http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news...rticle=4831618
Straus Seen as Booster of Passenger Rail Programs
SA-Austin corridor could be high on the list
By Jim Forsyth
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Long dormant efforts to establish a commuter-rail link between San Antonio and Austin are expected to get a major boost, when Alamo Heights State Rep. Joe Straus III is elected Speaker of the Texas House this week, 1200 WOAI news reports.
"That is going to be a critical issue for us," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who also chairs the San Antonio Austin Corridor Council, told 1200 WOAI's Bud Little.
"Having a speaker from the urban area of Texas, hopefully, will have a huge influence on addressing our transportation needs."
Wolff said he will spell out a two phase proposal to Straus in hopes of winning support from the Speaker-to-be for this long awaited project.
The first phase would be to locate the freight lines currently being used by the Union Pacific, which run parallel to Interstate 35, to a route parallel to State Route 130 about thirty miles to the east. Then the existing rail lines could be used for passenger transportation.
"I hope that will see more resources coming into the urban areas coming into transportation."
Wolff says his son Kevin, a newly-minted Bexar County Commissioner, is a good friend of Straus, and he says meetings have already been set up to discuss the commuter rail issue. Wolff says the Straus election, which is expected to take place on Tuesday, should be a boost to urban commuter rail systems statewide.
Efforts to establish large scale passenger rail systems in Texas have generally sputtered, ever since the Bullet Train proposal went down to defeat in the late 1980s.
One reason is the influence rural and highway construction interests have wielded in the Legislature, an influence Wolff and other passenger rail proponents hope will diminish under a speaker who understands the transportation needs of urban Texas.