South Central High Speed Rail Corridor Update

by Paul Mangelsdorf
President
PaulM@TexasRailAdvocates.org

Forty-five days remain for the U.S. Congress to formulate its fiscal budget for 2004 (15 days in July and 30 in September, plus the August recess). Texas Rail Advocates remains committed to a $1-million budget earmark to fund a study of the South Central HIgh Speed Rail Corridor. The study will be the first step in revealing the Corridor's fantastic potential for moving freight and passengers faster and more efficiently than our existing or planned air and highway infrastructures can. The study also will identify precisely which rail infrastructure improvements are needed to bring this higher performance and efficiency about--additional track capacity, high-tech signaling, grade-crossing elimination and route re-alignments.

We urge you to address letters to Texas Senators Hutchison and Cornyn and Oklahoma Senator Nickles asking them to request an earmark of one million dollars in the 2004 budget for this study. Texas Congressman Michael Burgess (Transportation Committee) and your own representative can also be contacted with this same request. Addresses and phone numbers for these representatives may be obtained from the following web pages:

House of Representatives (www.house.gov)

www.house.gov/burgess/

U.S. Senate (www.senate.gov)

http://cornyn.senate.gov/

http://hutchison.senate.gov/

http://nickles.senate.gov/

We suggest that to expedite delivery of your letter, that it be faxed to Washington and mailed to State (local) office. It would be helpful to contact your own representative with the same correspondence.