Temple Mayor Bill Jones III has long been an advocate of a high-speed rail plan known as the Texas T-bone.
He believes that plan - along with a version of the Trans-Texas Corridor and completion of Interstate 35 expansion - are important components in the future of transportation in Temple.
The Texas T-bone is being promoted by the Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corp., a non-profit dedicated to bringing high-speed rail travel to the state by 2020.
The plan includes a high speed rail system linking Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio, to create a hub of transportation of planes and light trains going to and from airports in the larger cities, said Jones, who is part of the organization promoting the T-bone.
Proponents want a route to include a leg through the Temple area to Fort Hood and through College Station to the Houston Continental Airport, creating the geographic “T.”
“I like to tell people that the ‘T’ in T-bone stands for Temple,” Jones said.
“The high speed rail project is still proceeding,” he said.
Jones said support for the project in Texas has attracted more widespread attention.
“Passenger rail traffic has received quite a bit of planning and began picking up when fuel prices began to rise,” he said.
“There is a lot of discussion on the federal level on high speed rail corridors throughout the nation,” Jones said. “And Texas has got one of the major routes, particularly in a state with a burgeoning population that we see here.”
City Manager David Blackburn said solutions to transportation issues are not singular, and high-speed rail provides an intermodal option.
“There is not one course of action that will relieve all transportation issues, so we’re going to need to explore all avenues such as high speed rail, different ways to move freight and commercial and passenger traffic,” he said.
Blackburn commended the High Speed Rail Corp.’s “significant amount of work” in planning a multi-modal approach, to integrate ports, highways, rail and air transportation.
“It is very visionary and very needed,” he added.
North-south corridors
Blackburn said it would be hard to predict what the legislature will do about the former Trans Texas Corridor project, which has been revamped by TxDOT and now has the moniker, Innovative Connectivity in Texas.
Jones predicted a roadway in the preferred TTC study area will take shape in the future.
“What I do predict,” Jones said, “is that there will be a parallel route to I-35 going through Central Texas, though maybe not as proposed … we will need to have that capacity in this area and in the state of Texas.”Local projects
Jones said he hopes the legislature will approve $5 billion in funding through bonds it approved for highway projects, which he said could be used to help complete widening of I-35 in Temple.
“It’s a high priority to get those bonds funded and release those transportation dollars to the system which, hopefully, will accelerate Interstate 35 work through the city of Temple,” he said.
He said that segment of the I-35 project was not due to let for bids until 2014 or 2015, but he hopes that with additional funding the project could be moved up to 2012 or 2013.
On the local level, Blackburn said the city will keep busy in the coming years.
“(The city council) awarded contracts this past year for extension of our rail park to serve current and future tenants to include Gulf States Toyota,” he said. “We are also improving roads and highways in and around the area of the rail park.”
The rail park, in Temple’s Reinvestment Zone No. 1, is a project designed to attract industry to the city.
Blackburn said local mass transit is also in the city’s future in the form of the HOP.
“The city has been supportive of the HOP for several years and we anticipate we will do so in future budgets,” Blackburn said.
He said mass transit services are an important part of the overall transit system and important to the city’s residents.
“With our health care industry we have here, the veterans population with the VA hospital (Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center), our workforce - all of our demographics highlight our need for a good mass transit system,” Blackburn said. “The HOP has been a good partner for us.”
