AUSTIN — Union Pacific
will no longer consider rerouting its Central Texas freight traffic to
make way for commuter rail between Georgetown and San Antonio, quite
possibly killing the decade-old effort to build a regional rail transit
system.
In 2009 and 2010, railroad executives
and Lone Star Rail District officials signed broad, non-binding
agreements to study the feasibility of implementing passenger rail
service on Union Pacific tracks along the Interstate 35 corridor. In a
Feb. 11 letter to Lone Star board chairman Sid Covington, however,
railroad brass said unambiguously that Union Pacific “can no longer, in
good faith, constrain its growth by the conceptual discussions or
previous expressions of interest between the parties.”
“Over the course of the past six-plus
years of meetings, discussions and studies, it has become apparent that
the desired track alignments and infrastructure requirements necessary
to support the efficient and reliable co-mingling of freight and
commuter passenger rail are unattainable,” writes Jerry S. Wilmoth, UP’s
general manager for network infrastructure. “In addition, UPRR
continually needs to analyze, develop and implement enhancements to its
network to meet customer demand in this vital and growing corridor.”
In a story published today,
the Austin American-Statesman quotes Lone Star Rail District general
counsel Bill Bingham as saying, “we’ll continue on, and we’ll keep
talking to Union Pacific. I think we’ll get this project done. I don’t
know when or how.”
More from the Austin American-Statesman:
The project has never beenConceptual plans for the LSTAR system
able to advance beyond paper and computer screens. The 1997 legislation
gives the agency little taxation power — primarily the ability, with the
local jurisdictions’ permission, to tax small areas near train stations
— and no permission to run on the logical route, Union Pacific’s track.
Union Pacific’s position has always
been that it might be amenable to sharing its tracks, but only if a
parallel set of tracks was built well to the east of the I-35 corridor.
And, most significantly, Union Pacific —
which, when the economy is humming, runs two to three dozen freight
trains a day in that corridor — said the cost of that alternate track
would fall to the district. That would be more than $2 billion.
include a downtown San Marcos station and stops in Kyle-Buda and New
Braunfels. To partially fund construction of a future rail station and
related amenities, the San Marcos City Council voted in January 2012 to
create a 244-acre tax increment reinvestment zone centered around the
former Hays County Justice Center property, between LBJ Drive and
Guadalupe Street in the Central Business District.
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