{"id":417151,"date":"2026-08-26T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417151\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:18:09","slug":"austin-san-antonio-high-speed-rail-could-cost-13-5-billion-study-finds-transportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417151\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin-San Antonio High-Speed Rail Could Cost $13.5 Billion, Study Finds | Transportation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A high-speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio would cost about $13.5 billion to build, according to a recent feasibility study<\/a> commissioned by Travis County Commissioners Court.<\/p>\n

The study conducted by HNTB Corporation assessed the potential of a high-speed rail route between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Amtrak station in San Antonio along State Highway 130 and Interstate 10. The proposed route would run at about 125 miles per hour with a travel time of about an hour between the two cities.<\/p>\n

Travis County approved<\/a> $125,000 to fund the feasibility study in October 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposed 89-mile route presents challenges because of the many cross-street overpasses and an existing right-of-way that has minimal space to accommodate the rail route. These challenges contribute to the $13.5 billion price tag by requiring much of the route to be elevated.<\/p>\n

The high-speed rail would also cost $190 million to operate and maintain annually, according to the report.<\/p>\n

The feasibility study did not include ridership or fare estimates for the proposed high-speed rail line.<\/p>\n

Travis County Judge Andy Brown believes<\/a> passenger rail is important given the region\u2019s population growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we’ve got about 5 million people here in the\u2026Travis County-Bexar County mega region. We’re supposed to have about 8 million by 2050,\u201d Brown said in an interview with KUT News. \u201cAnd just having one highway, no matter how great it is, in between those two areas isn’t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle Meaux, the long-range planning manager for Travis County, told the commissioners court when the study was approved that it was meant to complement a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) study, also by HNTB, that focused on the Interstate 35 corridor.<\/p>\n

That study<\/a>, released in June, examined increasing passenger rail service along existing railroad tracks and identified the infrastructure that would be needed, capital and operating cost estimates, and potential ridership.<\/p>\n

The trains would run at just under 80 miles per hour, with the trip taking about two hours.<\/p>\n

Capital cost estimates for the increased passenger rail would range from $800 million to $1.89 billion, depending on the number of trips per day and station locations. The study included operational and maintenance costs for only the eight-trip-per-day scenario starting in 2045. Those costs would be about $60 million annually.<\/p>\n

With increased passenger service, the TxDOT study proposed a range of 451 to 2,227 passengers between San Antonio and Austin daily.<\/p>\n

Union Pacific, which uses the existing railroad tracks for freight trains, responded to the TxDOT study.<\/p>\n

“Past efforts have found the existing freight corridor is not sufficient to accommodate both freight and passenger demand,” Robynn Tysver told KUT News<\/a> on behalf of Union Pacific. “We believe that is still the case today, and we are focused on serving our customers and taking trucks off the state’s congested highways.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A high-speed rail line between Austin and San Antonio would cost about $13.5 billion to build, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1613,13474,4130,132,8914,19470,67145,145350,145349,7946,2417,145351,82,84,83,27,394,271,35963],"class_list":["post-417151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-airport","tag-amtrak","tag-andy-brown","tag-austin","tag-austin-bergstrom","tag-commissioners-court","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-highway-130","tag-hntb-corporation","tag-interstate-10","tag-interstate-35","tag-michelle-meaux","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-texas","tag-travis-county","tag-txdot","tag-union-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}