Ancient railroad remnants still adorn Austin’s downtown streets. This one, on 4th Street, between the Convention Center and the Downtown Austin Hilton, may someday carry commuting passengers.
Skyrocketing energy prices make transportation the weakest link in our economy. We still generate most of our electricity from domestic fuels but we import over 60% of our motor fuels – gasoline and diesel (mainly in the form of petroleum). The costs of home insulation, weather-stripping, and Energy Star appliances pale in comparison to changing the ways we travel and transport goods. Expensive energy in transportation systems that depend on petroleum fuels will isolate communities lacking convenient rail service. Electric trains can use home-grown solar and wind power and thereby reduce imports while enhancing national security. Cheap motor fuels over the past 75 years or so convinced most Americans to abandon trains and trolleys in preference for cars and trucks. Now we need them back.
Most changes in government and society happen incrementally. The likelihood of seeing a comprehensive transportation plan for Texas, other than the highway plans that no longer make sense in today’s energy situation, seems laughably remote. Instead of waiting for that, I propose starting a conversation about a relatively manageable corridor – between Austin and Houston. The historic railroad corridor roughly approximates the US Highway 290 corridor.
The counties along the way include: Travis, Bastrop, Lee, Fayette, Washington, Waller, and Harris. Cities and towns include: Austin, Manor, Elgin, McDade, Paige, Giddings, Ledbetter, Carmine, Burton, Brenham, Chappell Hill, Hempstead, Prairie View, Waller, Hockley, Cypress, Jersey Village, Hilshire Village, and Houston. A revived rail service in this corridor should provide local as well as express schedules. A high-speed train between Houston and Austin makes no sense if it offers no benefit to the communities and farms along the route.
Prior to about 1980, a Union Pacific (UP) railroad track connected these places – probably just freight service by that late date. Built as the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, this line gave the town of Giddings a reason to exist in 1871 long before highways came through. The town of Burton, in Washington County, still maintains its 1898 Houston and Texas Central Railroad Station. After 1980, UP abandoned a large segment of the line, between Austin and Hempstead. Capital METRO now owns the tracks between Austin and Giddings, they do not presently provide passenger service. Houston METRO has proposed for some time a commuter line along the segment from Houston to Hempstead. North-south rail lines run through Giddings and Brenham, but the direct rail route from Houston to Austin no longer exists.
Texas Department of Transportation (TXDoT) supposedly acquired the remainder of the abandoned rail right-of-way and plans to build highway lanes on it. Building new highway lanes in this time and place seems gravely unwise. With gasoline headed inexorably toward $4 per gallon – and beyond, restoration of train service seems the more prudent choice. These agriculturally-based communities might rise in importance to the larger cities at either end of this corridor as the cost of motor fuels increases and the cost of importing food from farther away becomes less economical.
Railroads delivered goods to downtown Austin in a bygone era. Austin’s “warehouse district” would not have come into existence without them.
In an era of increasingly expensive fossil fuels, affordable transportation will become a key economic development enabler. Rural areas and small towns linked by trains – particularly electric trains – to the major cities will more easily maintain social and economic ties to the regional economy. Places lacking affordable transportation and links to major economic centers will suffer from isolation and economic atrophy. The major cities will grow increasingly dependent on the hinterlands in their immediate vicinity as it becomes prohibitively expensive to import food from the other side of the planet. Electric trains will become an economic necessity to connect farmers to markets as fossil fuels, and especially liquid motor fuels, become unaffordable or unavailable.
These rural communities cannot afford to wait for a grand plan from the state or federal government to rescue them. These communities must form a coalition, organize their resources, create their own plans, and present their proposals for funding – if not by the state or federal government, then by whatever means necessary. Absent leadership from higher up, communities must help each other to address the unfolding recession, energy crisis, and food crisis. Others may join later, but the most obvious coalition I can think of would include communities in the corridor, urban transit authorities, railroad companies, agricultural producers, distributors, and land owners in the corridor.
The coalition needs to identify and agree upon their goals, inventory their resources, and assess gaps that might cause problems. Some management advisers call this process a SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. As an example of an opportunity: Houston’s port makes it a special destination as a liaison to other coastal ports of the world. As an example of a threat: food and energy prices have doubled in the past few years and could do so again. Connecting corridor communities to the Port of Houston could become crucial for transporting food and other commercial goods as well as passengers. Travel by boat, where available, remains more energy efficient than other modes (i.e.: aircraft). Recent airline problems offer a preview of coming distractions as air travel and air freight become increasingly unaffordable.
A SWOT analysis for this complex geographic region must involve a large number of concerned people and assure them that their opinions and participation matter to the outcome. Many communities have successfully used the charette process to solicit data and opinions from large groups of interested persons. Imagine a conference, a workshop, and an opinion poll wrapped up together. The charette yields a set of resource documents that the involved jurisdictions can use to guide their planning activities. The American Institute of Architects offers its Regional and Urban Design Assistance Team process to communities eager to make fundamental changes in a rational, public manner. Members of the American Planning Association, the School of Planning at the University of Texas, the Public Policy program at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, or the Envision Central Texas group could probably provide thoroughly useful advice and facilitation for a charette process focused on the corridor between Austin and Houston.
One familiar with some of the characters and institutions mentioned above might balk at trying to gather them into one room for a brainstorm. However, I have heard numerous anecdotes over the years describing facilitated negotiations involving presumed irreconcilable adversaries. Magical things can and do happen when a talented, determined facilitator works with a group of people who learn that their safety, security, and survival might depend on their ability to cooperate with each other.
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Skyrocketing energy prices make transportation the weakest link in our economy. We still generate most of our electricity from domestic fuels but we import over 60% of our motor fuels – gasoline and diesel (mainly in the form of petroleum). The costs of home insulation, weather-stripping, and Energy Star appliances pale in comparison to changing the ways we travel and transport goods. Expensive energy in transportation systems that depend on petroleum fuels will isolate communities lacking convenient rail service. Electric trains can use home-grown solar and wind power and thereby reduce imports while enhancing national security. Cheap motor fuels over the past 75 years or so convinced most Americans to abandon trains and trolleys in preference for cars and trucks. Now we need them back.
Most changes in government and society happen incrementally. The likelihood of seeing a comprehensive transportation plan for Texas, other than the highway plans that no longer make sense in today’s energy situation, seems laughably remote. Instead of waiting for that, I propose starting a conversation about a relatively manageable corridor – between Austin and Houston. The historic railroad corridor roughly approximates the US Highway 290 corridor.
The counties along the way include: Travis, Bastrop, Lee, Fayette, Washington, Waller, and Harris. Cities and towns include: Austin, Manor, Elgin, McDade, Paige, Giddings, Ledbetter, Carmine, Burton, Brenham, Chappell Hill, Hempstead, Prairie View, Waller, Hockley, Cypress, Jersey Village, Hilshire Village, and Houston. A revived rail service in this corridor should provide local as well as express schedules. A high-speed train between Houston and Austin makes no sense if it offers no benefit to the communities and farms along the route.
Prior to about 1980, a Union Pacific (UP) railroad track connected these places – probably just freight service by that late date. Built as the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, this line gave the town of Giddings a reason to exist in 1871 long before highways came through. The town of Burton, in Washington County, still maintains its 1898 Houston and Texas Central Railroad Station. After 1980, UP abandoned a large segment of the line, between Austin and Hempstead. Capital METRO now owns the tracks between Austin and Giddings, they do not presently provide passenger service. Houston METRO has proposed for some time a commuter line along the segment from Houston to Hempstead. North-south rail lines run through Giddings and Brenham, but the direct rail route from Houston to Austin no longer exists.
Texas Department of Transportation (TXDoT) supposedly acquired the remainder of the abandoned rail right-of-way and plans to build highway lanes on it. Building new highway lanes in this time and place seems gravely unwise. With gasoline headed inexorably toward $4 per gallon – and beyond, restoration of train service seems the more prudent choice. These agriculturally-based communities might rise in importance to the larger cities at either end of this corridor as the cost of motor fuels increases and the cost of importing food from farther away becomes less economical.
Railroads delivered goods to downtown Austin in a bygone era. Austin’s “warehouse district” would not have come into existence without them.
In an era of increasingly expensive fossil fuels, affordable transportation will become a key economic development enabler. Rural areas and small towns linked by trains – particularly electric trains – to the major cities will more easily maintain social and economic ties to the regional economy. Places lacking affordable transportation and links to major economic centers will suffer from isolation and economic atrophy. The major cities will grow increasingly dependent on the hinterlands in their immediate vicinity as it becomes prohibitively expensive to import food from the other side of the planet. Electric trains will become an economic necessity to connect farmers to markets as fossil fuels, and especially liquid motor fuels, become unaffordable or unavailable.
These rural communities cannot afford to wait for a grand plan from the state or federal government to rescue them. These communities must form a coalition, organize their resources, create their own plans, and present their proposals for funding – if not by the state or federal government, then by whatever means necessary. Absent leadership from higher up, communities must help each other to address the unfolding recession, energy crisis, and food crisis. Others may join later, but the most obvious coalition I can think of would include communities in the corridor, urban transit authorities, railroad companies, agricultural producers, distributors, and land owners in the corridor.
The coalition needs to identify and agree upon their goals, inventory their resources, and assess gaps that might cause problems. Some management advisers call this process a SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. As an example of an opportunity: Houston’s port makes it a special destination as a liaison to other coastal ports of the world. As an example of a threat: food and energy prices have doubled in the past few years and could do so again. Connecting corridor communities to the Port of Houston could become crucial for transporting food and other commercial goods as well as passengers. Travel by boat, where available, remains more energy efficient than other modes (i.e.: aircraft). Recent airline problems offer a preview of coming distractions as air travel and air freight become increasingly unaffordable.
A SWOT analysis for this complex geographic region must involve a large number of concerned people and assure them that their opinions and participation matter to the outcome. Many communities have successfully used the charette process to solicit data and opinions from large groups of interested persons. Imagine a conference, a workshop, and an opinion poll wrapped up together. The charette yields a set of resource documents that the involved jurisdictions can use to guide their planning activities. The American Institute of Architects offers its Regional and Urban Design Assistance Team process to communities eager to make fundamental changes in a rational, public manner. Members of the American Planning Association, the School of Planning at the University of Texas, the Public Policy program at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, or the Envision Central Texas group could probably provide thoroughly useful advice and facilitation for a charette process focused on the corridor between Austin and Houston.
One familiar with some of the characters and institutions mentioned above might balk at trying to gather them into one room for a brainstorm. However, I have heard numerous anecdotes over the years describing facilitated negotiations involving presumed irreconcilable adversaries. Magical things can and do happen when a talented, determined facilitator works with a group of people who learn that their safety, security, and survival might depend on their ability to cooperate with each other.
