Krier said the project’s inclusion in the city’s budget “represents a commitment by San Antonio that we do want to be a regional partner with Austin and (other nearby cities) and finally give residents in this region a transportation option that does not require sitting still on 1-35 while trying to get up and down the corridor.”
The proposed allocation is the city’s first step toward a 36-year funding agreement with the district that could be finalized within a month, Black said.
The agreement would increase the city’s annual commitment to the project to $2 million over the next five years if the district secures a freight line agreement with UP and obtains the capital necessary to build the project.
“We will pass this with the direction that we have to have a contract that will set performance measures and include what we like to call ‘off-ramps,’” Krier said. “If the city is not happy with the project, there’s a way the city can bail out during that period of time.”
The city’s initial $500,000 will be put toward planning, and later contributions will be put toward operations and maintenance, Black said. LSRD is negotiating a similar funding agreement with Bexar County, which allocated $500,000 for the project when it passed its budget last week.
“Whatever the (Commissioners) Court will do will be contingent on (the district) getting the construction funds to build it, and I don’t think they’re any closer to that then they were 10 years ago,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “But we want to be supportive, and we hope it happens.”
The idea for passenger rail service in the San Antonio-Austin corridor has gained little economic traction since it first was proposed in the late 1990s.
The district has funded several environmental impact and financial feasibility studies within the past decade, but the cost of building the service and relocating the UP line, which would cost a total of $2.4 billion, remains mostly unfunded.
That might soon change. The district expects to use a combination of federal, state and private funds to cover the capital costs of building the rail, and Black said it could nail down a public-private partnership within the next year and a half.
Other cities, including Georgetown, New Braunfels and Schertz, also are considering allocating money toward the project. And later this month, VIA’s board will vote on whether to include $500,000 for the district in its annual budget.
kblunt@express-news.net
Twitter: @katherineblunt
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