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[In_Correct]

And They expect The Electricity Infrastructure to be able accommodate Vehicles ... Both Road, And Rail must be powered by Electricity despite The Electricity Infrastructure being even more insufficient than Transportation.

It has taken numerous decades for Them to finally even consider Extending Interstate 27. Roads should never be demolished. They should instead be converted to Beautiful Toll Roads. This provides the much needed roads to be constructed. Including Passenger Rail would require adding additional tracks ( not demolish them ) and it would require Grade Separating them.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lubbock,+TX/@32.2364907,-101.5501062,285m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86fe12add37ddd39:0x1af0042922e84287!8m2!3d33.5778631!4d-101.8551665

Public Transportation can be added later.

[sprjus4]

Roads should never be demolished. They should instead be converted to Beautiful Toll Roads. This provides the much needed roads to be constructed.

What?

[Bobby5280]

I'm not opposed to building things like passenger rail lines to connect cities or building dedicated bike paths in urban centers and suburbs. What I don't like is those projects costing such ridiculous amounts of money, especially anything related to rail travel. The situation with the high speed rail project in California is a perfect example for how absurd and pathetic the situation is in the United States. The airline lobby is another villain in this equation.

Like it or not, the US is still an extremely car-oriented nation. That isn't changing any time soon. Especially not while New Urbanism ideology continues to be a big lie in light of an intense housing affordability crisis. Most Americans will continue to need to travel by auto for the foreseeable future. Pete Buttigieg needs to remember that if he's wanting to redirect highway funding into rail lines and bike paths.

The Ports to Plains Corridor project is not something new. This is an effort that has been limping along since the 1990's. There is a legit need for the corridor to be fully built-out, which should include extensions of I-27 and I-2 to Laredo.

Roads should never be demolished. They should instead be converted to Beautiful Toll Roads.

Beautiful toll roads? I see little visual difference between a newly upgraded stretch of gas tax-funded super highway (like I-35 between DFW and Austin) or a toll-funded segment (like the 3x3 upgrade of the Turner Turnpike SW of Tulsa). Both highways look similar.

If electric powered vehicles eventually make up a much greater percentage of cars on the highways the US and individual states will have to re-think how roads are funded. For quite some time gasoline taxes have not generated adequate funding. A increasing surge of electronic vehicle sales will dramatically worsen the imbalance. In the not too distant future we may end up seeing RFID toll tag readers being installed on every type of highway and city street. Or motorists may just end up being taxed for every mile they drive, regardless of where they drive. You gotta pay for streets and highways somehow. They don't get built or maintained for free.

[kphoger]

I'm not opposed to building things like passenger rail lines to connect cities or building dedicated bike paths in urban centers and suburbs. What I don't like is those projects costing such ridiculous amounts of money, especially anything related to rail travel.

Again...  The railroad tracks are already there.  The following BNSF corridors already exist:

Amarillo - Lubbock
Lubbock - Brownwood - Belton - Galveston
Amarillo - Wichita Falls - Fort Worth

I assume that adding passenger rail wouldn't exactly require all new r/o/w.  Some double- or triple-tracking, platforms and stations, etc.  HSR is a whole other ball of wax, but HSR isn't required to have "a national passenger rail network".

[longhorn]

Just because the railroad is there does not mean the freight railroads want to deal with scheduling their freights around passenger trains. Have you taken Amtrak lately?

[In_Correct]

I'm not opposed to building things like passenger rail lines to connect cities or building dedicated bike paths in urban centers and suburbs. What I don't like is those projects costing such ridiculous amounts of money, especially anything related to rail travel. The situation with the high speed rail project in California is a perfect example for how absurd and pathetic the situation is in the United States. The airline lobby is another villain in this equation.

Like it or not, the US is still an extremely car-oriented nation. That isn't changing any time soon. Especially not while New Urbanism ideology continues to be a big lie in light of an intense housing affordability crisis. Most Americans will continue to need to travel by auto for the foreseeable future. Pete Buttigieg needs to remember that if he's wanting to redirect highway funding into rail lines and bike paths.

The Ports to Plains Corridor project is not something new. This is an effort that has been limping along since the 1990's. There is a legit need for the corridor to be fully built-out, which should include extensions of I-27 and I-2 to Laredo.

Roads should never be demolished. They should instead be converted to Beautiful Toll Roads.

Beautiful toll roads? I see little visual difference between a newly upgraded stretch of gas tax-funded super highway (like I-35 between DFW and Austin) or a toll-funded segment (like the 3x3 upgrade of the Turner Turnpike SW of Tulsa). Both highways look similar.

If electric powered vehicles eventually make up a much greater percentage of cars on the highways the US and individual states will have to re-think how roads are funded. For quite some time gasoline taxes have not generated adequate funding. A increasing surge of electronic vehicle sales will dramatically worsen the imbalance. In the not too distant future we may end up seeing RFID toll tag readers being installed on every type of highway and city street. Or motorists may just end up being taxed for every mile they drive, regardless of where they drive. You gotta pay for streets and highways somehow. They don't get built or maintained for free.

Beautiful toll roads? I see little visual difference between a newly upgraded stretch of gas tax-funded super highway (like I-35 between DFW and Austin) or a toll-funded segment (like the 3x3 upgrade of the Turner Turnpike SW of Tulsa). Both highways look similar.

For quite some time gasoline taxes have not generated adequate funding.

You explained it by your self. The Honorable George Bush Heavenly Turnpike have been 3 X 3 or in some areas 4 X 4 much earlier than Interstate 35, Interstate 35E, Interstate 35W.

There are Managed Lanes, which are insufficient. There is also the problem at Valley View where N.I.M.B.Y. Numb Skulls got in the way. Perhaps they can redesign The Frontage Roads to be elevated. However, since they downgraded U.S. 77, I doubt they are going to raise The Frontage Roads, which would require raising the main carriage way bridges. Or they can tunnel under the B.N.S.F.. ... which requires installing Storm Drains. ... They might be left with no other choice except to close that At Grade Crossing and build a Grade Separation over or under it elsewhere.

In other words, Interstate 35 is under construction while The Honorable President George Bush Heavenly Turnpike was constructed years ago. 

And The Gantries with Orange Circles also makes them Beautiful.

I'm not opposed to building things like passenger rail lines to connect cities or building dedicated bike paths in urban centers and suburbs. What I don't like is those projects costing such ridiculous amounts of money, especially anything related to rail travel.

Again...  The railroad tracks are already there.  The following BNSF corridors already exist:

Amarillo - Lubbock
Lubbock - Brownwood - Belton - Galveston
Amarillo - Wichita Falls - Fort Worth

I assume that adding passenger rail wouldn't exactly require all new r/o/w.  Some double- or triple-tracking, platforms and stations, etc.  HSR is a whole other ball of wax, but HSR isn't required to have "a national passenger rail network".

Lots of double tracking and lots of triple tracking must be done. The D.C.T.A. does not own any tracks, and utilizes mostly single tracks. ... Last time I checked any ways.

There most certainly can not be A National Passenger Rail Network. That would up set Air Lines. I agree with Emily Hartley: Planes Suck.

Just because the railroad is there does not mean the freight railroads want to deal with scheduling their freights around passenger trains. Have you taken Amtrak lately?

It is possible I shall attend University hours away. I would stay in The Dorms during most of the week. Riding there would require Vanpools, Greyhound, and Amtrak. Amtrak by itself takes 24 hours in one direction. Omitting Amtrak does not save much time either.

[kphoger]

Just because the railroad is there does not mean the freight railroads want to deal with scheduling their freights around passenger trains. Have you taken Amtrak lately?

That's kind of my point, though.  People keep talking about "building" a passenger rail network.  It isn't the "building" of it that's needed.  It's already built, for the most part.  But our cities are too far apart, our culture is already car-centric in a way many others aren't, and the railroads have little to no incentive to prioritize (in any sense of that word) passenger rail.  As for convenience, there's little that rail can do to match air travel.  As for serving small- and medium-sized towns, there's little that rail can do to match the potential of bus transportation.

If a robust passenger rail network were feasible on a large scale in this country, then it would already be better than it is.  If getting a robust passenger rail network into reality requires a zillion dollars up front, then it's bound to require a quarter-zillion dollars every year to keep going.

[Cerlin]

I mean it’s common sense that infrastructure should be upgraded to standard no matter what type, so an I-27 corridor is a big priority. But, I think as a nation that upholds “freedom of choice”, you should be able to comfortably move around not only in your city but between cities with whatever mode of transportation you want. Forcing an entire country to use car dependent infrastructure is stupid.

[TXtoNJ]

The problem is certain powers that be have fantasies of Americans just using bicycles and trains to get around. That goes right along with the fantasy of New Urbanism.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

[Some one]

The problem is certain powers that be have fantasies of Americans just using bicycles and trains to get around. That goes right along with the fantasy of New Urbanism.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

They saw the I-45 project get temporarily halted and now they're making up scenarios in their heads.

[Bobby5280]

Again...  The railroad tracks are already there.  The following BNSF corridors already exist:

The existing freight rail network does not cover all the gaps in what could be a national passenger rail network. The US freight rail network is not designed at all for city to city passenger travel. It is designed 100% for moving freight from ports of entry to other distribution hubs within the US.

Just look at how the routes are designed. One example: the Southern Transcon is double-tracked most of the way between Kansas City and Los Angeles. But it bypasses Wichita and Oklahoma City on the way to Amarillo. Oklahoma City is a major metro, but all it gets is a North-South stub route down to DFW.

A real passenger rail network would take passengers from one city center to another city center -kind of like what the "Bullet Train" in Japan has done for over 50 years. The problem is we don't have any way to build anything like that as a brand new thing without it exploding to breath-taking levels of cost.

The cost situation is starting to get that bad in terms of highway construction. There's no telling how many billions of dollars will have to be spent to fully flesh-out the Ports to Plains Corridor as a (mostly) Interstate quality corridor.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

Mayor Pete panders at least a little bit to the crowd dreaming the New Urbanist vision. Those groups are succeeding at blocking some highway projects.

I think it would be great if people could live in more densely developed downtown-style areas and have multiple options how to commute to work, go shopping or do other activities. The "new urbanism" dream doesn't work unless everyone, regardless of income class, can live there. Lots of housing units are being built in city centers, but only as "luxury condos." None of the people waiting tables, tending bar, etc in trendy downtown businesses can afford condo prices starting at $500K. What happens is the top 1% income group buys those condos as downtown crash pads. Or they buy them as assets to hold or sell, just like stocks. We have a severe housing affordability crisis in the US. Young adults are getting hit hardest by this.

I already have a lot of selfish concerns about a possible baby bust in the future and what it could mean for me being able to draw social security or get Medicare benefits 20 years from now. We could also be looking at quite a real estate catastrophe too. The middle aged and older folks buying up all these McMansions out in the suburbs now are doing so from the mindset they'll be able to sell those huge homes for a profit later. But what that hell does a single, unmarried adult with no kids need with a 4000 square foot home? Single people without kids is one of the fastest growing demographics.

In the meantime, if the New Urbanist crowd wants to block a downtown highway project -fine. Let them. Divert the funding to more rural highway projects, like extending I-27. Let the douchey priced city centers suffocate in traffic.

[Plutonic Panda]

I’m not so pessimistic about the future of passenger rail in this country but do I think we’re going to have HSR left and right going from NYC to LA? No. But that doesn’t mean we can’t create corridors where we can have MagLev, traditional HSR, and upgrade most lines to run from 90-120MPH. I don’t see why we couldn’t do that. It’s also up to each of the cities to increase alternative modes of transport and when I say that I don’t mean making cities hostile to cars and neglecting car infrastructure but giving other people options rather than driving being the only one that really makes sense.

We need to move in a direction that is multimodal. I still think cars will be king but increasing the modal share of alternative transit by about 10-15 percent is something I think is doable. That said I’m more in favor of eliminating choke points, rebuilding neglected interstates, and building new interstate routes like I-11 between Vegas and Phoenix before embarking on some nationwide passenger rail revolution.

[1]

I think the Texas Triangle is the best place to put high-speed rail. Building it will be cheaper than more built-up areas.

[Bobby5280]

Considering all the practical (and political) issues in play, it's all but guaranteed if the US ever does get any kind of true high speed rail networks off the ground they'll have serious drawbacks.

For one thing, it's pretty much impossible to build new true high speed rail rated tracks directly into a city center. The general public hates elevated viaducts for highways. Why would they feel any different about an elevated rail line? Building tunnels in the US costs too much money.

What will end up happening is the high speed rail stations will have to be built way out on the edge of cities, in the same manner as airports. And that would ruin any time advantage the high speed trains would have over planes. The passenger rail companies would have to market the service in a different way, such as sight-seeing rather than saving time. Unfortunately a lot of the sights one sees along Amtrak routes is either freight yards and other industrial looking stuff or just trees right by the window. New true high speed rail routes would need to be on their own dedicated tracks rather than any of their shared nonsense with existing freight tracks.

[TXtoNJ]

The problem is certain powers that be have fantasies of Americans just using bicycles and trains to get around. That goes right along with the fantasy of New Urbanism.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

They saw the I-45 project get temporarily halted and now they're making up scenarios in their heads.

Temporary is the key. Removing the Pierce is the best New Urbanist development in years, but it got held up because of changes in the Harris County power structure. A different set of consultants needed to wet their beaks - the ideology is just the window dressing.

[Scott5114]

Considering all the practical (and political) issues in play, it's all but guaranteed if the US ever does get any kind of true high speed rail networks off the ground they'll have serious drawbacks.

For one thing, it's pretty much impossible to build new true high speed rail rated tracks directly into a city center. The general public hates elevated viaducts for highways. Why would they feel any different about an elevated rail line? Building tunnels in the US costs too much money.

What will end up happening is the high speed rail stations will have to be built way out on the edge of cities, in the same manner as airports. And that would ruin any time advantage the high speed trains would have over planes.

I don't think that's enough to ruin the time advantage—you'd just have to have some sort of facility there where you could change to some other mode of transportation for the last mile. (Transfer to city metro system, city bus system, rental car, taxi/Uber, etc.)

[Some one]

The problem is certain powers that be have fantasies of Americans just using bicycles and trains to get around. That goes right along with the fantasy of New Urbanism.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

They saw the I-45 project get temporarily halted and now they're making up scenarios in their heads.

Temporary is the key. Removing the Pierce is the best New Urbanist development in years, but it got held up because of changes in the Harris County power structure. A different set of consultants needed to wet their beaks - the ideology is just the window dressing.

From what I've heard, the main problem isn't that they're removing the pierce elevated or trenching 59, but it's that they're doing it while doubling the ROW, essentially destroying a portion of the EaDo neighborhood. It is annoying they halted right as construction is about to start but it's somewhat understandable (an unpopular opinion here I know).

[bwana39]

The problem is certain powers that be have fantasies of Americans just using bicycles and trains to get around. That goes right along with the fantasy of New Urbanism.

No they don’t. That’s silly. There are certainly groups that grift off this vision, but they don’t have the power that car dealers and local construction contractors do.

They saw the I-45 project get temporarily halted and now they're making up scenarios in their heads.

Temporary is the key. Removing the Pierce is the best New Urbanist development in years, but it got held up because of changes in the Harris County power structure. A different set of consultants needed to wet their beaks - the ideology is just the window dressing.

Consultants: TXDOT has more engineers per lane mile than they did when they engineered virtually everything in-house.  Today consultants do most of the engineering and TXDOT primarily does quality control.

[J N Winkler]

Consultants: TXDOT has more engineers per lane mile than they did when they engineered virtually everything in-house.  Today consultants do most of the engineering and TXDOT primarily does quality control.

Plan production has changed too.  The original construction plans for the Four Level interchange in Los Angeles, the first Maltese cross stack in the world, had fewer than 100 sheets.  Even as late as the 1960's, interchanges of similar design had construction plans sets aggregating to fewer than 2000 sheets.  In 2001, the High Five alone had more than 5000 sheets.

[Rick Powell]

I mean it’s common sense that infrastructure should be upgraded to standard no matter what type, so an I-27 corridor is a big priority. But, I think as a nation that upholds “freedom of choice”, you should be able to comfortably move around not only in your city but between cities with whatever mode of transportation you want. Forcing an entire country to use car dependent infrastructure is stupid.

Redundancy costs money. Duplicating every possible type of service wherever travel exists would be a debilitating expense.

As for the matter of forcing people into automobiles, transportation is a function of moving people and goods from Point A to Point B. By their nature, roads serve more Points A and B than any other mode and nearly every residence in the US is served by one directly or nearby. Planes can fly to wherever someone provided a landing strip, and there are around 5,000 public airports in the US. Rail and other guided vehicles can only go where the guideway goes, but Amtrak serves over 500 locations, and there are 30 commuter rail, 17 light rail, and 15 heavy rail systems in the US with multiple stops. Roads can be made more friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians, and options such as on-call passenger van service, fixed route bus service, vanpooling, and commercial providers like taxi service and Uber/Lyft can provide additional flexibility for people who don't/can't drive or own an automobile. There's lots of options right there. 

[bwana39]

Consultants: TXDOT has more engineers per lane mile than they did when they engineered virtually everything in-house.  Today consultants do most of the engineering and TXDOT primarily does quality control.

Plan production has changed too.  The original construction plans for the Four Level interchange in Los Angeles, the first Maltese cross stack in the world, had fewer than 100 sheets.  Even as late as the 1960's, interchanges of similar design had construction plans sets aggregating to fewer than 2000 sheets.  In 2001, the High Five alone had more than 5000 sheets.

You have to ask "Is this a good thing?" IS microengineering everything something that insures quality of just creates minutiae that increases the price and expands  the likelihood of exceptions that have to be corrected on technicalities versus real defect.

I started examples. Lots of stuff that used to be (and probably still should be) boilerplate has clean sheets drawn for cloned sections. Each concrete section has a clean sheet for it. It goes overboard. Every section is SPECIAL (or specific) and requires customization in bidding, constructing, and pricing. 

[Scott5114]

I mean it’s common sense that infrastructure should be upgraded to standard no matter what type, so an I-27 corridor is a big priority. But, I think as a nation that upholds “freedom of choice”, you should be able to comfortably move around not only in your city but between cities with whatever mode of transportation you want. Forcing an entire country to use car dependent infrastructure is stupid.

Redundancy costs money. Duplicating every possible type of service wherever travel exists would be a debilitating expense.

I mean, you could say, because redundancy costs money, that you should never buy pens because they cannot be erased and pencils can. But most everybody has both pens and pencils in their house because they are useful for different tasks.

[Plutonic Panda]

Map showing current and future projects for this corridor: https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot/tpp/i-27/tabloid-ports-to-plains-activeprojects-20211012.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1oZxTWrC6HDPnFGYmIwVewpL40IWEamnCbY1aSOWzSBotwyUl2PGbHS40

I wonder when the flyover fairy will bless Lubbock. I was hoping to see more projects adding direct connector ramps in the Lubbock area.