Texas’ Department of Transportation is currently researching the possibility of the construction of a high-speed rail that travels from San Antonio, Texas to Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
The research will focus on the creation of the so-called “bullet train” that will take passengers between these two cities.
Results will be delivered to the city of Laredo, Texas to be evaluated and finally determine if its development is feasible or not.
The project was originally presented in early 2014 to the USA’s Secretary of Transportation, Anthony Foxx, however this was postponed until 2016. Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar will wait for results over the next couple of months.
OriginalImage: “Taiwan High Speed Rail” by Edwin Rios, under CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
“We hope the results of the Texas’ Deparment of Transportation research about the high-speed rail connecting Monterrey to San Antonio will be due in a couple of months”— says Congressman Cuellar— “They want to do this the right way, because this will initiate a solidified project, so it is the first and most important step” he explained during an interview with Nuevo León based newspaper Zócalo.
Besides the need for a strong investment, there is also the migration procedures issue, which must be properly set up in order for all passengers to travel legally from country to country.
The city of Saltillo, in the neighboring state of Coahuila, has also come out in response to this new project. Legislators along with the Chamber of National Trade, Services and Tourism (Canaco), will ask the state government of Coahuila to be taken into account for the bullet train project between these two cities.
Local deputy, Francisco Tobias Hernández, stated that Canaco is currently striving to extend the project 87 kilometers (54 miles) further south to the city of Saltillo, and they are now encouraging businessmen to jump on board as soon as they can.
Original Image: “Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line” by LWYang, under CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
A bullet train can reach speeds of over 200 km/h (125 miles per hour), on existing revamped rails; and even up to 250 km/h (156 miles per hour) on specially designed high speed rails according to the International Union of Railways (UIC).
High-speed rails are considered among the safest means of transportation in the world, being placed third just behind airplanes. Over the last 40 years there have been only 5 accidents involving this type of trains.
Its incredible speed allows it to be a highly competitive means of transportation against aerial, short distance travel wise.
The trip from Monterrey to San Antonio will be made in two hours, which will save a significant amount of time against normal means —traveling by highway takes regularly between 5 and 6 hours (depending on how long does it take for the traveler to go through US customs at the border), and the total distance from one point to the other is 483 km (302 miles).
Both countries are evaluating this project and the budget is estimated to be of approximately 500 million dollars and very likely to interest private investors.
