San Antonio and Austin, two of the fastest-growing U.S. cities, sit just 80 miles apart. That's too close for regular flights and just far enough for a drive up Interstate 35 to be a real pain in the ass.
Among public transportation advocates, the distance between the two Texas cities is considered a sweet spot where reliable rail service isn't just feasible but necessary.
With President Joe Biden's signature "Build Back Better" bill allocating nearly $20 billion for rail transit, grassroots organizations — including San Antonians for Rail Transit and RESTART Lone Star Rail District — are popping up, pumping out petitions and grabbing the attention of local politicians.
"We are coalition-building right now, and our goal is to get different advocacy groups, nonprofits and even things like chambers of commerce to get on board and say, 'Yes, we would benefit from a rail link between Austin and San Antonio,'" RESTART founder Clay Anderson said.
Indeed, a thesis published by one of Anderson's former colleagues at Columbia University argues that a rail link connecting Austin and San Antonio would grab significant enough ridership to justify its expense.
However, the region has been down this road before. Business leaders spent decades talking about the idea, and the Lone Star Rail District, established to create such a line, crashed and burned in 2016 with little to show for the millions pumped into the entity.
19 stops
Anderson, a San Antonio native and recent Columbia grad with an urban planning degree, works in Austin as a transportation planner. When he's off the clock, though, he's working to garner signatures for a petition calling on elected officials to relaunch the Lone Star Rail District.
"I wanted to figure out a way to get involved in transportation advocacy, and I was talking with my friends about what would be the most impactful project that we could do," he said. "My friends and I agreed that a rail between San Antonio and Austin would be so politically popular because so many people travel between them every day, every month, every year."
Anderson and his group mapped out a rail line stretching from Port San Antonio all the way to Round Rock, featuring 19 stops along the way.
Amtrak already runs a once-daily service between San Antonio and Austin for as little as $15. However, Anderson argues that Amtrak's Texas Eagle has too few regular departures, is unreliable and doesn't make stops in growing towns along the I-35 corridor. As a result, it fails to serve the region's nearly 5 million residents, he added.
Anderson and his group are calling on elected officials to establish "fast, frequent, and reliable rail service" along the corridor.
Some elected officials are starting to listen.
Political will
During a June meeting of Central and South Texas planning organizations, San Antonio Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda — also the new chair of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization — advocated for a rail link between the two cities, the Express-News reports.
Havrda is meeting with RESTART Lone Lone Star Rail District later this month to discuss that possibility, Anderson said.
However, she's not alone. Travis County Judge Andy Brown also appears to be taking the idea seriously.
"I'm looking at a passenger rail train, I see clear need for it and I look forward to discussing more when it gets a little farther down the track," Brown said in a statement to the daily.
When making his case, Anderson cites a master's thesis by his Columbia colleague, Christian Budow. That analysis found that a San Antonio-Austin link would boast an annual ridership of 4 million people, rivaling the 9.3 million passengers served by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service last year.
Budow's thesis also found that the commuter rail would reduce congestion on I-35, reducing traffic on the dreaded corridor by as much as 20%.
Paging Union Pacific
With rejuvenated support, is an Austin-San Antonio commuter rail inevitable?
Not really.
The first iteration of the Lone Star Rail District fizzled out in 2016 after Union Pacific, which owns the freight tracks between the Alamo City and Texas' capital city, pulled out of the deal. With little political will to build new tracks, the idea was dead in the water.
As Express-News columnist and former Current editor-in-chief Greg Jefferson put it at the time, the only thing the Lone Star Rail District was good at was "to keep a couple of people employed and consultants flush with billable hours."
Despite $25 million being spent on the project between 2003 and 2016, not a single line went into service.
Even so, Anderson argues this time is different. Union Pacific pulled out the first time because the project was mismanaged, he maintains, and the company was tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen.
"I see a very valid reason for Union Pacific pulling out of the deal," he said. "But just because they pulled out doesn't mean that the project is doomed. They've invested billions of dollars in improving passenger rail service and having agreements with passenger rail operators."
Still, it remains to be seen whether Union Pacific is ready to reenter talks with a region that left it in limbo just a few years ago.
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