Austin Metro

“This [study] is the cost side other than the operations and maintenance,” Jennifer Moczygemba, TxDOT’s rail system section director, told the board of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization on Feb. 13. “The next step to this would be to look at the ridership.”

TxDOT is in the process of presenting key findings from the study to governmental bodies. One of those findings is the cost. According to the analysis, building out the rail line would cost between $936 million and $1.2 billion. 

But first is the extensive research and environmental review process, which puts fruition of the project many years out. Moczygemba said the department has other high-priority corridors, such as between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, to focus on before it allocates budgeted research funds toward a ridership study.

“We want to make sure we are concentrating our budget and those available funds to those studies first, and then if we do have money that is available, we could proceed with the ridership study,” she said.

In addition to looking at how many people could hypothetically use the rail line, the ridership analysis would also evaluate the economic sense of providing service to College Station and if the half-hour difference in travel time between the proposed routes would affect ridership.

With that information, Moczygemba said TxDOT would have a better idea of what federal subsidies the department would be eligible for and the amount of revenue that could be generated from operations. Following that, TxDOT could move into the environmental review process.

Feasibility study components

The feasibility study identified four potential routes and five stops, including one in Elgin, Giddings, Brenham, and Hempstead, and evaluated existing infrastructure as well as changes that would need to be made to that infrastructure for the trains to travel up to 110 miles per hour.

“A lot of curves on the Austin-Giddings line need to be straightened out so we can go ahead and get train speeds up to where they need to be,” said Joe Lileikis, associate vice president of Austin-based engineering firm HNTB Corporation, which assisted TxDOT with the feasibility study.

The rail line would make two to four round trips daily, connecting in Austin from the MetroRail Red Line and potentially meeting up with commuter rails in Hempstead and Bryan, located near College Station. Trains would be composed of one locomotive, three passenger cars that can seat 70-80 people and a dining and lounge car.