Why not encourage the Texas Department of Transportation to design the upper deck of Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin with suspended monorails for high speed transit?
We already have the right of way.
My guess is that the engineering would require virtually no upgrades as the weight of the monorail cars and passengers on any particular span probably would be less than one 18-wheeler.
With a two-rail system, there would be no interference between north and southbound trams, and they could be dispatched only as needed, avoiding empty trains.
I am all for passenger rail on Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin.
In my military career, I lived in several different areas of the country and was so impressed with the options available on the East Coast, such as subways, light rail and commuter trains. I was a frequent user of those services.
The answer is not to keep building more and more lanes on our interstates. We need multimodal solutions that include not only roads but also rail, buses, subways and airplanes.
I find it interesting, however, that Travis County is commissioning a study to build a rail line from downtown San Antonio to its airport. It sounds very self-serving to me.
San Antonio has an airport, and it’s expanding. We need to use it.
Remember, airlines use data about which airports people fly out of. The more San Antonio residents use Austin’s airport, the more it will grow at the expense of our own.
As an aging father and grandfather, I have experienced more than a few examples of youngsters threatening to do something extreme to get their way.
As they grow older, such behavior no longer occurs.
Now I have witnessed our president acting in a manner that brought such childish tantrums to mind when he canceled what was to be a bipartisan housing bill signing.
Instead he chose to allow the bill to become law without his signature because Congress will not pass his restrictive voting bill.