As Texas flirts with high-speed rail, can Japan’s bullet train show the way?

NAGOYA, Japan – Right on schedule, the sleek white train with a blue streak and a bullet-shaped head pierced the late-morning mist and majestically cruised into the station.

Gov. Greg Abbott and a delegation of Texas economic development leaders boarded car 11, and those in the know hurried to grab seats along the left side for an unobstructed view of Mount Fuji midway through the 90-minute trip to Tokyo.

The Texans got a firsthand look at the Shinkansen, as the Japanese bullet trains are known, as part of a July economic-development trip to East Asia.

White leather seats, crafted by Toyota, sat two to a row and were wider than what’s available on American trains and planes. Extra room lets passengers recline without bothering the person behind them. Large windows displayed the view and overhead bins were larger than those on planes. The train was immaculate.

The 212-mile nonstop ride took 90 minutes at a top speed of 185 mph, and the ride was ultra-smooth. Some passengers took naps, others scrolled phones or read. Food was not served in Abbott’s car, though it’s available on most bullet train trips. The ride was quiet, with the only noise being passenger chatter and the hum of the wind as the speed increased.

The train ride was not part of the business group’s fact-finding mission. It offered a convenient travel option — one Abbott has taken on several trips to Japan.

Even so, it was a point of interest for several Texans interested in seeing how the technology — in use for 60 years in Japan — affects travel and economic development.

Texas has been toying with the bullet train concept for decades, but efforts have been derailed by high costs, tepid support from elected leaders and organized opposition from landowners along proposed routes. Business leaders haven’t given up on dreaming about high-speed rail’s potential for Texas, the destination for immigrants and businesses from across the world, including East Asia.

“The high-speed rail, the Shinkansen, just unlocks so much potential to connect different cities here in Japan because of the ease of moving around,” said Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, an economic-development professional from San Antonio who joined the Texas delegation in Japan. “It’s an opportunity that we have in the state of Texas to more freely move goods and people around our great state.”

“Just think about Central Texas, San Antonio and Austin,” said Saucedo-Hererra, who is also president and CEO of greater: SATX, an economic partnership in the San Antonio area. “If we could find a way to make that 60-minute drive time more convenient, you just unlock so much economic potential. You can connect all the way up through Dallas and Oklahoma and down south into Monterrey, Mexico.”

Supporters say the bullet train perfected in Japan would be a cool concept for Texas, an enormous state with several urban centers that could be linked via high-speed rail to make travel more convenient — and fun.

But what works in Japan has been elusive in most of America — including Texas, where the governor has voiced concerns about the feasibility of high-speed rail in his state.

One of the most ballyhooed proposals, a high-speed train route linking Dallas to Houston, is nowhere near reality despite decades of discussion. Groundbreaking for the project was originally supposed to occur in 2021, but opposition from landowners, resignations inside the company developing the project and other issues have stalled the effort.

Other high-speed rail projects, including a route connecting Dallas and Fort Worth, are also in the works.

Texas Central Partners is developing the Dallas to Houston project in partnership with Japan Central Railways, which owns and operates the Shinkansen bullet train. And now Amtrak is on board with Texas Central to put the Dallas-Houston project in motion.

During an interview in Tokyo after his bullet train ride, Abbott told The Dallas Morning News that there could be more high-speed rail slowdowns in Texas.

He said he wouldn’t support a project that required state funding. That shouldn’t be a problem, since the proposal is now a federal project.

Abbott also opposes using eminent domain, which allows governments to obtain private land for public use, along a rail route.

“This is an issue, a project, between the federal government and private investors,” Abbott said in Tokyo. “All I’ve said from day one about this project is that what’s important to me is that they addressed the concerns of all the property owners, and that no Texas taxpayer will ever pay a penny for it.”

Though Abbott has a bully pulpit as governor, Texas high-speed rail project proposals are under federal authority, since Amtrak is a quasi-public corporation that receives state and federal subsidies, with the U.S. transportation secretary sitting on its board of directors.

The Dallas-Houston project has been stalled since 2016, but earlier this month it scored a $63.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration. That’s a drop in the bucket. It will take billions of dollars to get the project in motion.

U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, who represents areas in East Texas that developers want for the Dallas-Houston project, said he supports the ranchers and farmers who don’t want to sell their land or be subject to eminent domain.

“Sixty-four million dollars of taxpayer money should not be wasted on a high-speed rail project that not only has a negative impact on rural Texas but on all of the United States,” Ellzey told The News. “In a time of a global food shortage, we cannot allow our farmland to be destroyed and taxpayer dollars squandered for an unsustainable and unnecessary project like this.”

Ellzey said he would oppose federal attempts at eminent domain.

“Land cannot be taken, family farms destroyed, and thousands of lives disrupted for a private company’s boondoggle,” he said. “I will never give in when it comes to opposing private interests using eminent domain and taxpayer dollars.”

Andy Byford, vice president in charge of high-speed rail for Amtrak, said in April he understood the concerns of property owners.

“I don’t believe you can please everyone,” he told KXAS-TV (NBC5). “I don’t think the interstates would have been built if you tried to please absolutely everyone. I think sometimes what you’re aiming to do is at least hear people out, hear their point of view.”

If Texas does not want high-speed rail, Byford said, other parts of the country do.

Earlier this year in a joint interview with The News and KXAS (NBC 5), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he was excited about the prospects of a Dallas-Houston high-speed rail system.

“There is enormous potential in this vision,” Buttigieg said. “Just the way that the population is laid out in this part of Texas, where you have two major population centers that are a long drive or a very short flight away from each other, that’s an excellent candidate for high-speed rail.”

There are multibillion-dollar high-speed rail projects underway in California, including a project that in its first phase will connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. Officials hope it will be ready for the 2028 Olympics. Construction has begun on a Las Vegas to Los Angeles high-speed rail project with a goal of being finished by 2028.

Buttigieg said the Texas effort needs a “more specific design and vision, but everything I’ve seen makes me very excited about this.”

“The first time anybody somewhere in America sees true high-speed rail, there’s going to be no going back, and people are going to want it all around the country,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, looking all around the country, one of the most interesting and promising projects to come next is that Texas Central vision.”

Buttigieg added that any high-speed rail project had to “do right by the landowners who could be impacted.”

“It’s up to the project sponsor to do that,” he said.

Saucedo-Herrera hopes it works out.

“We love our land in the state of Texas, but I do believe that we need to think big,” she said. “Our state is so large that it makes sense.”

“It’s fast, comfortable and convenient,” she said. “It’s what we need.”

The proposed train would shuttle passengers between Dallas and Houston in about 90 minutes, compared with the 3½-hour car trip along Interstate 45.

A seven-story elevated station near Cadiz and Austin streets in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood has already received federal clearance. Regional planners at the North Central Texas Council of Governments hope to continue the rail line west to Fort Worth with a stop in Arlington.

The corridor between Fort Worth and Dallas began the environmental review phase in March despite skepticism about the project from Dallas City Council members. Some fear an at-grade or elevated train route could jeopardize the new Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, though planners are doubtful there is a realistic path forward for an underground route.

Hunt Realty Investments, one of Dallas’ biggest property owners, says the elevated rail route would compromise their planned $5 billion development project. The route would slice through the southwest corner of downtown Dallas where Hunt Realty Investments owns property that includes the old Reunion arena, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Reunion Tower.

As Texas considers high-speed rail, Japan’s bullet train impressed the Texas elected and business leaders who visited the country in July — including the governor.

After arriving in Tokyo, Abbott told local reporters he enjoyed the ride.

“This is my third visit to Japan and we’ve taken the train every time we’ve been here,” Abbott said. “It’s very convenient, very fast and very efficient and very effective at getting from one place in Japan to another.”