Small Business Today Magazine JUL 2014 PHENOMENAL PRODUCTS | Page 16
EDITORIALFEATURE
High-Speed Rail Option Good
for Houston and Dallas
A joint editorial by Mayor Annise Parker of Houston and Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas
W
e are proud to be the Mayors
of two of the top 10 largest and
fastest growing cities in America.
Houston and Dallas have weathered the recent economic downturn and
are now the engines powering our state’s
tremendous job growth. While we celebrate the individual successes of our respective cities, we also recognize how important Dallas and Houston are to each
other.
With the bounty of economic growth
comes the challenge of thousands of new
people relocating to our cities as well as
increased commerce in the form of trucks
on our highways. Moreover, many Texans are surprised to learn that more than
50,000 “super-commuters” travel between
Dallas and Houston every day. Additionally, millions of our respective residents have
friends and family separated by the 240mile stretch of I-45. Combined, these factors create congestion and place a massive
and growing strain on our infrastructure.
A privately funded company,Texas Central Railway is currently working on a highspeed rail route between Houston and
Dallas. We support the addition of new
alternatives for travel between our two
growing cities. This privately funded project could transform the way we travel not
just between our city centers but could be
the model for other parts of the country.
Traveling between downtown Dallas
and downtown Houston currently takes
approximately four hours and according
to TxDOT, this commute is expected to
increase to over 6.5 hours by 2035.
A high-speed railroad could play an
integral role in alleviating this problem
by taking cars off the road and reducing
With the bounty of
economic growth
comes the challenge
of thousands of new
people relocating to
our cities as well as
increased commerce in
the form of trucks on
our highways.
travel times for drivers trying to reach the
central business districts of Houston and
Dallas.
In addition to easing our traffic congestion, another benefit of high-speed rail in
Texas is the impact it could have in cutting
harmful emissions
One of the reasons high-speed rail projects in the United States have been unsuccessful thus far is that they have relied
solely on government funding for completion. We are hopeful that Texas Central
Railway can succeed because its approach
to this project is completely unique. For
the first time, we are seeing a market-driven, privately funded approach to highspeed rail. We applaud the way in which
Texas Central brought a much-needed
project, an innovative approach and its
checkbook to Texas.
Countries across Europe and Asia have
enjoyed high-speed rail service for decades but the United States is not yet
14 SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE [ JULY 2014 ]
home to the kind of rail line proposed by
Texas Central. As Texans, we take great
pride in blazing a path for the rest of the
country to follow. This effort by Texas
Central is a privately funded attempt to
do just that. High-speed rail offers an
opportunity to improve the way Dallas
and Houston residents connect with one
another. We are rooting for the state of
Texas to be at the forefront of innovation
with this transformational, privately funded,
high-speed rail initiative.
High-speed rail will provide a travel alternative that will help alleviate traffic congestion on I-45, create thousands of quality
jobs, and may help Texas travelers reduce
their carbon footprint. We look forward
to the day when the residents of Dallas
and Houston can travel on a high-speed
rail between our two downtowns in less
than 90 minutes.
Serving since January 2, 2010, Annise D. Parker has
been elected as the Mayor of Houston three times.
She is Houston’s 61st Mayor and one of only two
women to hold the City’s highest elected office. In
2010, Time Magazine named Mayor Parker one the
100 most influential people in the world. Mayor Annise Parker is a Steering Committee Member of the
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and serves on
President Barack Obama’s State, Local, and Tribal
Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. She is also on the advisory board of Small
Business Today Magazine. For more information, go to
www.houstontx.gov/mayor/.
Mike Rawlings has been the Mayor of Dallas since the
2011 Dallas mayoral election. He is also the former
CEO of Pizza Hut, former chief executive of the Tracy-Locke ad agency, and former Managing Partner of
CIC Partners where he provided business counsel and
capital helping to grow small and mid-sized businesses
in Dallas and across the U.S.