Week 8: Connecting College Students and Airports - Texas HSR Network Overview

Hello everyone and welcome back! Here’s a quick recap of what I worked on last week:

Last week I researched the key factors of success that allowed Spanish HSR to grow quickly and thrive. And beyond simply reach a large level of economies of scale, my research determined that the three key factors of Spanish HSR location were construction cost minimizations, the maximization of multimodal connections through the central urban/airport integration of HSR stations, and integration of dense population centers into HSR routes to increase potential market reach. 

Week 8 Progress: 

Using the factors identified in the previous week as the framework for the Texas HSR route design, here is my finalized route design (the blog posted my image too blurry, so please click here to see my design). To explain this design, I will explain my station selections in a macro overview of route design and its relation to the Spanish HSR design principles, followed by a more in depth overview of exact station location and depot locations in the city/surrounding areas.

Build Competitive Routes with High Potential Route Market Capitalization:

Building on the key points of Spanish HSR design of:

1. Do not always build the most direct route, add detours to reach large population metro areas in between the start and end destination cities.
2. If the cities are too far away from the main line, build lower speed commuter rail to connect the center of the displaced city to the main line.

My design integrates this design philosophy by slightly diverging each of the 3 main routes to maximize potential population reach. Through this design alteration, I was able to include the cities of Waco (pop. 304,865), Killeen–Temple (pop. 501,333), Bryan/College Station (pop. 281,445), and Austin (pop. 2,473,275). As a result, the proposed Texas HSR network will reach the top 4 largest metro areas in Texas (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin), the 7th largest metro area in Texas (Killeen-Temple), the 12th largest metro area in Texas (Waco), and the 14th largest metro area in Texas (College Station – Bryan) according to Census data. Through this network design, over 21.5 million people or approximately 68% of the Texas population, will be reached by HSR. While the amount of annual passengers will likely not reach the total population of the area in the first 5 years, it is a good predictor of the potential ceiling that the project has. According to the Senior Vice President of Amtrak High Speed Rail Andy Byford, just the route between Dallas and Houston had over 12 million total trips in 2022, with this number likely to increase as the addition of HSR and its convenience induces additional demand. Utilizing the Spanish network design philosophy, this design maximizes network reach, giving HSR the best chance at succeeding in Texas and the United States. 

Furthermore, the close distances of the major cities of Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio allow for the routes to be highly competitive versus air and road travel. Using Peter Joritsma’s method of estimated HSR market share from my research in week 4, the average potential market share of these large intercity routes based on the estimated travel time is 88.32%. HSR is 2 hours or less in nearly every route, priming HSR to be in a position to completely dominate the market according to transportation consulting firm ALG.

Minimize Construction Cost – Macro Overview:

Before getting into the points discussed in my analysis of Spanish HSR last week, I would like to discuss an obvious design idea that was overlooked in last week’s blog post – limiting network track length. As seen in my map design, my design tried to have each part of the track be used for multiple lines (ex:track coming from Dallas being used for both the Dallas-Houston and Dallas-San Antonio routes), reducing the total network length by approximately 35% if the routes were connected directly, correlating to an approximate 35% in cost savings using this design. While routes will now be longer than if done directly point to point, the route distance will be at most a 22% detour on the Houston-Austin-San Antonio Route. With the Spanish HSR average commercial speed being 222 km/hr(138 mi/hr), this 80km (50 mile) detour will only result in 20 minutes added onto the route. As a result, the total estimated travel time of the trip will only be 99 minutes, allowing the route to still be very competitive against air and road travel. Now with that out of the way, let’s move onto the the key points of Spanish HSR design mentioned last week:

1. For shorter distance spur branches, build lower speed rail to connect to the main network where higher speed is not needed to be competitive (i.e. in areas where airport access is limited or nonexistent).
2. Build on as flat of a terrain as possible, limiting the amount of tunnels. This is reflected in the Transit Costs Project’s database, where it shows that Spain’s tunneling and elevated percentages are some of the lowest out of the high speed rail countries, with only 13.85% of the routes on average being in tunnels and only 3.85% of the routes being elevated. 

The application of design principle number three was used to create a spur branch from Temple (on the main line) to Kileen. To highlight it on the map, the route is denoted by the red line. Given the short distance of 25 miles between the two cities while being off the mainline of Dallas – San Antonio, it is not necessary to build high speed rail on this route. By modernizing the existing rail connection between the two cities, HSR developers can save millions of dollars by not building significant excess capacity.

When it comes to the topography of the proposed route, the entire HSR network will go through the flatlands section of Texas. The route avoids the mountains found west of Austin, Killeen–Temple, and San Antonio, with the elevation of the entire route ranging from approximately 20 to 200 meters above sea level per the topographic map database. For comparison, the first Spanish high speed rail line, from Madrid to Seville, had an elevation range of 0 to 800 m. As a result, the percentage of trackage that is needed to be elevated or go through tunnels will likely be less than through alternative Texas HSR routes, saving developers millions of dollars.

Central Urban Integration:

Building on the key points of the central urban integration of Spanish HSR:

1. Build stations in the middle of cities, allowing the local governments to develop local transportation hubs, arenas, and convention centers around the station. In cases where the existing Amtrak station is centrally located, that station will be redeveloped and modernized to typical high speed rail standards.
2. Build high speed rail connections with airports that have a large volume of international and intercontinental flights to foster air-HSR partnerships to expand intercity transportation accessibility.

The high speed rail design integrates the first point by modernizing and expanding existing Amtrak stations or building new stations where parking garages were. This is to limit land acquisition costs. The station locations are also placed strategically, typically on the outskirts of the central business district to induce development and allow the high speed rail developer to make money off the rise in land value rail transportation creates. 

In terms of airport integration, the high speed rail network connects Texas residents to the two largest airports in terms of long-haul and international flights: Dallas Fort Worth and George Bush Intercontinental Airport. By connecting to these airports, airlines can partner with competing high speed rail providers to sell. This is especially relevant to residents of smaller cities on the lines like College Station, Waco, and Killeen-Temple, who now can reach significantly more American, European, and Asian destinations with just one convenient transfer from the train to the airport.

One last form of urban integration that I considered was station proximity to college campuses. While not mentioned as a key success point of Spanish design, college students are one of the largest car-free demographics in the United States. As a result, high HSR usage by college students is a great indicator of short-term and long-term project success. As a result, the universities of Baylor (located in Waco, 20,000 students), UT Austin (53,000 students), and Texas A&M (located in College Station, 79,000 students) are all a walkable distance from the HSR stations.

Minimize Construction Cost – Micro Overview:

To achieve central urban integration while limiting costs, my design integrates the Spanish cost-saving approaches of: 

1. Purchasing and modernizing existing rail connections that run into the middle of the city.
2. Building high speed rail next to highways that enter the city
3. Building high speed stations in places where existing Amtrak stations exist in downtowns to limit real estate purchasing costs.
4. Building new stations where currently parking garages/empty lots exist

In every city destination, these design principles were utilized to create cheap stations with high connectivity. 

Since Spanish high speed rail typically utilizes dedicated HSR-speed level trackage, the existing tracks need to be evaluated on the feasibility of modernizing for HSR use. When considering if existing trackage can be utilized, the rail connections were evaluated on three factors:

1. How straight is the rail trackage, what speeds is the track design potentially capable of.
2. Are there alternative rail routes that can take on the train demand lost by dedicating this route solely to high speed rail. 
3. What percentage of the track has road-level crossings, how feasible is it to create over/underpasses to minimize road-level crossings.

After considering these three factors, here’s how the design utilizes existing rail connections in major metropolitan cities:

1. To connect the Dallas central station to the DFW airport, Arlington, and the Fort Worth stations, my design suggested modernizing the existing Trinity Railways Express route.
2. To connect the Houston Airport to the Houston central station, the design utilizes the existing Union Pacific(UP) Lufkin Subdivision tracks.
3. To enter San Antonio and reach the San Antonio central station, UP Del Rio tracks will be modernized.
4. To enter and exit Temple, the UP Waco track will be modernized. 
5. Between Temple and Kileen, the BNSF Lampasas subdivision will be shared with freight rail as a spur route from the main HSR network.
6. To enter and exit College Station, the UP Navasota branch will be used.

Where existing rail connections did not work to enter the center of cities, the alternative of building high speed rail above or alongside interstates was suggested. This is the case in Austin and Waco, where the high speed rail runs along the I-35 into and out of the cities. To see the layout of station locations and exact proposed routes to enter the city, please click here.

Given that these routes had well defined right of ways, the freight rail companies, BNSF and Union Pacific, would likely be uninterested in selling their freight rail trackage at market value. As a result, government intervention through eminent domain would likely be needed to complete this project. This incentivizes the HSR developers to work with the government through a Public-Private partnership, making the HSR network become more equitable and accessible for Texas residents through government mandated student or affordable pricing programs. 

This is all I had for this week. For next week, I plan to discuss the economic model aspect of the network, diving deeper into rail stock, rail gauge, maintenance facilities, and how the economic model will induce high speed rail competition. Thank you for reading my blog and see you next week!